Chapter 88
In your mouth and your urine
Constantly stared at you
The measuring vessel of your lord
(-What is it?)
Answer: beer
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Babylonian riddle, circa 1,500 b.c.
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November – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki'ili
MIKHAIL
The entire house smelled of yeast, a pungent mix of fermenting liquids and the scent of baking bread, all intertwined with burnt cedar sticks and whatever other wood he could scrounge up to help Yalda stoke her fire. Someday he would be killed in battle and pass into the dreamtime. When he did, he hoped it would smell half as good as the widow-sisters house, mixed with the scent of Ninsianna's soap root and that decadent fruit which grew on vines called melons. Now that would be a pleasant place to spend eternity.
Yalda removed the c
