There are Rivers in the Sky

By the River Tigris, in olden times

Later, when the storm has passed, everyone will talk about the destruction it left behind, though no one, not even the king himself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop.

It is an early-summer afternoon in Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. A strange, sullen silence has settled on the city: the birds have not sung since the dawn; the butterflies and dragon-flies have gone into hiding; the frogs have abandoned their breeding grounds; the geese have fallen quiet, sensing danger. Even the sheep have been muted, urinating frequently, overcome by fear. The air smells different – a sharp, salty scent. All day, dark shadows have been amassing on the horizon, like an enemy army that has set up camp, gathering force. They look remarkably still and calm from a distance, but that is an optical illusion, a trick of the eye: the clouds are rolling steadily closer, propelled by a forceful wind, determined to drench the world and shape it anew. In this region where the summers are long and scorching, the rivers mercurial and unforgiving, and the memory of the last flood not yet washed away, water is both the harbinger of life and the messenger of death.

Nineveh is a place like no other: the world’s largest and wealthiest city. Built on a spacious plain on the eastern bank of the Tigris, it is so close to the river that at night babies are hushed to sleep not by a lullaby but by the sound of the waves lapping at the shoreline. This is the capital of a mighty empire, a citadel protected by solid towers, stately battlements, defensive moats, fortified bastions and colossal walls, each rising ninety feet or more. With a population of 175,000 souls, it is an urban gem at the junction of the prosperous highlands of the north and the fertile lowlands of Chaldea and Babylonia to the south. The year is sometime in the 640s BCE; and this ancient region, which is lush with perfumed gardens, bubbling fountains and irrigation canals, but which will be forgotten and dismissed by future generations as an arid desert and abject wasteland, is Mesopotamia.

One of the clouds advancing towards the city this afternoon is bigger and darker than the others – and more impatient. It scuds across the sky’s vast canopy towards its destination. Once there, it slows to a halt and floats suspended thousands of feet above a majestic building adorned with cedar columns, pillared porticos and monumental statues. This is the North Palace, where the king resides in all his might and glory. The mass of condensed vapour settles over the imperial residence, casting a shadow. For, unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles.

Dangling from the edge of the storm cloud is a single drop of rain – no bigger than a bean and lighter than a chickpea.