Three

  Fireside story

  The Ark 2348 BC

  1556 AAC

  Yahuah in his timeless wisdom chose your grandfather Noach to carry the good seed into the new world. Every day for one hundred and twenty years the righteous Noach and his grandfather Methuselach travelled the land to the great cities of the Old World to warn the people of the coming deluge; to stop their worship of wooden, stone and brass idols and false demon gods; to stop them passing their firstborn through the fire; to repent and turn to The Ancient of Days, the Living God, Yahuah.

  They laughed at the stories of a coming flood.

  “Water coming from the heavens? Pah! Ridiculous! Who ever saw such a thing?” You see in those days it had never rained, every morning just before dawn a fine mist would rise from the earth feeding the plants and trees. The temperature was always pleasant and mild.

  The people were comfortable in the wondrous cities that had been left behind by the Watchers, the evil Watchers that is, the fallen angels, the ones that appeared on Mount Chermon in the days of Jared. Two hundred of them, who chose to leave behind their divine mission, which was to care for and teach humankind; instead deciding to take and breed with the most beautiful women they could find, and rule the earth with their offspring.

  These were the days of semi-divine heroes and the mighty warriors of renown, the Naphaliym giants , the Nephiliym demigods, the beauteous Elioud, and the wicked little people; though some were also monsters, one-eyed masses of flesh and muscle, with an insatiable appetite for human blood, grotesque beasts with human faces or lustful chimeras, half men, half goat, half woman, half sea creature .

  The Ancient One was appalled and angry that these fallen Angels, who had walked the temples and gardens of the seven Heavens should chose the temporary glory of earthly dominion, and ruthlessly corrupt humanity, leading them into all kinds of depravity.

  The Nephilim, the offspring of the gods – for in those days the people believed that these fallen angels were gods, for they had such powers, tools and weapons that were otherworldly, forbidden knowledge: flying ships some that the people of the East called vimanas, and floating cities, the pushpakas. The Wisdom of the Fallen included such gifts, to the humans that followed them that is, as vajras, tridents that had the power of a thousand blades and could ignite a storm …

  I notice Noach has given me a warning look. Sometimes when I start to tell a story I can slip into glorifying what should not be glorified.

  But there was of course a cost to accepting knowledge that did not come from the living El. The thing that offended The Ancient One the most, apart from these created spiritual beings pretending to be elohiym, was the tampering of His creative code; the mixing of different kinds to create new abominations that did not carry the code of Yahuah’s grace and salvation, whose blood was contaminated, without nephesh; without a living soul. You must understand that these blended beings had no Yah prescribed soul and expressed the deceitful and violent character of their fathers, “Like produces like”, so they say.

  Yahuah decreed that these infernal offspring, the Children of Fornication should not live past five hundred years; and as punishment for their unforgivable transgressions, the Watchers who bound themselves by mutual imprecations, knowing they were committing a grievous crime, would then have to watch their beloved children destroy each other in brutal bloodbaths, hundreds of years of violent civil wars ensued. And finally, the Watchers would be banished and chained in a dark prison under the earth, the abyss, for seventy generations. The archangels Miyka’el and Gavriy’el trembled at the severity of Yah’s wrath and punishment. Our ancestor, the first scribe Chanoch even penned a letter to deliver to the Ancient of Days to plead their cause, but to no avail.

  After the Watchers had been banished to their eternal prison until the Time of Judgement, the people still carried on practicing the infernal knowledge taught to them by the Watchers. They sinned against the beasts and birds and all that moves on the earth. All flesh was corrupted and there was much bloodshed, evil and vanity continually. But Yah promised that all those men addicted to lust, and tyranny would perish in a coming deluge.

  Now our good and righteous Noach, had all this time determined that since Gods judgement would be coming upon the earth, he would refrain from taking a wife, or bring children into such a godforsaken world; a world, which had already begun to experience strange perturbations, violent shakings like the labour of a woman in childbirth. He journeyed to the very ends of the earth where his grandfather Chanoch dwelt in the boundary land between the firmament and the heavens.

  “Hear me; hear me; hear me.” He cried aloud with a bitter voice.

  Suddenly the earth trembled and shook, the wind began to howl, birds screeched, and the pure white bears of that land roared and roared. Noach was seized with a great anxiety and fell on his face. His grandfather Chanoch appeared before him and seized his hand as if to comfort him and spoke as if he already knew Noach’s mind,

  “Go in peace, for I have asked Yahuah Tseva’oth respecting these events shaking the earth. He has decreed that on account of their constant impiety, the sorceries that they have sought out, every secret and oppressive power they have learned from the Satans that those who dwell now on the earth will be utterly destroyed. Yahuah Tseva’oth knows that you are pure and good from the reproach of secrets. He the Holy One will establish your name in the midst of the qodeshiym, those who are set apart, and will guard you from those who dwell upon the earth. He will establish your seed in righteousness, and from your seed will spring holy men and kings without number, forever.”

  Then Chanoch showed to Noach a vision of the Angels of Punishment who were to open all the mighty waters under the earth and the floodgates in the crystalline firmament that held back the waters above, and that these would bring about the great deluge. Noach left the presence of Chanoch and after some time El Elyon, the Great and Holy One spoke through Arsayalalyur, the mighty angelic messenger, sent to this son of Lemech from the line of Seth, instructing him to wed. To wed a certain woman, who for some time had been living in the Valley of Sanctuary with the great patriarchs, initially to protect her from the attentions of the enamoured Shemiy’aza, ring leader of the fallen Watchers , for her name means “loveliness” and in her youth she was very lovely, but that is another story for another time .

  I smile and wink in mock modesty and everyone smiles, except Noach, who gives me another warning look. I have explained to him before, many times, that sometimes a story has its own will, I open my mouth and the story unfolds.

  Now Yahuah said to Noach,

  “Take to you a woman and beget children, for I have seen you righteous before me in this generation.”

  And when Noach was four hundred and ninety-eight years old, in the twenty fifth jubilee he chose Na’amah, daughter of Lemech from the line of Qeyin and his wife Tsillah, who then was five hundred and eighty years old. Within four years Na’amah bore three sons: Shem, Yapheth and Cham who were taught by Noach and Methuselach in the ways of Yahuah. Now Arsayalayur, sometimes known as Uriel, commanded Noach to conceal his family in the Valley of Sanctuary with Methuselach. In those days all the men who had walked in the ways of Yahuah had died, except for Noach’s family of course; they died that they should not witness the evil that Yah would be bringing upon the earth. In Noach’s five hundred- and ninety-fifth-year Yah’s messenger Uriel came again to give the Word of ELohiym,

  “Noach, behold your lot has ascended to me, a lot void of crime, a lot beloved and upright. The angels will help you construct the ark in the sanctuary of this valley. I will put my hand upon it and guard it. The seed of life shall arise from it, and a change shall take place that the dry land shall not be left empty. I will establish your seed forever and ever, and the seed of those who dwell with you on the surface of the earth. It shall be blessed and multiplied in the presence of the earth, in the name of Yahuah.”

  Uriel and other angels taught them how to construct the ark; the holding pens for all the animals that would be coming to them at the appointed time; how to line the walls with pitch to keep out the water and how preserve food and store grains so that they would not spoil. Noach was entrusted with the signs and cephyrs of Chanoch, the parables that had been given to him from Chanoch’s visions, and other holy items that spoke of the wonders of the creation and the coming Plant of Righteousness, Ha’Mashiach. So, in his five hundred and ninety fifth year Noach commenced to make the ark, and he and his sons built the ark in five years. In the year that Noach turned six hundred, Methuselach came to him and said,

  “I am nine hundred and sixty years old. The time has come for me to join the ancestors in Sheol, but before I do Yahuah has commanded that you take wives for your sons from amongst the daughters of my son Elyaqiym. They have different mothers, for like your wife’s father Lemech, who truly did not go with all his heart in the ways of his father, my son also went against the ways of Yahuah in wedding and bedding several women.”

  Now at this time Noach’s sons were respectively: Shem ninety-five, Yapheth ninety- four and Cham ninety-two. They had never known a woman but been under the tutelage of the great patriarchs, absorbed in the teachings, the torah of Yahuah. They learnt The Seven Sacred Sciences as taught to Seth and Qeyin by Adam but particularly the language of astronomy the course of the planets and the stars which assisted their practical skills of farming, the seasons and the phases of the moon, the practice of Shabbat, the counting of Shemitah and Jubilees. They also learnt how to gather and preserve the healing herbs and medicines, categorizing edible plants and those foods that were clean and unclean. As coming founders and priests in the new world, they had many skills to learn. And of course, they were building the ark under the strict guidelines and measurements of the angelic beings that assisted them. The time had come for them to take wives.

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  “These are the names of the women that Eloyhiym has chosen to carry forward the seed of humanity,” said Methuselach,

  “Adatan’eses, daughter of Betenos who is the oldest at twenty. Sedeqetelevav is eighteen and was born to Baraka; and Na’elatama’uk whose mother is No’am, is just fifteen. That is all I can tell you. Elyaqiym assures me that they are comely, sturdy girls who have been sheltered from the ways of this wicked world. We must organise a wedding within the week and then after I have witnessed this happy event I will go and join the ancestors in Sheol.”

  And so it was. The sons of Noach were joined to the daughters of Elyaqiym. When each man raised the veil of the woman he was to take as his bride, what a delight it was to witness how Yahuah had matched each man with his perfect companion, how each man gasped with delight at the beauty of his woman. We have seen how like attracts like, how even since Babel, Yah in his divine creativity has created so much beauty and sent our children across the earth to fill it with their seed, their new languages...

  I trail off distracted at the thought of how each people group that formed after the fall of the Great Ziggurat of Babel had familial physical traits: skin colour, hair, noses, cheekbones. It is Adatane who brings me to the present with a delicate cough.

  Ah yes Adatane with the pale skin that glowed in the moonlight, her rich red hair, and eyes so blue they sparkled like the sky on a spring day; her sweet, gentle nature so perfect for my studious, golden Japheth. Sedeqetele whose delicate stature, cheekbones that sliced the air, graceful hands and almond eyes belied her strength and tenacity, a helpmeet whose wisdom made her a fit companion for my son Shem. Let us remember too our son Cham and his woman Na’elatama’. Though they are not here with us tonight, I happily recall Cham’s shock when he saw that his bride had shiny obsidian skin like him, her hair like his plaited across her skull and fanning out behind her head like a peacock’s tail. She was so young, but so plucky and courageous, a perfect foil for Cham’s boundless energy.

  I fall silent for a moment distracted by that happy memory or is it because I am lying to myself about some details, and we are all complicit in the lie. I catch Adatane’s eye, and she smiles sadly with me. Then as though she had never been asleep, a little voice pipes up,

  When will you get to the bit about the animals Sivata?

  Little Emzara, though her eyes are still closed, is listening intently. Everyone laughs.

  All in good time, I say. Very soon.

  After the wedding there was a funeral, the funeral of the great Methuselach, the last of the great men of old, whose name was a living prophecy meaning, “When he dies judgement comes.” We celebrated for a night, and then we mourned for seven days, as is the custom. At the onset of the mourning period, Noach was instructed by Yahuah that the time had come:

  “Go you with your household into the ark, behold I will gather to you all the animals of the earth, the beasts of the field and fowls of the air. They shall come and surround the ark. You shall seat yourself by the doors of the ark and all the creatures shall assemble and place themselves before you. Those animals that come and crouch before you are the ones to come aboard. Deliver them into the hands of your sons who shall bring them into the ark where they will go to their rightful chambers.”

  That very day it was so. Great multitudes of creatures, great and small congregated around the shelf of land where the ark rested. Birds of all shapes, colours and sizes gathered in the trees alongside chattering monkeys. Lions rested next to zebras, and families with pups and whelps, huge elephants and tiny mice. All the kinds of creatures you can imagine or have heard about gathered quietly around the ark and waited. Noach seated himself by the door of the arc at the top of a ramp. He sat in silence as he was in mourning for Methuselach. He followed the word of Yahuah, all flesh that crouched before him he brought into the ark, where the three brothers, also in silence guided them to their stalls, though they seemed to know their place by divine instinct. There was a solemn air about the proceedings: the animals were quite subdued, no fighting, no panicking, no stalling, as though they too were respecting the passing of the great Methuselach. It seemed that the fully grown creatures, the parents, brought their young, delivered them to the safety of the ark, gave gentle gestures of farewell, a final caress and turned away in resignation.

  At this point it is Noach that interjects,

  Remember the lioness and her whelps?

  Ah yes, I do remember, she perhaps was hoping to find passage, to be the exception. Who knows what a lion thinks? But it was as if all the creatures knew what was coming. The very earth was groaning in anticipation, the air thick and crackling with tension. For the lioness and her whelps, all three crouched before Noach and then the two whelps, male and female, rose up against their mother and smote her until she fled back to the place of the lions, bowing her head in shame.

  And so, it went on for seven days, until two of every kind of living creature came into the ark, and from the clean creatures, animal and fowl, Noach brought in seven couples as Elohiym had commanded him to. There was a constant stream of animals, some strange creatures we had never seen before, insects and birds that flew in overtaking the slow-moving tortoise ; those that had speed seemed to quickly move to their stall, pen or perch. It was a sight to behold.

  I did not mention the abominations, the animal creations of the Watchers and the Nephilim, that also gathered at the perimeter of the ark, standing apart from Yah’s creations. Some had a certain beauty like the massive, war-like unicorns with their deadly horns, and the majestic griffins. Others made up a motley crew of ungainly chimeras, bird-like or serpentine, their bright plumage or scales that were too ostentatious, their screeches and cackles too dissonant and jarring. Yet despite their menacing pacing and baleful glares they did not approach the ark. Some even howled and keened as though crying out to God that they were not at fault for their hybrid monstrosities.

  Emzara pipes up again.

  But how could they all fit in the boat?

  Ah now my child, understand that though this vessel was designed to float and was stable beyond our comprehension and fears; it was no ship, it had no sails or navigation devices, Elohiym was our captain. And it was huge, four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, there were three floors that altogether measured forty-five feet tall: the bottom floor collected all the waste material and was home to worms, beetles and other creepy crawlies that broke down the waste to compost, which we used in our very first gardens: the second floor housed all the animals, each had a space specially designed to meet their needs, for we knew we would be in the ark for a very long time, judging by the food we had stored on the instructions of the angels; the top floor was for the family to live in and was light and airy on account of the hatched windows that ran around the whole length underneath the roof and through which ,when the rain stopped we could see the sky and feel the sun on our faces. The top floor was so spacious we could’ve had many more families there with us …

  I trail off at the thought, which haunted all of us who had experienced life on the ark. The ark was designed to carry those of our extended family who could’ve repented of their behaviour over the one-hundred-and-twenty-year period of grace, but they never did, not one, not until it was too late and past the time that Yah had appointed. I sighed deeply.

  The ark was very comfortable and allowed us all privacy, room to walk, or sprint even…

  I recalled Cham exercising, pulling himself up on rafters to keep his strength, and the nights we played music.

  Some nights we danced and sang, but I digress. In those seven days before we boarded the ark the mist rose as usual every morning before daybreak, the sun shone, and the breezes blew. All the animals outside the ark remained there, as if suspended in time, waiting.

  But Sivata. A little voice pipes up again,

  Did the animals not fight or try to eat each other?

  In the old world the animals did not fear man, nor did they eat meat, as indeed neither did we. Lions ate straw and dogs liked fruit. All the animals were curious and loving. Some men hunted in the old world, but the meat was used in sacrifice and the skins to clothe, every piece of flesh was used and the life of the animal respected. Where was I? Ah yes. And then the terror began. Noach pulled in the ramp to the second floor as the last creature boarded the ark, at Yahuah’s command, and then He, Elohiym, shut the doors of the ark. The ark that remained perfectly still despite the noise and seismic perturbation that ricocheted around us. The whole earth began to shake, the very foundations of the world raged, jolting violently, uprooting trees, causing landslides and rock falls. The sun darkened under thick, black clouds, the windows of heaven had been opened and the first rains since the beginning of creation began to fall, gathering momentum, from a pattering of raindrops to sheets of water that slashed across the landscape. Lightening flashed and thunder roared without ceasing. All the fountains in the depths of the earth were broken up, great pillars of water rose up into the air, taller than any city watchtower, taller than the Watchers monoliths and ziggurats, taller than their giant lizards and dragons. You could see the waterspouts for miles around. Nobody had ever seen such things before.

  For forty days and nights with the windows eventually all shuttered against the onslaught, Noach and his family, we gathered in the dining hall and held each other as the terrifying sounds outside reached a crescendo. We could not move or speak. We could only wait. We could barely eat or bathe or sleep. Though we must have slept, fitfully, waking to the nightmare that never seemed to end. We could only wait and pray, until eventually an awful silence settled around us and the ark began to rock and move like a ship on the high seas. And the silence was like? Nothing. The silence was a thick, black blanket of dread.

  Then Yahuah opened the shutters of the ark and climbing up a ladder you could come to the small upper deck under the sloping roof. On the forty-first night we stumbled outside into a half-moon lit night, stunned, shaking, exhausted and hungry. Oh, how comforting to see the stars, all in their place, just as always, and yet closer, as though you could reach out and touch them. The light of the stars and the silver moon reflected shimmering on the black waters that stretched in every direction. No land, no mountain peaks, no clouds, just an endless bejewelled orb of blackness that surrounded the ark like a majestic robe. We all stood silent in awe.

  At that moment a great whale breached on the surface of the water, a pod of dolphins appeared leaping and playing, a swarm of silver fish shimmered just below the surface so that we could delineate the line between sea and sky. We gasped as one, all profoundly grateful to see the sea creatures and to be alive. Then several flying fish: carp, mahi-mahi and cod, leapt across the deck at such great speeds that some flew right over our heads. Those that landed, some as big as three feet, were flipping and flopping in a great silvery mass. We feasted for the first time on the flesh of fish that night, as Yahuah instructed Noach, who taught his sons on how to gut, clean and salt the fish.

  Praise Yah.