Alex Xu and Jordan Landsberg

January 4, 2016

English II/ CPW

By the Waters of Babylon Story

Locations:
Broadway Mall / IKEA
Fanatico
Whole Foods
Jericho High School

I have emerged from the forest, and I followed the Great Road of God. I see this
monstrous building with stores and I cant help but notice it. It sat in the middle of the
asphalt lake, which had metal poles protruding from it. White lines crisscrossed the
ancient black surface. I carefully put my foot onto the lake. Store after store, the names
were so individualistic, it made me wonder. What was this place? The exuberant, yellow
letters stood out to me against the blue wall. It spelled 1C. Glass panels ran from
wall to wall. Inside was magical, as the store had everything you could possibly want.
Little rooms were filled with luxuries I have not encountered before. Their seats were not
like the wooden ones I am used to; they were soft and padded with mysterious furs. I
felt at home. Tables were placed on racks, hanging from the inner walls. What was this
place? What was its purpose? How did the people of the past eat and drink? Were they
able to float in the air? How wonderful would that be!
I decided to move along on the Great Road of God. After the first wonder I saw, I
was intrigued and wanted to see more. I walked a few more blocks and found this
mysterious hotspot that I think people used to walk in and out of. I wondered what this
was. I walked up and read a sign that spelled FNT1C. I walked in and saw a stack
of papers. It seemed to be a menu, but I couldnt tell. The black poles stood out to me,
and the menu was so bright. The stench of the rotting food was extremely foul, but I was
astonished that such a place even existed.
I kept going, and I was determined to find more clues to help me. Although I
didnt know where I was going, I knew that I needed to keep going. I passed by some
building that seemed to contain a market, and it went by the name of ML FD. I
saw a wheat stalk on the logo, and it seemed like this place belonged to a God of the
Farms. I decided to step inside, and see what this market contained. I stepped inside,

and saw a deserted aisles, wondering what couldve been inside. I had a hypothesis,
but it seemed a bit crazy. I thought that this market would perhaps have had live
animals inside, and the workers killed them there and sold them. The reason came to
my mind, because I smelled the remains of the decayed animals. It was vile. Then, I
saw something in there that I thought that Id never see. I saw a dead worker. The
worker rotted, and all I saw was the bones. It was a sight that you would never want to
see.
From the woods, I saw a grassy field with two-pronged forks at each end. It
probably was some sort of altar, where the people of the past sacrificed their goods to
the Gods. I continued cautiously onto the field, where I saw in the distance a large
complex of ruins. The ceiling had completely collapsed, perhaps many years ago. There
was a central pathway that ran through the buildings, like a spine. Stemming from it,
cubicles and rooms extended in rows. I passed the field now, onlooking onto this maze
of red brick. I decided to explore, as I climbed down. I looked through the broken glass,
and I saw papers of many hues scattered on the floor. I tried to touch one, but they were
hard as stone, as they were already embedded into the ground after all these years.
Places where the wall used to be was only filled with rubble now. A lone, remaining wall
stood, however, and I saw a handful of papers fastened to the wall. I walked towards it,
and I was excited to find that the words were still decipherable. It seemed like a
calendar of sorts, but it was not like any that I have seen before; there were rows of
seven cubes, and pages of 30 or 31. There were 12 pages in total. The big, bolded
words on the top of the page had been smeared by years of battering from the
elements, and all I could read was NURY.