The old man was waiting for the boy on the bank of the pond. He saw his silhouette through the branches as he walked towards him with a ball made of clay in his hands.
“Here, old man”, the boy said, getting down on his knees and handing him a damp ball made of clay.
“You said this was the last one for today.”
“Yes, boy, these old eyes are tired. I will write a few more lines and that will be enough for today”
The old man took a piece of rounded wood and thinned out part of the clay ball. The boy knew the whole process.
Now he will take his stylus, he will write a couple of lines, and only then he will thin the lower part of the clay ball so it would remain soft and suitable for writing.
The boy turned to the other side and his gaze wandered off somewhere in the distance.
When he paused to rest his hand, the old man looked at the boy.
“What’s the matter, boy, you seem angry to me?”
“You promised to teach me how to write. Every day I bring you clay, and you teach me nothing.”
“You know that I have to finish the story of our ruler Gilgamesh, “said the old man gravely, “I have to transfer everything to the plates until the thoughts have evaporated from this old head. After that, I’ll teach you everything. And while you wait, you learn. You already know where to dig for the best clay. You look at me as I write, you notice the way I hold the stylus with my right hand and the way I hold the lower part of the table with my left hand. You learned how long I dry the plates in the sun and how long I bake them later.
“And I know where you hide them later, “the boy added.”And why do you even try so hard, if you have to hide them later?
 “Look, son, “the old man looked at him seriously, “our ruler Gilgamesh, he is a good and just ruler, but he was not always like that. He had a long way to go, to resist many temptations, to lose his best friend Enkidu, and to know the essence of life. I don’t know who will come after him, but they are strange, you know, these rulers. Some value the previous one, continue where he left off, respect his name and his laws, and do not allow the name of the previous one to be forgotten. Others, on the other hand, destroy the traces of their predecessors, introduce new laws, and try to eradicate the memory of everything that was before them as soon as possible. If that happens, it’s better to have my plates buried. I am sure that one day, after a long time, someone will appear who will find and dig them up and who will know how to appreciate the work of these hands and the work of our ruler. They will keep them in a safe place, where other people will be able to see them and hear about his glory.
“But no one will know that you wrote them “, the boy cried, “when time passes over time, no one will know about you.”
“Oh, I will try somehow, boy,” the old man smiled slyly, “I will put my name Urshanabi in this story and I will be the Ferryman of the Underworld”
 “Why the Ferryman?” the boy asked
“Because that is what I would like to be, to transport the souls of the dead to the Underworld.
The boy thinks.”But then you would be in that world all the time, you would never see the sun”
“That’s right, boy, there is no turning back from that world. The gods allowed our ruler to go there because his suffering for the lost friend Enkidu was so great, but he himself realized that there was no returning from that dark world. In the end, we all become just dust and darkness.
The boy turned his head so that the old man could not see the tears rolling down his face.
“Am I beautiful Urshanabi?” almost in a whisper, the little boy asked.
The old man seemed to be staring at the boy’s clear eyes and pretty face for the first time.
“You are a beautiful boy, that’s for certain!”
The boy leaned over the smooth surface of the pond and looked at his reflection in it. Then he jumped to his feet and shouted “Look Urshanabi, I am beautiful, I am beautiful, look I have two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, why, I am made of twos! You see, this world where I am now must be connected to another world. Look, the sky is reflected in the lake, so that beautiful world must be up, it must be up, Urshanabi! And it has to be prettier and brighter than this!”
The old man thought for a moment. ”Could be, boy. If the gods allow me to be the Ferryman, I will beg them earnestly to transport souls to that beautiful world of yours ”
The boy frowned ” Can’t do that, old man”
The old man put down the tablet again and looked at the boy.
”Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes,” said the boy, “but you can only take beautiful people into that beautiful world.”

“Only beautiful people, ey?” laughed the old man, “if someone is ugly, crippled, old, he must unquestioningly go into a dark world?”
 “No, no, listen to me Urshanabi. Do you know that girl who goes this way to the spring, whose face is all scabbed, her hands are in wounds and her hair is full of dust? Everyone turns away from her, but when she dares to raise her head and she smiles at me, I see in her eyes all the beauty of this world, because her soul is beautiful and pure and that soul of hers must go to the upper world. And yet, you know that nice guy who struts around the gates of the court, wears a fancy suit, and stalks girls in the square. Look into his eyes and you will see darkness, storms, and thunder. And he must go to the netherworld. ” The old man interrupted, “Oh, boy, you tired me with your stories. You may be right, but the gods have long since figured out what to do with us. They assigned death to us, and they kept life for themselves…hmm, I’ll have to write this down too ”.
The boy took the plates to dry in the sun and the gentle summer breeze and the old man put down his utensils and rubbed his tired eyes. Then they sat on the shore for a long time, each immersed in his own thoughts. The old man sailed in the murky water, waiting for the souls of the dead, and the boy looked at the sky that was losing color, waiting for the stars and waiting for the new sunrise.

In 1839, English traveler Austen Henry Layard excavated twenty-five thousand clay tablets from the ruins of Nineveh. Henry Rowlins and George Smith translated the Epic of Gilgamesh, considered the oldest literary work, into English around 1872. It was created between 2700 and 600 BC in Mesopotamia.