On a warm June day in 1871, Arthur walks briskly through Pic­cadil­ly, pre­oc­cu­pied with his thoughts and clutch­ing a scent­ed silk hand­ker­chief. He has recent­ly start­ed grow­ing a beard, adjust­ing to this new aspect of him­self. His pock­et holds a per­fume he for­mu­lat­ed from an ancient Mesopotami­an recipe by a female par­fumi­er named Tap­puti, a blend that reflects his ded­i­ca­tion to both his work and his per­son­al style, albeit at a high cost. Despite his years of study­ing tablets at the British Muse­um, he has yet to receive a pro­mo­tion, empha­siz­ing his sense of frus­tra­tion.

Arthur’s thoughts fre­quent­ly return to pro­found lone­li­ness, exac­er­bat­ed by the absence of his fam­i­ly. His younger broth­er lives in York­shire, hav­ing dis­tanced him­self from Lon­don, and he has not seen his moth­er in four years after she was insti­tu­tion­al­ized for men­tal dis­tress. The fab­ric of his fam­i­ly life feels shred­ded, mir­ror­ing the frag­ment­ed state of his pro­fes­sion­al recog­ni­tion.

As he moves past St James’s Church, he is caught in the noise of the city, where ven­dors shout and the clat­ter of car­riages resounds. A news­pa­per boy’s shout jolts him: “The author is dead! Mr. Dick­ens has gone to meet his Mak­er!” Arthur buys a paper and is struck by the poignan­cy of the news, reflect­ing on the fleet­ing nature of extra­or­di­nary lives. He con­trasts the end of Dick­en­s’s life with joy­ful news from the Lon­don Zoo—a new calf born to the hip­popota­mus­es, sym­bol­iz­ing life amid death.

Upon arriv­ing at the British Muse­um, Arthur immers­es him­self in his research, lock­ing his door to shut out the world. His soli­tude shifts the next day as he, now invig­o­rat­ed, impul­sive­ly calls for a meet­ing with trustees and col­leagues, an unusu­al move for the typ­i­cal­ly ret­i­cent Arthur. He shares a new­found dis­cov­ery from the *Epic of Gil­gamesh*, reveal­ing a sto­ry of a cat­a­stroph­ic flood and allud­ing to par­al­lels with the bib­li­cal Noah’s Ark. His impas­sioned rev­e­la­tion gets met with enthu­si­asm, con­vic­tion ignit­ing with­in him as a sense of impor­tance swells.

The public’s inter­est bur­geons around his dis­cov­ery, draw­ing Arthur into an unex­pect­ed spot­light. The prime min­is­ter, William Ewart Glad­stone, invites him to lec­ture at the Soci­ety of Bib­li­cal Archae­ol­o­gy, though Arthur feels ill-equipped to han­dle such an esteemed plat­form. On the night before the event, he strug­gles with sleep­less­ness, pet­ri­fied but deter­mined to make his mark.

Dur­ing the lec­ture, he elab­o­rates on Mesopotami­an his­to­ry and its civ­i­liza­tions, cul­mi­nat­ing in his inter­pre­ta­tion of the Flood Tablet. The suc­cess of his pre­sen­ta­tion leads to gen­uine applause and admi­ra­tion, yet he is over­whelmed by the new­found pub­lic scruti­ny and media atten­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in var­i­ous sen­sa­tion­al arti­cles detail­ing his life and achievements—some flat­ter­ing, oth­ers dis­tort­ing. Despite the acco­lades, he feels the weight of nerves and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly about his hum­ble begin­nings, leav­ing him feel­ing exposed amidst the bustling city that thrum with dis­cus­sions about him.

Wait­ing ai