The dust stung my eyes as I hauled another brick to the growing pile. The sun scorched the back of my neck, but no one dared slow down. Not when the Overseer marched back and forth yelling, “Faster! Higher! Heaven’s waiting!” All around me, people were shouting in different languages—but not because they couldn’t understand each other. It was a chant, a celebration.
We thought we could touch the sky.
My name is Elan. I was twelve when I first saw the Tower. It was so high it made my stomach twist just to look up. They said it would reach the heavens. They said nothing could stop us. And I believed them.
Back then, we were one people—no nations, no borders, no different languages. We all spoke the same and thought the same. It felt powerful. Like we could do anything. Like we didn’t need God anymore.
“I heard the builders plan to carve stars into the tower’s top,” my friend Janek whispered one night. “So it looks like the sky lives down here now.”
I laughed, but it didn’t feel right. Something about it made my chest ache. Like tearing a cloth the wrong way.
The truth is, the Tower wasn’t really for heaven—it was for us. To show how great we were. They didn’t say it out loud, but you could feel it everywhere. Like smoke in your nose. They worshipped bricks more than the God who made the dirt under our feet.
One morning, things started to unravel.
It began with a scream.
A worker dropped his brick and flailed his arms, yelling something no one understood.
“Speak clearly!” the Overseer snapped.
“I—I am!” the man stammered—but the words tumbled out strange. Harsh. Twisted.
Then someone else tried to speak—and she sounded different too. The chants stopped. The celebration fell silent.
Within minutes, panic spread like fire. People shouted—but the words came out wrong. Neighbors who had spoken the same since birth now stared at one another in terror. Parents couldn’t understand their own children. Friends argued with wide eyes, thinking the other was mocking them.
We were one people. And just like that, we weren’t.
I searched for Janek, but I couldn’t understand what he was shouting. His face crumpled like he’d lost everything.
Someone cried, “It’s a curse!”
But I think it was mercy.
The tower stopped that day. Work ended. The bricks—so carefully stacked—crumbled as we walked away. People gathered in groups based on whatever strange words came easiest. Some headed east. Others packed wagons and drifted west. The valley emptied.
Janek’s group left before dawn. I waved—but he didn’t see me. Or maybe he no longer knew what a wave meant.
At first, I was angry. Why would God do this? We had something good. Something strong.
But one evening, as we camped alone on the plains, my mother said quietly, “God saw how high we built. But He also saw what pride had done to our hearts.”
I remembered the way men had laughed when the Tower grew taller than the mountains. I remembered hearing someone say, “Who needs God now?”
That’s when I understood: we weren’t scattered because God hated us. We were scattered because He loved us too much to let our pride destroy everything.
The Tower didn’t fall—but our pride did.
We never finished what we started. But in what felt like failure, God was planting something new. Nations. Cultures. Languages. A world that would, one day, need saving.
And when I look at the sky now, I don’t long to build into it. I long to hear from the One who made it.
The world didn’t break that day. It began again.
And so did I.
The dust stung my eyes as I hauled another brick to the growing pile. The sun scorched the back of my neck, but no one dared slow down. Not when the Overseer marched back and forth yelling, “Faster! Higher! Heaven’s waiting!” All around me, people were shouting in different languages—but not because they couldn’t understand each other. It was a chant, a celebration.
We thought we could touch the sky.
My name is Elan. I was twelve when I first saw the Tower. It was so high it made my stomach twist just to look up. They said it would reach the heavens. They said nothing could stop us. And I believed them.
Back then, we were one people—no nations, no borders, no different languages. We all spoke the same and thought the same. It felt powerful. Like we could do anything. Like we didn’t need God anymore.
“I heard the builders plan to carve stars into the tower’s top,” my friend Janek whispered one night. “So it looks like the sky lives down here now.”
I laughed, but it didn’t feel right. Something about it made my chest ache. Like tearing a cloth the wrong way.
The truth is, the Tower wasn’t really for heaven—it was for us. To show how great we were. They didn’t say it out loud, but you could feel it everywhere. Like smoke in your nose. They worshipped bricks more than the God who made the dirt under our feet.
One morning, things started to unravel.
It began with a scream.
A worker dropped his brick and flailed his arms, yelling something no one understood.
“Speak clearly!” the Overseer snapped.
“I—I am!” the man stammered—but the words tumbled out strange. Harsh. Twisted.
Then someone else tried to speak—and she sounded different too. The chants stopped. The celebration fell silent.
Within minutes, panic spread like fire. People shouted—but the words came out wrong. Neighbors who had spoken the same since birth now stared at one another in terror. Parents couldn’t understand their own children. Friends argued with wide eyes, thinking the other was mocking them.
We were one people. And just like that, we weren’t.
I searched for Janek, but I couldn’t understand what he was shouting. His face crumpled like he’d lost everything.
Someone cried, “It’s a curse!”
But I think it was mercy.
The tower stopped that day. Work ended. The bricks—so carefully stacked—crumbled as we walked away. People gathered in groups based on whatever strange words came easiest. Some headed east. Others packed wagons and drifted west. The valley emptied.
Janek’s group left before dawn. I waved—but he didn’t see me. Or maybe he no longer knew what a wave meant.
At first, I was angry. Why would God do this? We had something good. Something strong.
But one evening, as we camped alone on the plains, my mother said quietly, “God saw how high we built. But He also saw what pride had done to our hearts.”
I remembered the way men had laughed when the Tower grew taller than the mountains. I remembered hearing someone say, “Who needs God now?”
That’s when I understood: we weren’t scattered because God hated us. We were scattered because He loved us too much to let our pride destroy everything.
The Tower didn’t fall—but our pride did.
We never finished what we started. But in what felt like failure, God was planting something new. Nations. Cultures. Languages. A world that would, one day, need saving.
And when I look at the sky now, I don’t long to build into it. I long to hear from the One who made it.
The world didn’t break that day. It began again.
And so did I.
