The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel Book 4)

by Josiah Bancroft

the true patron of old fools and street urchins was elasticity. To survive, one had to be flexible.

Never was a line untangled by heaves and tugs. An unwanted knot requires a flexible stratagem to undo. One must give a little here to make some progress there. So it is with most of life’s snarls.

sentimentality was never necessary and often calamitous.

A draft seemed to blow through the long-shut, unexplored chambers of his heart, pushing open doors, sweeping up the dust.

They boasted a small garden, a patch of lawn, and a winding path to the door without a lock. The homes were divided like a walnut into two hemispheres. On one side was a common area and a kitchen; on the other, a large bedroom with an adjoining bath.

But now that he was surrounded by people who esteemed him, he felt no less hollow, no less incomplete. And it occurred to him that the only approval he’d never courted, and certainly never won, was his own.

Anger that survives until morning is either righteous or insidious. Either way, it must be dealt with.

he had always believed that if he were sufficiently dependable in his service and flexible with his own values, one day his efforts would be rewarded.

To lead is to come last. A chef only eats when the dishes are done, and a captain goes down with the ship.

The large-jawed captain removed his magnifying spectacles, blinked bloodshot eyes, and said, “Good morning,” in a way that seemed to suggest it had been such until recently.

Adam was accustomed to being backed into a corner. For most, the corner, the dead end, the edge of the precipice were all illogical, thoughtless places that were devoid of deliberation or hope. But Adam had done some of his best thinking with his back to a wall.

It left her with one side of an argument that could never be answered and a grievance that could not be heard.

A soldier’s existence was like that of a bead on an abacus: a thing slapped back and forth on the same path for hours and years until it finally broke.

This flagrant hypocrisy, this evidentiary dissonance, was tyranny parading under the flags of freedom.

They were like the unwell man who delays a visit to the doctor, not because he believes his dawdling will cure him, but because denial is a desperate imitation of hope.

“It’s quite a steal, when you think about it. I would’ve died a hundred times for my kids. Just the once seems a bargain.”

Often, seller and buyer will not so much agree upon the final price, as submit to the fateful number as if it were the culmination of a love affair. In the end, neither party wishes to see the other ever again. Often nothing is exchanged and certainly little is learned.

Scaling the ladder, Senlin felt the weight of his dread settle upon his shoulders like a yoke. It seemed to pull at him, to drag him toward the exit. He could try to run. But, no—if this were to be his end, he would not go out gibbering and begging. He would confront his death as if it were an unruly class: with calm temper and resolute posture.

There was a made bed and a small desk, its cubbies stuffed with envelopes and papers. Centered in the room was a table without any chairs. A foot locker, a bedside nook, and a wardrobe finished out the room’s furnishing, all of which appeared to be bolted to the deck. Senlin was surprised to see books in a barred shelf inside Marat’s nightstand, and more volumes lining the desktop behind a glass door. Their spines were dark and waxy from the passage of time and many hands. A large book lay open on the table, its pages pristine and unmarred.

‘What is a poison to the simple may be a liquor to the wise.’

His hand? Perhaps, but a slice across the palm seemed a little ordinary; it evoked adolescent blood oaths and deals done between men who were suspicious of notaries. Hardly an impressive display, and the resulting wound would ruin his grip for weeks. The neck, then? An absurdity! To slice at his own throat was certainly theatrical but also very dangerous. A man who was killed by his own charade could hardly be considered an actor.

Home was a feeling engorged with memory, a sense of history enlarged by fondness and family and familiar things. Home was a ritual that harmonized with the melody of a day. It was a healer of all the humiliations and failures that must be borne in public but can only be mended in private. A home was the nest of the soul, a refuge more sacred than any chapel or mausoleum.

Byron hated tea. He hated its bitter taste and the tannic dryness it inspired in the mouth. He hated the smell of it, an aroma like soured wood pulp, and he hated the stains it left in his cups and on his tablecloths. Yet he drank it because he absolutely adored teatime. He loved the little sandwiches and their excessive variety, loved the sugar cubes and their precious tongs. He loved the jewels of jelly and the crowns of toast.

“You should try something different, then.” “Like what?” “Well, have you ever considered piloting an airship? It’s quite entertaining.”

The field glasses were silver, rimmed with nacre, and attached by a strap, a fact the amazon only discovered after the lady crashed into her side when Iren raised the binoculars to her eyes.

Iren made a wedge of her hands and peeled away the crowd with a swing of her arms. Ignoring the indignant complaints that followed, she stepped into the void, drew her hands in again, and repeated the breaststroke.

Then all at once, the wall of backs became a sea of rushing faces as the crowd turned and began to flee.

He wished more than anything that the world was one year younger and he a hundred years wiser.

pLot fAileD nU PlAn finN will sAbOtag furnAcE wile tunNelinG no cHance of rEPair sMoke and SMotHer uS Out I wIll be OUr EYes on briDgE on My maRk oVR weElhous horN sIgnl wOrd Is MArya wE sory lot Of martYrs

The best Senlin could hope for was a surreptitious response, some small sign that they had received his proposal and agreed to it. It seemed a flimsy wish. And if no confirmation came, he would have no choice but to trust that they would act when he seized Marat’s trumpet and shouted Marya’s name at the end of his life.

While not all were so forthcoming with their own past, each seemed eager to comment upon the history of their peers.

There it was, Finn Goll’s sign. The humbled lord of port had received, deciphered, and agreed to Senlin’s plan. The first letters of the titles made that clear, repeating the signal word he had proposed: Marya.

Stolen affection is a bitter investment, Edith. It is a cream that always sours.”

Of course, in hindsight, it’s easy to see a better course, a wiser choice. When I look back, I see a thousand small missteps that altogether brought me here. I try not to dwell on my mistakes because it doesn’t change them; it only changes me. I cannot live inside those awful moments, those naive blunders and prideful errors. It would drive me mad if I did.”

“We all forget we’re mortal now and then. We have to, to keep from going mad. But I never forget the people I love, and that keeps me from taking myself for granted. I don’t want to leave them too soon. I’m sure you don’t want to leave us either.”

When he laid the swaddled babe down and unwrapped it, the infant began to thrash its legs and arms as if it would run away. He knew for a fact that if it fell on the floor, he would have no choice but to walk down to the main hatch, open it, and see himself out, because that would be the gentlest death he could hope for.

Travelers who mistake inconvenience for catastrophe or confuse a detour for derailment only deplete their mettle. There is no need to embellish difficulty; hardship is quite content to embroider itself.

“The Sphinx asks too much of us. He asks much too much.”

“The Tower is full of dead ends and detours. Better to travel a little heavy than too light.”

A king surrounded by toadies may feel secure, but so does the goose of the feast feel well fed by the butcher. Fawning should be punished the same as treason— with swift, unflinching execution— for it strikes at the sovereign’s eyes. Flattery blinds a man gradually, but forever.

He understood that accusations made in wrath drew from the proof of emotions rather than the substance of facts, and as such were incontestable.

“Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the short view, living day to day. The prospect of obsessing about the future so much seems, I don’t know, naive.

“All I know is, I’m grateful for today, and I accept that there may not be an encore.”

I’d heard that jockeys read to their steeds, and farmers to their prize bulls. A commanding voice in the ear of a simple mind is old magic,

As Senlin listened to Marat again expose the lavishness of his vanity, it dawned upon him how simple the world was in the eyes of a zealot. Everyone was either an implement or an idiot, a rung or an impediment, and the Tower was but a toy he had promised himself. His was not a complex philosophy, but rather an august sort of childishness.

Civility, wisdom, and empathy required growth, sacrifice, a willingness to change, but evil never grew up. Evil was as callow and foolish at the end of itself as it was at the start.

Do not waste the limited resource of your patience on those who think misery a competition. Spendthrifts of self-pity are always miserly the moment empathy is due.

People only read what they already believe to be true, and if they encounter something that seems to disagree with their beliefs, they bend it into agreement, and if it cannot be bent, then they call it a conspiracy and cast it away!”

So, the intellectual has his beliefs confirmed, as well. Everyone leaves happy and vindicated and feeling a little sorry for the poor cockeyed so-and-so who cannot see the truth even when it is laid plainly before him. As I said, I do not convert. I expound. I tell stories.”

The human race will march into the darkness singing songs and telling stories because that is who we are and what we do.”