THE EPIC GILGAMEK: CHAPTER 2 - A LETTER FROM A LOST MOTHER

IN WHICH WE LEARN OF GILGAMEK'S BOX AND HIS PROTECTOR LONQO AND THE RAGE OF THE UNDERMEKS

May 13, 2025

2

Now, some meks would have taken these — ahem — challenges in stride or approached them with some measure of acceptance, but Gilgamek, I must concede, was not an accepting kind of mek.

Take Lonqo’s whole you’re lucky you weren’t put out for the trashrats spiel, which the Birdman trotted out at least once a week. Gilgamek had long suspected that the very misfortune Lonqo encouraged him to be grateful hadn’t happened had in fact actually happened. Gilgamek suspected that his parents had in fact abandoned him on the slag heaps for the trashrats, driven to that extremity (he imagined) because of all the flesh he was born with. Lonqo claimed that he had found Gilgamek in a part of the city that had long since been slum-cleared, inside a nice box with a nice note that said This is Gilgamek — please love him.

No signature, only a shaky heart.

Gilgamek had no doubt that Lonqo found him on the slag heaps alright — but with no note or box, adopted him out of pity and given him the name Gilgamek on a whim.

After all, if there had been a note and a box why hadn’t Lonqo kept it for him?

“It was lost when our fourth shack burned down,” Lonqo says morosely. “It still makes me tear up that it’s gone. Such beautiful handwriting. You never saw such noble letras.”

Yeah right, Gilgamek thinks. Lost in a fire. How convenient.

I know what you’re thinking: had there in fact been a box, a letter with noble penmekship, or was this something Lonqo made up to comfort Gilgamek?

Even I in my hindsight wisdom cannot say, but either way what should be clear is that Gilgamek was not exactly a trusting, or even very positive mek.

He was 12 years old and super poor, super fleshy, and had come to a decision during his short life that the Universe had it out for him.

That he was cursed.

“You aren’t cursed,” Lonqo says.

“I am,” Gilgamek says angrily.

Gilgamek felt these things very strongly, too, which is something that often happens when one is 12. I know, because I was 12 once, too. And because he felt this whole curse thing very strongly, Gilgamek was often angry.

At what?

At everything. At Lonqo, at himself, at the world, at the long lost Conqueror Race — at the whole Universe, really.

And because he was often angry Gilgamek goes around with his flesh teeth clenched and his part-machine fists balled.

Steaming with rage.

Which explains why Lonqo is always urging him to look at the bright side of things.

“A lot of good that’s going to do me,” Gilgamek mutters.

“You never know,” Lonqo says. “Everything in this world is dear but hope.”

But for Gilgamek it is not a price he could afford.

Gilgamek was not always so angry, so hard-headed. Contrary to the legends, for the first eight years of his life Gilgamek was a rather sweet shy boy.

It’s true! A sweet shy boy who loved to play alone in the slag piles, excitable and talkative when alone with Longo, but easily driven to tears by the taunts of the other children.

During those good years Lonqo was working the Trench, had a nice productive seam going, and the salvage rate was still good and the Birdman earned decent enough and used that money not like other poor bachelors, on gambling or light shows, but on Gilgamek. Facts are, Lonqo spoiled the boymek silly, bought him sweets and toys and because Lonqo was thrifty and penny-smart his indulgences didn’t put them out; their little family always had grease to chew on and a roof over their heads, which was pretty rare among the Rusties. Gilgamek was even learning to read and write, something else not common for a Rustie, but Lonqo had some education from his veteran years fighting for the Autarch and was teaching the boy his letters because “reading is the first step towards knowledge and knowledge is the first step to wisdom.”

Back then Gilgamek believed in the box and the letter within with its nobles lines, and dreamed always of finding it, and he dedicated himself to his reading lessons which, along with Lonqo’s indulgences, set him apart from the other children, gave him a prideful stance he would never lose no matter what.

Those were the good years of sweets and box dreams and reading. Good years that came to a crashing end when he was eight.

Working the Trench was dangerous even for Birds. Tunnels often collapsed and there were always tremors that could flatten entire levels, and unlucky scavengers died daily in those layers of archeological detritus.

As fate would have it Longo had an accident. His seam shifted and a crevasse opened up under his feet and down he fell and it was a miracle that his fellow Trenchers brought him out alive. Every bit of him broken, even his beak, but strangely his wings were intact — for all the good that did him. Took months before he recovered enough to feed himself, but afterward Lonqo was unable to rise from his pallet without needing a pull rope and two crutches. (“Could have been worse,” was Lonqo’s take, “could have been much worse.”) Gilgamek cared for, fed, and bathed the Birdman all by himself and he prayed desperately to the Great Calculators and to the Autarch for a miracle — but there was to be no miracle.

Lonqo never walked or worked again.

To be continued next week when we learn of Gilgamek’s battles for a home