Lyrics
“Racing the Sun"
Narrator: Utanapishtim. Gilgamesh knows the name well. He'd heard many tales about this immortal man and his immortal wife at the ends of the earth-- surely, they will tell him the secret of how to escape death. And if they do not, he will compel them. He leaves the city. No one can stop him, not even his distraught mother.
His journey is long.
Time feels different in grief, in the wilderness. He sees Enkidu in every rocky outcrop, in his own reflection in the rivers. He eats little and sleeps less.
The unrelenting grief, the wilderness, the solitude all affect his mind strangely. He sees scorpion people. They speak. They tell him the only way to Utanapishtim is first to enter a tunnel through which the sun traverses every night. He will need to race through that tunnel in order to come out the other side before the sun re-enters, reducing him to cinders. They warn him to turn back. It is always the same with scorpion people, he thinks, and yet he's never seen scorpion people before.
Wondering about the state of his own mind, he enters the tunnel, feels its cold air. And it becomes thinner as he begins running as fast as he can. His body is racing, his mind is racing, racing the sun. Hour after hour in the darkness, a darkness that refuses to adapt to his eyes. His breath shortens. Strange sounds, phantom voices fill his ears. He hears things he does not understand.
His body is racing, his mind is racing, racing the sun. Strange sounds, phantom voices fill his ears. He hears things he does not understand.
Hour after hour in the darkness... (whispered)