When Architecture tells a Fairytale
The As-Syrian
Scene I So many questions and thoughts could have been running through your mind, but I had one... why? What if you knew me, or knew of me, or even knew my family, would your response be “those are hard times?” I am not here by choice, you see, I don’t think anyone would be here by choice. I once had a house and a family. Everyday my mom looked at me and smiled, my dad kissed me goodnight, my older brother ran to meet his lover in the dark. Just to wake up and see a blossoming sky, and a life ever green simple and humble but it was sincere. Maybe I was born in a village that you would have never have heard of, but it was my home. It is where I grew up and where my memories are. I didn’t want to leave it behind. It could have been seconds, but it felt like I am in space with the deafening silence around the image of my mom’s face as I slipped through her grip. ‘’No! No! I must go back to her, I need to reach the surface. I don’t want her to worry about me!’’ As I struggled to inhale life into my lungs, trying to reach her, I saw a dim light. As it radiated, it illuminated an angel of sort. A man with wings, his face was a relief, the minute my eyes grasped into his image I heard him saying: “come to me, surrender yourself to me, have no more fear I am your ancestor.’’
Scene II
An ancestor, like I knew what that word means, but at this point I had no choice… because I can no longer see what the surface could be. He said close your eyes and have faith in your destiny. As he spoke these words, I was in peace. I open my eyes and I see a world that could only exist in my dreams. Giant crystals stood with nothing beneath, as if they were gates! In abundance a city of fiction or fantasy floating on water reflecting sun from all directions with monumental structures that appeared like a combination of ancient cities collided. He looked at me and said: “Take it, in this is nothing but a mare dream, but it could be your home if you decided it to be. There is no back side to this, you are in peace. Remember you are part of this legacy. You are an Assyrian no longer a Syrian.” He gave me his hand and we walked on water into the city gate, with ravishing gold and clear blue with mythical creatures all around welcoming me, yet they seem to have terrorized once upon a time but upon my face they smiled. I asked him what could this place be?
Scene III “Let me tell you a story that can make you understand what this place could be… We were the cradle of civilizations. It started when the Annunaki descended to this earth thousands of years ago. Giving mankind enlightenment beyond their comprehension. Knowledge to create a life, prosperous and synergetic with the surrounding. Carrying them from the Stone Age into the Bronze Age, only to evolve into battles, making weapons of steel, when it was not known to mankind. We used it to vanquish our enemy, or those who we thought were our enemy, only to grow and take our own. We could never have enough, like our satisfaction was death. King after king, with gods on our side we sieged, fought and conquered the universe as we know it. No army had carried war so far- we concurred an empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Despoiled the great city of Babylon and enslaved the tribes of Israel. Even the Pharaohs paid us tribute. Our army was the greatest to be seen, the warriors the brutalist, in warfare the cruelest. We were the masters of war. At day break when the Assyrians came into view. Enemies saw a storm gathering with thousands of houses and men assembled. The signal for attack is sounded. That is when our rivals prayed, as they knew their end had arrived. By days end, rivers ran red by blood of man and animal alike. In hours of victory we bragged about our cruelty and celebrated our victory. When locked with our foes we reached for our daggers. We prayed for Ishtar. Heroine among the gods and with time Assyria reached its glorious height, but we had over reached spanning across the whole Middle East. Instead of governing our subjects we terrorized them. And overnight a thousand year old society collapsed, and the empire vanished into the past.” v
Scene IV I replied with so much anger: “I am not a child! I do not wish to hear stories, I want my mother to be with me!” In spite of all the mesmerizing beauty around me. I could not care, as I cannot stop thinking about my mother- I needed to know where she is, while in the back of my mind I wished my father and brother are awaiting behind those gates. But I maybe young… yet I know, I have lost them... You tend to get over being a child when you see your father under the wreckage of your house as he took me out and ran back in to try and salvage a photo of my martyr brother, lost in a battle that he did not wish to fight. His choices were limited: either escape to the sea, or go ahead and join the war that you didn’t want to be part of, fighting for the ones you were trying to fight against. I wondered if he could hear my thoughts and relieve me by telling me they are at peace, just as I am. The ancestor looked at me with a smile and said: “She still has her path to take. Each one of us has his own path that will take him into his own mystery land and his own battle to conquer, not just your brother or me.” I looked at him with a sort of disappointment, emerged with shock. “You fought your battles when I thought you were my savior… “ If Assyrians were so ever strong, come and rescue our cities, the ruins of your city, your status are being wrecked by savages. They are taking away our history, your legacy. Yes, I know who you are now! I have seen your temples as a child when my father took me to your cities, but all I saw was piles of stones decaying and weathering. Your codes, your walls and all the artifacts if not stolen then destroyed. Your whole civilization evanescing. Just as we are left there awaiting our fate, if any of us tried to flee he’d be left to run or die in the wild, just like an anomaly.
Scene V
We are your descendants you can’t leave us out to die. Why don’t you speak to your god let her intervene in this course of time. Let me speak to her tell her about those hard times!” And there she was levitating with the universe surrounding. Her glow makes you want to bow. She speaks like she knows everything on my mind. “My child! I have seen time and man, but every direction they thrived they served me with blood, some to satisfy me, some to satisfy their own. I have never asked, but they believed this is what I seek, when all this was what they have fed on. One day I am the Great Inanna, the next I am Ishtar, later on to be Aphrodite and then Venus, and so on! Every civilization justified their viciousness with my name. You ask me to salvage your home, but how, when yesterday it was someone else’s home. My child, this is nothing but a cycle. We encrypted a code. It said ‘an eye for an eye.’ Time does not erase brutality. How could I be a God of love and war when these two are nothing but a paradox. How could I love all and allow death unavenged? In spite of all my glory, I am here to serve all throughout time. When only love can salvage war. When only love can prevail above all.”