21 myths
Each story names the sources it was written from.
Abraham had been dead twenty years. In the dream he embraced his grandson and said he loved him with all his soul. Then he warned him about Laban.
In Babylonian exile, Ezekiel watches the sky tear open. Fire, wheels full of eyes, and four impossible creatures arrive bearing the throne of God.
They would not believe he was dying. Naphtali told them Levi rode the sun, and a ship with no sailors ran onto a rock.
Levi asked the angel for a name he could cry on a bad day. He woke holding a sword, and found the brass shield lying in the road.
Jacob saw a vision of Joseph numbered among celestial beings, before Egypt, before the pit. He understood at once this greatness would cost Israel everything.
Moses prays 515 times at the Jordan's edge, draws a circle in the dust, and prays until heaven trembles. God finally says: enough, do not continue.
From Mount Nebo, God showed Moses two moments the plain below had witnessed: the cities consumed by fire and the dynasty that would make the same ground holy.
Cattle licked the pillar down to nothing by evening. In the morning she was standing whole again on the road outside Tzoar.
Sihon and Og took Moab's money for years to stand between Balak and the desert. Israel killed them both in one season. Now nothing stood there.
He fed his sons, then told them he was dying. They did not believe him because he still looked strong. Then he told them about the sun and the broken ship.
When Isaiah saw the divine throne and the seraphim singing, he did not sing with them. He spent years believing that silence had cost him everything.
A golden lion put out its paw with a law cut into it, and Solomon could not reach the second step until he read it. In Babylon the lions were alive.
Ezra sat in a field and ate only flowers for seven days. A woman in ash became a city. Then the sea gave up a man.
On the road near Bethlehem, seven men robed in white stop a shepherd and dress him in garments of a priesthood he never asked to carry.
On the mountain's edge Moses watched Jericho's palms, then Deborah under her tree, David crowned, and the righteous strolling in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden).
From the ridge Moses sees the whole land and the final day. He bargains to enter as a commoner or as a corpse. Heaven answers no.
"Show me Your glory," he said. The last vessel would not move. He fell in the cleft and tasted dust that still belonged to her.
He reached for a line of light and touched meaning instead of metal. In the town below, a birth and a funeral shared the same night.
Sand filled Ezekiel's mouth by the river of exile. The north wind carried fire. His knees wanted the ground and would not have it.
The valley opened under Moses like a court. Heat without a horizon. He asked who entered it, then stepped back from the fire.
By the river Chebar Ezekiel sees wheels and living beings, then the shapes of letters themselves begin to teach what he saw.
