Enheduanna: The First Author - Wattys Winner 2021

32. Trial Of Love

We shared our vulnerabilities more readily than I shared my hymns, interlocking our hearts as much as our fingers. Dingira took root in me in a way I had never let another soul do, feeling that she was my shelter and I hers. And for me, that was enough. Having Dingira by my side was enough. But was it enough for her? Life had seen fit to make her leave too soon, leaving my heat broken beyond repair. What was to replace those roots of hers?

Hugging my arms around me, I lay down on the sand, crying harder than I ever had.

Had I ever expressed my feelings in a true way? Every negative emotion was buried before I could even express it, because I was taught that expressing your emotions unchecked made you impulsive and weak. Only in my hymns had I ever truly expressed my feelings as honest as most people wear them on their faces. And those hymns made me feel strong. Strong enough to criticise a king. Strong enough to stop a flood.

Wetting my broken lips with the thick saliva that had built up in my mouth, I found my voice.

"Lady of all divine powers,
Lady of the all-resplendent light,
Righteous Lady clothed in heavenly radiance.
Beloved Lady of An and Uraš,
Mistress of heaven with the holy diadem.
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her high priestess.
Powerful Mistress who has seized all seven divine powers, my lady, you are the guardian of the seven divine powers!"

My tears made me stutter. My mouth was dry and my body shook uncontrollably.

"You have seized the divine powers,
You hold it in your hand,
You have gathered up the divine powers,
You have clasped it to your breast!
Like a dragon, you have spewed venom on foreign lands that know you not!
When you roar like Iškur at the earth, nothing can withstand you!
Like a flood descending on alien lands,
O Powerful One of heaven and earth, will you teach me to be strong?"

I kept repeating the hymn until my eyes were too heavy to keep them open, and my mouth was so dry I couldn't make a sound.

Time no longer bothered me, nor did my bodies cry for nourishment.

It was cool and dark when a warm hand caressed my cheek. My blurry vision adjusted to the darkness of night as I searched for the source of the warmth.

"Dingira," I called out in the hopes of finding her amber eyes staring at me.

But the eyes weren't amber. They were as black as the night, reaching such depths that I felt lost within them. Lost but at the same time found. Large golden wings unfolded behind her, illuminating the dress that was whiter than a dove's wings. Her hair hang loosely over her shoulders, making me realize she wasn't wearing her crown.

"I came as an equal," she said, answering the question I didn't ask.

"I can never be equal to you, oh great Inanna. You have gathered up divine power. You make your enemies tremble at your sight, you smite down any who don't bring you respect."

Inanna smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes. "It is true that my weapons are those of war. But respect they earn me not."

My brows furrowed in confusion. "But you struck down the mountain Ebih for his disrespect."

"You saw it as it is, Enheduanna. I struck him down. That does not mean I earned his respect. I only earned his submission."

Her words confused me, and her expressions even more so. "You said that as long as I would write, time would be my servant. That death would not silence me. Look at me now. Am I not silent and on the verge of death? Have I displeased you, great goddess? Have I not written like you said?"

"You have. And you are still alive, are you not?"

I wheezed in desperation. "Is this living? I have lost my position in Ur, driven away from my temple like a swallow flying from the window. I have lost everything."

"Have you?" The divine goddess reached out, gracing my forehead with her finger. "You have not lost this thing. Or this."

Her hand glided down to my chest, resting upon my heart. "Lives will be built and broken a million times within the span of one mortal's life. They will build to things you will fail to achieve. Dreaming of that which you do not dare to achieve. Life is spent so much on that which you do not have, that the blessings you have go forgotten. Or even worse, unused."

"I don't understand. You just said that I have used by blessing, that I have written."

"You have," Inanna smiled faintly. "To tell that which you saw, that which you heard. And you have heard so much, Enheduanna. You have listened to kings and thieves alike, unearthed their stories with equal respect. But you forget that you have a voice as well. You have a story."

I hung my head in shame, drawing my knees up to my chest. "No one would want to hear that."

Inanna cupped my cheek, lifting my gaze until I was forced to look into the depth of her eyes and the warmth of her smile. "Not unless you tell it."

And in the blink of an eye, she was gone. Leaving me alone in the cave once again.

Alone with my thoughts.

I thought of Akkad, where I played in the garden under the watchful eye of my mother. Laughing along with my brothers. I thought of Kish, standing before the golden statue of Inanna and hearing my father bare the story that made him seem so much more vulnerable than the mighty king I had known. I thought of Ur and Lagash. Of Idal, Kituzda and Dingira.

I had been given more blessings than I felt worthy of. I still felt all the love, joy and happiness so strongly it made me tingle right down to my bones. I've known pain enough to fragment my soul into such tiny pieces, it almost made me forget all those blessings I had received throughout my lifetime. But as they were coming back, I could feel them form this state of balance.

I am who I am through the blessings and hardships I have experienced. I am moulded by the stories of my parents, my emotions running down the path of stories of all those I have encountered, like a winding river. And at the end, the river flooded into an endless sea of who I was. I was whole. I was emotions of joy, pain, elation and grief all mixed into one.

I was another story waiting to be told.