ANTAR #012

The ground was warm and recently invented. Bricks baked in the sun argued quietly with gravity. Rivers behaved like gods who knew they were important. Someone was busy discovering measurement while someone else was busy disagreeing with it. ANTAR arrived where the air smelled of clay, smoke, and ambition. It was approximately 800 BC, though nobody had agreed to call it that yet. Men paused mid-conversation. Women paused mid-instruction. A goat stared longest. ANTAR accepted the hierarchy. He adjusted his scarf, which immediately became the most advanced textile in view. A scribe froze, stylus hovering above wet clay. “What mark is that?” the scribe asked, pointing to ANTAR’s bag. “Decoration,” ANTAR replied. “It means nothing useful.” The scribe nodded approvingly and scratched something important down anyway. ANTAR watched as laws were discussed loudly, rewritten quietly, and enforced selectively. He observed trade negotiations involving grain, copper, and optimism. He admired a wheel that was still enjoying its novelty phase. Someone offered him bread. He accepted. It was dense, earnest, and proud of itself. ANTAR listened to a priest explain the sky with confidence usually reserved for people who are mostly right. He listened to a builder complain about bricks not being straight enough yet. He listened to an argument about whether numbers should stop at sixty or keep going. No one asked where he was from. In places where everything is new, strangeness is tolerated. As ANTAR prepared to leave, the scribe pressed a small clay tablet into his hand. “Just in case,” the man said. ANTAR smiled. He had seen this before. Empires begin like notes someone hopes to remember. He set the tablet down gently. History picked it up. End of Log #012