Same Story (part 18)

Dear diary,

Now, just as the first created man was given the name “Man”, so also this ur-generation that built the Dark Tower in the city of Shinar was known simply as “Generation Ur”, or just plain “Ur”. Why the citizens of Shinar didn’t refer to themselves as “Shinars” or “Shinarians” is beyond me. Or, on second thought, it’s probably because they themselves didn’t officially keep the name Shinar after they settled the land — they knew that the place on the map had been given that designation, for that’s how their founder Magor-missabib was able to summon them to congregate there; but Shinar, to them, was only the name of the plain where they chose to set up shop — they always referred to their city that resulted as Ur, in honor of the people and their pioneer status in global governing, since both the builders and what they built were, in the class of Unified Planetary Populaces (and in accordance with the word’s definition), the pre-original instance. It is for similar reasons that John the Dipper is known as the Ur-Christ.

Now Haras the sibling of Sarah gave head-birth to Lot, who was the first of the Lizard People. (For an explanation of head-birth, see the passage above about Arphaxad.) Here’s how it happened:

Haras was sitting beneath a streetlamp, near a pleasant bank beside a river, reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake; and, when he got to the part that says

I found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moon light hearing a harper who sung to the harp. & his theme was, The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind

Haras looked up from the text and began to tremble. Suddenly, blammo! — Lot the lizard-person sprang from his forehead. Then he was taken. (Not Lot — Lot remained on earth; only Haras was taken: the flaming horsemen swept him away in childbirth; and Haras loved the place in heaven where they relocated him, so he never came back down again to earth, to visit his kinfolk, which he could have done, if he had wanted to, by simply using the Dark Tower’s elevator.)

Alright, so, since Haras ain’t coming back, Lot inherits his father’s fortune, which includes majority stock in the Railroad Monopoly. Then Lot introduces his fine aunt Sarah to his business partner Abram, a prairie lawyer who goes to bat on behalf of Big Business, which means, in the present case, Union Planetary Tunnel-Runner, the corporation now under the ownership of Lot.

So that’s how Abram and Sarah met. And they became travelmates. (In the case of this particular pair, I use the term “travel-mates”, instead of the usual “play-mates”; this is because Abram frequently travels on behalf of his various clients, and he does not like to play.)

Now, to return the favor, Sarah introduces her nephew Lot to his sister Milcah. The reason Lot did not know his own sister yet is that Haras, before his abduction, had enjoyed an affair with his elder brother Mashpo, which resulted in the head-birth of a daughter, Milcah, whom, to preserve her beauty, they (her fathers) had packed in a crate and shelved in storage. This was possible because she was only a salt pillar with a green patina which represented freedom, not a living human being.

Additionally, since Lot’s father Haras got taken to heaven during the process of giving birth, Sarah received a handwritten letter from Haras which granted Sarah full power of attorney, NOT over his Railroad Monopoly, Union Planetary Tunnel-Runner Corporation (for that was bequeathed, fair & square, to his offspring Lot), but rather with regard to his personal affairs. So Sarah shows this letter to Abram, and asks his advice as a prairie lawyer; for, she explains, she’s quite interested in helping to tie up any loose ends in her now-absent brother’s relationship department. Thus Abram pays his travelmate’s nephew a visit and sez:

“Mr. Lot, you have inherited majority stock in your father’s company; now I trust that you will not object to your aunt Sarah serving as executor for what remains of his social life.”

And Lot acquiesces. Therefore Sarah, sleuthing out the loose ends of her lost brother’s love life, discovers the salt statue of Milcah stashed away in Kane-Rosebud Warehouse. Sarah unpacks the crate, and brings the figure to stand before Lot, and positions Milcah with care, so that her best side is shown forth; and Lot and Milcah fall in love and become playmates. Then, one day, Lot lays an egg — it hatches, and out steps Adam: the first all-male princess to be born within a shell, whose parents were a reptilian humanoid and a pillar of salt.

So Lot’s great fear, now that his first playmate has dissolved (for Milcah melted, after he bedded her in the aquarium) and he has taken his daughter Adam as his new playmate, is that Adam will prove as soluble as her mother.

Thus do Lot and Adam accompany Sarah and Abram upon many double-dates.

But Abram was sterile; that is to say: Abram shot blanks. Thus he and Sarah bore negative zero offspring, all thru their youth and middle years, and even far into their old age. Nosy people assumed that this was the couple’s choice and that they very understandably abhorred the company of children; but the truth is that they both loved children and would have been overjoyed to bring forth offspring; yet, as I just said, Abram was sterile: Abram shot blanks.

And recall that the entire population of earth, all the humans who lived there, were all part of the same vast city, which was located in Shinar and named Ur by its inhabitants. Now here’s a plot twist: Till this instant, nobody had ever left the city; for, in all the time since the Dark Tower was erected, everyone loved life in Ur so much that they never considered leaving. Most of the earthlings who took the elevator to the top floor, so as to stroll around the golden streets of Eternity, ended up staying there and never coming back. Mostly it was the heavenly deities who came down to visit; but even they, instead of proceeding into the suburbs, usually remained inside the tower, as that’s where the art was.

But Sarah and Abram her travelmate were adventurous, so they decided to try something new. They said, “Let us leave this city of Ur, which is perfect and lovely, to seek our fortune in the wild realms beyond the border of civilized society, in the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.” — And they asked Lot and Adam if they would like to accompany them; if so, they could make it a double-date. And Lot hissed approvingly; and Adam remained slightly smiling.