waking in Urek

Waking in Urek

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

When the wind shakes and howls the house late at night, at 3:17AM sharp I awake pleasantly deep in memories of my life in Urek on the Euphrates river.

When I remember living in Urek back then in 3000 BC I think thoughts in todays language of English. But, I remember laying with past wives and holding my ancient children. We sat around a fire and ate first meal very early for work started at dawn. The language we spoke then is distantly familiar and just beyond recollection.

As the wind dies down here in 2014 in Ohio and the rain begins to patter my past life seeps away and try as I might I can't recall someone's voice or touch but the sensation of memory is pleasant and takes a long while to dissipate.

Urek or biblical Erech is not the first place I lived before but it left an impression for it was crowded and bustling, an early City and I had a good life there. We ate a crispy dry bread dripping with the oils of mysterious plants such as fennel and celery and the water from the wells was sweet and cold in hot early mornings. My companion wore thick clothes to cover her body but my hands remember the curves of her hips awakening early together in the pre dawn light.