Unity

For the third time that day, Anu’s hands started bleeding. Dust and sweat worked their way into the shallow gashes, and he ran his palms along his clothing at their incessant itching, oblong shapes staining the fabric.

Since being hired onto the project, Anu’s days seemed to be growing longer and hotter despite the seasonal shift to wintertime. He’d worked hard-labor before—been using his hands and feet all his life—but every baked brick he lugged to its spot and placed wore down his skin.

“It’s important,” the man next to him said, noting Anu’s fourth pause in an hour to catch his breath. The man smiled with no teeth. “It’ll all be worth it.”

“Something this size…” Anu said, pushing from the brick wall he’d finished setting the day before and got back to work alongside the man. “How will we know when it’s done? What if it’s already finished and we just don’t know it because it’s not what we expected?”

The man shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the men working next to him, as if they were in on a joke. “It’s not finished yet, son. And trust me, we’ll know when it’s done.”

The man pulled the brick out of Anu’s hand and led him away from the wall. Clanking and grunting faded behind them as they reached the open air, a breeze, unable to reach them before, tickled their faces, stiff with dirt and grime.

Anu felt the sun before he saw it. Like a flower, he faced it and allowed his skin to absorb the light and warmth.

“Hundreds of thousands of us are working together,” the man said, gesturing to the land below them. Anu didn’t know how high up they worked now, but looking straight down the edge of their construction made him dizzy. “We cope two ways: small thinking and big thinking.

“Small thinking is what’s been troubling you. Your hands bleed from the rough materials and the lifting steals your breath, and all you see is the wall in front of you. Why should you give your precious blood and air to these few bricks?”

Below, the city stood like a child’s sandcastle run amok with lines of ants. Anu’s heart thumped violently enough to be felt in his neck.

“Big thinking is what you need to do,” the man continued, voice rasping. Anu offered his water. After a gulp, the man continued, rivulets of water dripping from his chin onto his chest. “When you’re tired, don’t think of the wall, think of what we’re building here. What we’re accomplishing. You’re a part of something. Don’t you want that?”

Glancing over the man’s shoulder back at the still working men, their curious and hostile eyes made Anu shrink in on himself. He nodded at the man and hurried back to their spot without another word.

For the next week the only sunlight Anu saw stood three yards away at the edge that overlooked the city. Work began before the sun and ended after it, and Anu tried to think of the big picture.

So many men coming together; the sense of unity permeated the air. The same faces existed on Anu’s sides all day every day. He didn’t know their names, but he could tell who was laughing without looking and could understand with a glance who needed a break.

“Here, these are for you,” the toothless man said one morning, shoving a warm bundle of cloth at Anu. He opened his hands and let the cloth unfurl itself.

“The fabric covers your palms and you secure with the string,” the man said and inclined his head. “Go on.”

Anu slid them over his palms and tightened the string with his teeth. He held up his hands with a proud smile. 

The toothless man elbowed the man beside him. “Looks like he’s in it for the long haul.” The two broke into laughter and Anu’s chest bubbled with laughter too.

“Think you could make me some too?” someone called from farther down the line of workers, earning another round of laughter.

Anu shook his head, calling back to the open air, “These were made with love, of which he has none for you, sir.”

The toothless man clapped Anu’s shoulder. “Big thinker, son. You’re a big thinker.”

The line of workers inched upward, placing their baked bricks and sharing water, their knees popping each time they stood. Their wall spiraled at an upward angle following a ramp constructed by a line of workers somewhere ahead of them.

“Since we’re reinforcing what’s already been built,” Anu said, not turning to address anyone in particular. “Doesn’t that mean we could be finished without knowing it?”

“No,” the man to his right said. Oily with sweat, the man smelled sourer than even those around him. “They’d come tell us. Tell someone down here. We’d hear about it.”

“Would you?” Anu asked. “If it were you up there?”

“Of course. We’re in this together. No single man could do this alone.”

The toothless man’s shoulder bumped Anu. Glancing sideways, Anu’s eye caught his reddened skin and half-lidded eyes.

“Are you alright?”

As he turned to address the toothless man, he found himself with a handful of deadweight as the man collapsed into his arms. The men around them stirred, dropping their bricks and clustering around the commotion, the air thinning at the added body heat.

“Someone get help!” Anu yelled, watching the man’s eyes roll into the back of his head, only the white showing. He started shaking, muscles tensing tight enough to snap the bones underneath them. “Get me a wet cloth!”

A few moments later and the shaking stopped, along with the man’s breath. The body grew cold and stiff in Anu’s arms as he waited for help to arrive. The surrounding men stood silent until Anu’s shadow moved from behind him to beside him, a grieving twin. The grunting started again.

Anu’s vision clouded and tears splashed onto the man’s shirt. He tried to be a big thinker; this nameless man surpassed the big thinkers’ goals, but what about the rest of them? What about Anu? Having to take the slow road, he supposed.

Letting the tear tracks cut through the grime on his cheeks, Anu laid the man’s body down and dragged him to the edge before draping his jacket over him. Like this, the man’s body looked the same size as the city below.

 “I’ll see him again,” Anu said, spinning on his heel and started up the ramp. “We might’ve reached it already.”

One of the men who worked beside him stood and grabbed his elbow. “He’d have wanted you to stay here and keep building. We all have to do our part.”

Anu wrenched his arm away and stomped further up the ramp. “I think we’re finished and nobody told us. I think everyone up there has met God and forgotten to tell us!”

“You’re being selfish!”

“If you’re right then nothing is up there and I’ll be back down soon enough!” Anu shouted, reply ready for whatever the man had to say back.

The man didn’t reply. A line formed on his forehead as he frowned. “Huh?”

“I said, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Anu’s words didn’t clear anything up as the man continued to frown, a few of the working men pausing to stare at Anu.

“What?” Anu asked, glancing behind him. “I could be wrong; I just want to see him again.”

The man in front of him opened his mouth and spoke, but the words were nonsense. Soft, rounded sounds that sounded like a baby to Anu’s ears.

“Are you alright?” Anu asked, chest tightening at the thought of losing another face and laugh from the men who worked beside him.

The man continued to speak gibberish. Anu turned to the interested working men who looked as confused as he felt.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked.

One of the men pointed at Anu and said something he couldn’t understand. Not the same sounds the other man made, but still nonsensical. The working man then pointed at the standing man and continued with the strange sounds.

Around them, new and unusual sounds came from the mouths of men whose laughs Anu could recognize without looking.

Anu brushed past these men and sprinted up the ramp, rounding the curved edges of the base walls that hadn’t been reinforced by brick yet. He grew dizzy with the spinning and the air grew thicker, unable to be drawn so easily into his chest.

As he ran, confused men attempted to speak to each other in his periphery. Babbling turned to shouting and shouting turned to shoving as men tried to understand each other. Anu slid between them all, eyes straight forward.

Like a cliff, the edge of the construction came suddenly and with no preamble.

Anu grabbed the first man he saw and shook his shoulders. “Where is heaven? Where is he?”

He could not understand the man’s answer.

Simple sky reflected back in Anu’s eyes and he dropped to his knees, lightheaded from the thick air. “Babylon has failed. There is still only one road to heaven. Am I brave enough to take it?”

Anu looked down the edge of the tower.