I wrote a little Nimrod story based on the legend
In that rebellious age, the arrogance and overweening pride of mankind had reached a peerless zenith. King Nimrod was the very embodiment and standard-bearer of this wanton presumption. Goaded by his perfidious and cunning counsellors, Nimrod championed the lunatic scheme to erect the Tower of Babel. Sixty thousand labourers were marshalled to commence this unwarranted and insolent undertaking upon the Shinar plain.
Each brick laid was as an arrow of sacrilege loosed towards the Most High. The tower rose defiantly heavenward, as if a brazen challenge and revolt against the Lord. Yet among the builders were three factions of insurgents:
"Let us ascend to the pinnacle of the tower, penetrate the ethereal vaults, and openly defy that self-aggrandizing deity!" boldly cried the first.
"Nay, we should rather raise our own idols in the lofty ether, and cast ourselves down in obeisance before them," tempted the second.
And the third shouted even more presumptuously: "Let us scale the firmament, and with spear and bow slay every creature that dwells therein!"
Year upon year, day succeeding day, the Tower of Babel climbed skyward like a noxious vine, until it had attained a staggering altitude. Even to reach its summit required a journey of a full year. Thus, in the eyes of those labourers, a single flimsy brick was more precious than a human life. Should a worker perish in a fall, they scarcely spared a blink. But should even one brick tumble, they wept bitter tears, for it would take a year to return it to its place. Such was their frenzied focus, that even a woman in the throes of travail would not be permitted to pause her work - she would simply give birth upon the scaffolding, wrapping the babe in a sheet before resuming her toil.
To hasten their ascent to divine parity, they loosed arrows towards the heavens from their vertiginous heights, met only by the agonized shrieks and gushing blood. Yet this did not abate their ardour, but rather stoked it to an ever greater blaze.
In their hubris, they boasted that they had slain the very gods of the sky, crying: "We have vanquished the celestial vermin, and shall exist forever!"
"Ah, we have shot down all the deities! Now we ourselves are the gods!"
The Lord, seeing such iniquity, was wroth beyond all measure. He turned to the seventy angels that surrounded His throne, commanding: "Let us descend and confound their speech, that they may not understand one another!" And so it was, as the Lord willed. The builders could no longer comprehend each other's words, and chaos erupted. One would demand mortar, another hand him a brick, and soon fists and blood flew. Thus countless perished, while the survivors were meted out various punishments.
Those who had suggested erecting idols to worship were transformed into apes and goblins. The ones who had sought to assail the heavens by force were cast into the abyss. And the brazen blasphemers who had challenged the Lord openly were driven to the furthest reaches.
As for the tower of sin, part was entombed in the dark depths, part consumed by cleansing flames, leaving only a third still defiantly standing. And any who passed through that accursed land would be stricken by a strange curse: to forget all that they knew.
