I should never be remembered according to the laws of men. Silent, like my gender ought to be. They speak my words, weave those sentences into the hymns they recite, but they are my legacy, my stories. I wrote them down. I gave them life.
Maybe it is egotistical to claim words as my own. Why do I feel so possessive of these words spoken among thousands?
Does it make me any different from the kings and their soldiers claiming the lands? Men are praised for laying a claim on barren lands, yet a woman's claim on her own thoughts is rapacious. Does my gender not entitle me to my thoughts and desires? Am I to give away all that I have created because I was born a woman?
I do not wish to lay claim on anything that isn't mine, not a desert plain nor a silken garb. I only want to protect what is mine - that which I have created. Like a mother who wishes to protect her children, I brought these writings into a world that does not seem to understand them, a world that wants to taint and change them into something they were never meant to be.
So, I lay my claim on them in order to protect them. Is that so wrong?
My father's name is carved in every clay tablet; his words and actions will be remembered for centuries. My brothers follow in his footsteps, having their heroisms immortalized with their names, sons of the mightiest king that ever lived. But my mother, the woman who raised those boys, is but an image standing in my father's shadow. Her name is not carved on any tablet, nor are her deeds remembered. Even her portrait on the palace wall is nameless. Is that to be my fate? To go down in history as a mere image on a wall?
No. If the gods choose that path for me, I should feel content with that notion, but I don't. The gods granted me too much pride to be satisfied with a measly image. I will carve my name on the tablets myself. Immortalize my story, my opinion, my thoughts. After my spirit has left this realm, and they have given my body back to the earth, my name will still be remembered.
I will make sure of it.
The idea alone gives me a strength I never thought I would possess. Who would have thought that being able to carve one's place in history would be so exhilarating? Perhaps people centuries from now will read my writings and speak my name.
What will they say about me?
What will they think about the first woman-no-the first human who claimed the words she wrote as her own?
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Enheduanna: The First Author - Wattys Winner 2021
Historical FictionWATTYS 2021 Historical Fiction winner | Writers Of The Past Series. 4000 years ago, in an empire where women were little more than flowers on the wall, one princess cemented her story in history and changed the art of writing for centuries to come...
