French Kissing While We Topple Towers

When they’d settled in the valley, talk circulated the town like wildfire. There were words everywhere. People stuck signs outside their tents, indicating who lived there. Vendors set up stalls, hanging banners with words that advertised their wares. She could tell her brothers to go to the Southeast marketplace, to the elderly vendor with a face like a boulder, and ask for the moss colored fabric with sunset stitching. When her mother tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to taste the rice, she had words for what it lacked. 

The boy she loved had words for her, too. Soft words, sighed into her neck in a back alley away from prying eyes. Tickling words that made her laugh, strong vowels said only in the dark. She had words for him, too: soft names she’d grown up hearing her parents use when they sat together in the glow of firelight, sated by food and drink and the words exchanged with good company, laughter calling out to the stars in the language of old friends.

The language of their mother tongue rolled off her uncle’s tongue in the courts, issuing freedoms in the same room he issued chains. They were hot, falling from his mouth, sharp as a soldier’s weapon, building the city one law at a time. At night, she’d rehearse the words while she lay on her sleeping mat, pressing the weighty words to her memory with hope that they’d leave a print and allow her to speak with such conviction. 

A rumor passed through the town, hushed, quiet, slipping around corners with the dexterity of a lynx. They were going to build. “Build what?” Everyone had words for it. Holy. Scorching. Blasphemous. A temple. The words grew, the rumor solidified and became a plan, a vote, a movement, an argument and, finally, a decision.

So the rumor became a blueprint and the tower was underway before anyone could think of the more negative adjectives to describe the building. She had some, though: frivolous. Showy. Questionable. Every time she took her turn working on the structure, she thought of more, building the list in her head while building bricks with her hands. As the days dragged on, the hours seemed longer and the words shorter. She’d stopped associating them only with the building, but with everything. Aching. Slow. Sad. The world around her was no longer a dimension of color lit by tongues full of wit and scathing criticism, and she’d do almost anything to be yelled at in earnest. The foremen were as tired as they were, their directions lacking the luster they’d held to begin with. When she lay on her mat at night, she saw nothing but the correct direction to smooth the clay, the right angles for laying the bricking. No words needed, just determination.

They continued to build. Bucket by sloshing bucket, water was hauled, clay was mixed. They continued to build. Bricks were formed and they were placed shoulder to shoulder, never to be moved. They continued to build. One callous at a time, their hands became less skilled with quills and sculpting chisels. They continued to build.

She met a new boy. With him came a new set of words, free from the memories of her previous love. His words tumbled out in the form of song. Mornings heading to the tower became something hopeful, reaching. A line at a time, he taught them songs to sing as they worked. The words felt fresh on her tongue, a gift to wash the dirt away with. They continued to build, voices calling out to one another in verse and chorus. The foreman whistled the tunes under their breath. 

She found words for the way the work made her feel. She shared them with the boy, sometimes, when they found themselves at the water barrel together, sharing sips from the same ladle. She didn’t mention the words his skin made her think, the words she had for the way his hair curled near his ears. He didn’t mention the words he had for the strength in her forearms or that her voice reminded him of his mothers. They shared stories while working, of past lives they might have led, future lives they’d like to lead. And they sang and they built and they found new words for one another each time they made eye contact.

With stretching arms, the tower reached for the heavens. The gods had many words for it, storming words that boomed like thunder. Envy. Weak. The tribe in the city below had words for it as well: Proof. Earned. Apart. Toy words for a toy tribe, the buildings like ants beneath the tower. The gods aimed threatening words at the village, aiming to destroy, to render, to uncreate all that had been created. The people of the tribe threw the words back transformed, molded into rebuttals of rebuilding, promises to continue, reminders of their past perseverance. 

The gods laughed. The color split across the sky like every sunset and sunrise she’d breathed through, all mixed in one. She turned to him, told him to come see. His face held confusion. When he opened his mouth, her ears heard nothing recognizable. The voice was the same, but the words that spilled from behind his white teeth were foreign to her. In earnest, he repeated himself, and she listened with growing dismay. She turned to the woman beside her to question her, ask if they were hearing him the same, but the woman regarded her with confusion. She tried again, slower, knowing the words she spoke were the right ones, but the woman just shook her head.

He came to her, voice a mere whisper amidst the chaos around them. The words slid through the air like smoke, there and gone, unobtainable. She stroked his cheek, her thumb pausing at the corner of his mouth, and called him by name. There was no recognition in his eyes, nothing that resembled the words their eyes had exchanged over meals. She knew his name, and he did not.

The sky split open with a cry and the tower shook. She stood, hand in his, and observed the streaking colors of light, unafraid. What was happening was unexplainable. There were no words to stand on as common ground, no expressions to communicate her fear. His fingers tightened around hers and pointed. At their feet, a brick, the fingerprints of laborers visible in the red clay.

Their tribe was scattered to the corners of the earth, driven to wandering in a constant search for someone who understood their tongue and could exchange words without confusion. All except two were driven apart. 

Years later, she sat against his legs in their home and rocked their daughter in her arms. He started to hum, a song from long ago when he’d been younger and scared and in love. Leaned against him, she sang along. The words were known by both of them and they were known by one another, and the tower was forgotten.

Years later, a descendant of the couple would come across a pile of red clay bricks. Cold from the night wind, he’d build a fire for his wife, ringed by the bricks. They would sit next to each other, the fire warming their faces, oblivious to the lack of spoken word and the gods that fumed above them. They were together, and they were content.