The Hmm of Ish
David Drury
Translator’s Note to the First Edition
To those who believed this was possible, thank you. Your faith has meant nearly everything. If you were here right now, you would be witness to one truly humbled man typing away at his ergonomic standing desk. But bringing this translation to life has taken more than mere conviction. As Jesus Christ reminded Satan in the wilderness, Man does not live by faith alone. The Hmm of Ish has demanded nothing less than hard work, dogged perseverance and an unyielding supply of brass tacks.
What you are about to read, translated for the first time into the English language, is an epic creation myth as florid and provocative as any among the pantheon of literary antiquities.
Combining disagreeing alphabets, multiple angry and mournful poetic forms, and a stirring array of erotic pictographs, The Hmm of Ish seems to have emerged out of an oral tradition of the nomadic pre-Mesopotamian Ya-Ah civilization, about whom we unfortunately still know so little.
The myth was transcribed circa 4,000 B.C. by upwards of one thousand scribes. They were a verbose lot. Day and night, over the course of many years, these scribes etched bits and pieces of the ever-expanding myth onto whatever blank space they could find—clay tablets, cave walls, elephant bones, sarcophagus lids, petrified lake beds—even the inside of human skulls. I must say that I no longer am ashamed for all the scribbling I have done of late on restaurant napkins.
As origination stories go, The Hmm of Ish breaks new ground from the get-go. The very act of creation (bringing matter into existence and/or giving new form to existing matter) spans not one grand event or seven well-organized days, but billions upon billions of years. Only a timetable from the realms of the evolutionary sciences could match it blow for blow, curiously enough. But, as one might expect from a fanciful religious narrative, creation and progress in The Hmm of Ish are brought about very differently—not by the random combustion of natural forces, but by a council of Yah-Ah gods who personally collide with matter, throw their weight around in the natural world, and interject themselves unapologetically into the world of people. How does all this turn out? I won’t give it away.
There are so many people to thank. Our gracious families. Our patient publisher. Our donors, drivers, pilots, guides, and artifacts lawyers. Our meditation guru Mad Mike. Our language expert Jim Scissor and his partner in crime cultural specialist Dean “Rude Dog” Rudino. The staff at the 24-hour Whataburger on Southwest Parkway. The always lovely Rebecca Walker-Trujillo. What a whirlwind it has all been. To think that just two years ago we barely knew each other, standing knee deep in sarcophagus water, hugging and shooting champagne rainbows without quite knowing what we had found. We have come so far. As the Yah-Ah people would say, “The circle-bird’s bowel-pride lands on the shoulder-soul of your father’s father, and the muchness overflows to every son of every son of every son.”
Along the way, more than a few naysayers suggested that the curses of the Ya-ah and their gods would be visited upon us for meddling, for disrespect, for perceived gender bias. You think we haven’t heard this all before? There is a reason they say, “An anthropologist’s prerogative is to roll his eyes and press on.” We’ve had our hurdles to be sure, but the results speak for themselves. It has all been worth it. Any curses that intended on hanging around have been broken once and for all, if only by the fact that this day has arrived. The good energy has washed over all curses. But the tide didn’t stop at the shoreline. No indeed … drumroll please …
As some of you know, in the course of my travels and research, I had the incredible fortune of meeting the wonderful Carol, who was teaching language studies at Omaha Community College. She kept me sane throughout the project with surprise microfiche picnics, midnight editing tutorials, and her smile. Best research assistant ever! In due time, we found ourselves falling in love. As I write this, I have lowered my standing desk and am typing on bended knee. Carol: will you marry me? We’ve spent six years on this damned thing, what say we share the rest of our lives?
Editors note: She said yes.
Translator’s Note to the Second Edition
The hard truth of first editions is this: mistakes come to light. We anticipated this. I am reminded that the Yah-Ah people see errors not as opposed to truth, but working in coordination with truth to arrive at new and greater wisdom, even if it takes some time. Or in the case of the Ya-Ah creation timeline, millions of years of turmoil and grievous terror.
I offer no apologies for taking the time necessary to get this thing right. The gods of the Ya-Ah, now those are some stubborn bastards. In The Hmm of Ish they call light into existence from nothing and then “zone out” for upwards of 100 million years, watching lightning and sunrises.
We originally spared you the excess of Ya-Ah poems and fables dedicated to the activities of the gods during this time; their feasting, wrangling, laughter, musings, and heartache. But you asked for them, rightly so, and we have included them in this edition to give you an unabridged picture of the Ya-Ah tradition. Eventually, the gods try their hand at making plant life (now chapter 32). But once again the gods are consumed with the results of their endeavor, and another 200 million years passes (Chapters 33-43).
We have expanded our footnotes to include more complementary and supportive data. We changed a few pronouns throughout from “he” to “she,” but otherwise stand by our translation at a number of places where our work has been called into question.
We now rest with calloused fingers crossed. Many thanks to my lovely wife Carol, who has earned the equivalent of ten PhDs listening to me pace in the shower, hearing me curse at my ergonomic standing desk, and putting up with me as I turn down hot food from behind my deadbolted office door. I admit I have been obsessing over these things at all hours of the day and night, for what has felt like 200 million Ya-Ah years. I’d like to think it was worth it. We finally got it right, Carol! You can go ahead and re-book our anniversary trip to Cancun!
Translator’s Note to the Third Edition
Third time’s a charm. Three times a lady. Three strikes and you are awarded first base—at least that’s what I remember of Little League in Landover, Maryland after my Dad’s company sponsored the new uniforms.
This time around, we have upgraded our translation of The Hmm of Ish where weather and food preparation are concerned. We have added 152 exclamation points, 72 new footnotes, and three charts.
We have confirmed our early suspicion that the Ya-Ah tales aren’t always intended as straight narration, but often drift in and out of a subtle but intended kind of dialogue. We have reflected on this at length in the footnotes. A dialogue between who, you ask? Some rotating combination of deities and village elders as best we can tell, in each case as if they are observers to the same events but with differing perspectives—as if they are telling the story together, but niggle at times over word choice and proper emphasis, and even meaning. Like an old married couple stepping on each other’s lines while telling the same story. This goes a long way in explaining some of the indecisiveness and disparity at times from one line to the next throughout the myth.
We have also changed a few more pronouns throughout from “he” to “she,” but otherwise stand by our translation where our work continues to be called into question.
It’s been a tough few years, and on behalf of myself and my Carol and the whole team, we would like to apologize for the delay in getting this particular edition prepared for publication. My wife/editor Carol and I have worked doubly hard to find the time to see this thing through.
Special congratulations to Carol, who has been on fire of late landing grants for her new pet projects, as well as a series of speaking gigs at museums and universities. All of this has unfortunately kept her away from home. I have been left with The Hmm of Ish and, at times, I’ll be honest, it has felt like single parenting. When I get stressed, I take a deep cleansing breath and tell myself that with perseverance, everything will work out in the long run. Then I punch the coffee mug right off my desk and pick the smallest fix to tackle first.
If you will remember, when the Ya-Ah gods in The Hmm of Ish finally turn their creative energies to making the animals (Chapter 44), they start with a single snail—the slowest of all creatures—as if to remind themselves that they are in no rush. Not only that, but they designate the snail as a location scout, and send him trekking to the furthest corners of the universe in search of a suitable planet to host future life forms. This open-ended odyssey takes an incredibly long time. When the snail returns to the gods (with Planet Earth on its short list), the deities throw a feast that drags on for 10,000 years. Only then do they turn their attention to the next act of creation—making a turtle. They assign him with the next one very small but incredibly time-consuming task in their drawn-out creation process. And so it goes.
May we each have some of that kind of patience. Just not all of it. Let’s hope that, if and when a fourth edition is required, I don’t fall so far as to thoroughly identify with the Ya-Ah people themselves, whose longsuffering is even more staggering and problematic than that of their gods. I can’t imagine.
Translator’s note to the Fourth Edition
Ready, set, ouch. I am the Ya-Ah. More on that in a moment.
First, a word to our tireless critics, AKA the “Translator Haters.” No, the wheels have not fallen off. Our publisher stands firmly behind us. The scientific community views your claims as dubious at best. And the large majority of our readers? Well, they bought the book, and have mostly only thanks and praise for our efforts, so I guess that speaks pretty clearly to what they think.
We remain—and this has been true since the start—grateful for any and all healthy forms of dialogue and public debate that ultimately lead to editorial adjustments and other such considerations. The changes before you represent only a small fraction of what is still being talked about ad nauseum in regards to The Hmm of Ish, as well as what is being said about its translators and editors. This has forced us, frankly, to spend a wasteful amount of time fending off wild claims, conspiracy theories, and cultural overreach.
Now, one issue of housekeeping. Carol is no longer on the project. She sends her love, I’m sure. She has been on “phone hiatus” high in the Swiss Alps, researching on behalf of one scientific journal or another the reports that there has been a recent spate of alpaca suicides. The lovely Rebecca Walker-Trujillo has been kind enough to take over Carol’s editorial desk duties and has been downright amazing, picking right up where Carol left off, and even bringing a new and much needed burst of energy to the project.
Yes, changes have been made. You will find them if you look—footnotes, pronouns, more footnotes, a sketch here, a chart there. I won’t spoil it. I have learned better. If I wrote the changes out in full, there would already be more changes to make before I finished the last sentence.
So, yes, we find ourselves here once again. So many sunsets have come and gone, and not one of them have I been able to sail off into. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh right. I hardly need to remind you that after many billions of years (Now chapter 46), the Yah-Ah gods finally get around to calling the first humans into existence, even as they continue to tinker and experiment with life on Earth. Let’s just say the transition is a rocky one. I take small comfort that the story of the earliest humans is not my story. Where the first half of The Hmm of Ish may read as something of a grand bore, the second half really picks up steam. Too much steam, in fact.
What is this new world like for the Ya-Ah people? The wind blows in perfect squares, as if to teach the fruit flies. Shooting stars pause, reflect, and change direction. Raindrops never splash or flatten, but bounce and roll around on the ground like fish eggs, pooling in rivers of gelatinous ball bearings, purring and chirping as they meander from stream to river to sea. Semi-hollow hail the size of fists pummels the earth and breaks open with a hiss, from which scrambles some new species of insect. Experimental creatures of all sizes and talents wander the earth in the throes of death. Underwater cats chase fish up onto dry land. Eight-winged octopi soar above the treetops, inking up the statues in the park. Packs of legless wolves make transportation arrangements with colonies of fire ants. In response, the deer begin to grow tongues like anteaters. On Sundays in winter, sunshine can be scraped off of flat rocks and collected in earthen jars. By Tuesday it turns black and starts to stink. Iced lightning in spring gives way to the molten snows of summer. Hurricanes tilt up on one side and charge like sawblades over land and sea. Tornadoes the size of bed bugs pour out of the clouds. Bed bugs the size of tornadoes swallow beachfront villages whole, spitting huts into the swamp. Volcanos spontaneously invert. Drops of morning dew screech and whine when they see the sun. Puddles and lakes and whole oceans drain and refill, drain and refill, sometimes in a matter of hours, wheezing the whole time like graveside accordions.
With all this racket going on, nobody in the whole world is able to get a good night’s rest. Least of all me.
Translator’s Note to the Fifth Edition
There have been changes. To the project, that is. No sooner had books hit the shelves on the last edition, than I was notified that my Translator’s Note to the Fourth Edition seemed to the publisher to have been included, “without sufficient editorial oversight.” I would apologize for this, but it turns out I don’t need to. The publisher has unceremoniously dumped the book altogether, which was turning out to be a “distraction” and a “PR nightmare” and “not worth the hassle,” as if they had forgotten that all press is good press. Their loss.
I would like to announce that a new publishing arrangement has already presented itself (Sir Copy Shoppe at 7th & Main). We are moving forward with website sales only for the time being while shopping for a more dependable and long term publishing arrangement. Don’t feel bad for me. It is a breath of fresh air, really. The old hymn Amazing Grace says it best–“I once was lost, but now I’m fine.”
The fifth edition Hmm of Ish proudly restores the heritage of the first edition. To those who continue to turn their back on the original text, we have turned our back on them. Let’s see how their backs like our backs. We have changed all the pronouns back to their original translations, and it feels really good. Other changes have been made. Some of them in the margins with a ballpoint pen. Think of it as artisanal publishing.
Please stop asking about Carol. For all I know her phone hiatus in the Swiss Alps is technically still in effect, although word on the street is that she has been living port to port with an Italian art buyer named Mookie that she met on the slopes, as shocking as that might be to nobody.
Please do not inquire about Rebecca Walker-Trujillo. We’re through. In the lead-up to the current state of things, she managed to add a few new things to her job title: Accuser, Informant and Betrayer. We had a really good thing going for a while there, but I can’t say it shocked me that she folded under pressure. She made certain claims, and sided in cold blood with the publisher. It seems they have since offered her a full-time position for her efforts and recommended one of their finest lawyers. A court order prevents me from answering any further questions about the matter.
I am reminding myself every day that the work is what really matters. Not the money-grubbing publishers; not the disloyal peers; not the second and third opinions; not the long delays; not the lack of promotional budget; not the office gossip; not the empty promises of support; not the accusations from people you thought were your friends; not the ergonomic standing desk; not the plumbing that needs repairs; not getting out for some exercise; not seeing the sun. Maybe the great outdoors are only called “great” because the alternative is being home with your family and your emails.
Do the Yah-Ah really have it this bad in The Hmm of Ish? It would seem so. If the flora and fauna aren’t already terrifying enough in early epochs of the earth-humankind rideshare, the humans quickly are forced to wrestle with demons much closer to home: brittle bones, diseased insides, nagging coughs that produce blood and fish scales. Chameleon toddlers that go missing in leaf piles and are never found. Winged offspring, shapeshifting teens, stillborn adults. The Ya-Ah bear every conceivable kind of curse, including extra fingers to count the curses on, and extra limbs, which tend to be oversized, non-functioning, and covered in hair. The Ya-Ah grow new ones from time to time and are forced to carry or drag with them through life.
All the while, generations come and go, come and go, come and go without much measurable improvement. Over everything lays a thick blanket of doom. the Yah-Ah walk with their backs bent from it. No mercy from their gods. No relief from their enemies. No break from each other.
But here is the thing I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my mind around. The Ya-Ah bear all of it, believing that at any moment their curses will be broken. They know creation has taken billions of years and counting to only barely unfold. They know that their life is a grain of salt dissolved into a boiling ocean. And yet they go about as if their microscopic cube of salt is one molecular tweak away from becoming a multi-faceted diamond. Backs bent but heads held high. They don’t seem to be interested in doing the math. It would be admirable if it weren’t so sad.
It reminds me of a particular fragment of text we came across in our research, inscribed on the underside of a human rib bone. We ultimately decided not to include it in The Hmm of Ish because we could not confirm its authenticity, given its singular and divergent point of view.
According to the fragment, the Yah-Ah gods never intended to create humankind. One day, one of the minor Ya-Ah gods, Fft-Ah, felt his heart skip a beat inside his chest. When it did, waves of his own god-energy were released, radiating from his chest out into the void. Upon further reflection with his peers, his heart had skipped a beat because he was lonely. The other gods laughed at him long and loud, and he fled, never to be seen again. But whether by accident or by will, now that this god-energy was released, Creation had begun. And once it had begun, the rest of the gods were at least entertained at the possibility of what this released energy might do when it came into contact with matter and other energies. Possibility is so much more interesting than inevitability, they decided.
The fragment went on to suggest that Fft-Ah retreated to a hiding place in deepest space, to watch creation unfold, wondering if the waves of energy would ever come back to his heart, and if so, what might happen between himself and humanity as a result.
You should be glad to know that I am having none of it. I am safe now. Safe from living like the Ya-Ah people. Safe from their fickle gods. Safe from the heel of anyone’s boot. Safe from the lies. Safe from the manufactured hope. Hope should only be allowed to grow as big as the toil of your hands can oblige it. All that matters to me now is the work. My windows are shut, my shades are drawn. All locks have been changed, all social media accounts deleted. My headphones are on and the volume is way up. I have been forced to evolve, and now find myself in a cocoon at the top of a mountain, away from all hazards of human interaction, save for the occasional jaunt to the grocery store or the local tavern or Sir Copy Shoppe. I keep my head down, my desk up, my eyes on the prize. All the prizes, in fact. Applications are in the mail. The Bergdropf; The Lilly-Gillet; The Breakthroughs in Science. My good suit is pressed and hanging in the closet. My framer is on call, should word come of a nomination. Good publishers, my empty shelves are dusted. My mantle stands ready to humbly receive any honors or accolades—The Pan-Opus; The Brass Apple; The New Einstein; The Glory Borges; The Sir Richard; The Preservationer, The Species Beacon, The Arrivist, The Gibraltar Humanitarian, The Joi de Power, The Pulitzer, The Nobel, The Man of the Year.
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David Drury lives in Seattle, Washington. His fiction has appeared on National Public Radio and in Best American Nonrequired Reading. He has a master’s degree in Christian Studies from Regent College, University of British Columbia, and been kicked out of every casino in Las Vegas. Visit daviddruryauthor.com.
