Harold awoke to discover he had had a nocturnal emission, something that hadn’t happened to him in a long time. He was still hard, too, which was also different. He wasn’t sure why, but he linked the stanza to the dream and to his erection. Maybe it was simply that he could twist the third line into a half-dozen slang words for “penis.”
He stroked himself while he tried to remember the woman’s face, her eyes rimmed with black, her lips with a dusky red, the way they curved into an ecstatic sort of sneer, her teeth exposed, when she came, riding atop him, her hands on his chest.
This time he was conscious of his orgasm, the muscle spasms, the hot fluid landing on his chest, on the knuckles of his hand.
* * * *
The knock at his cubicle startled him. He half-turned in his wheelchair, then unlocked the brake and rolled the chair so he was facing his visitor.
Dr DeReal wasn’t smiling.
“You took it home last night,” he said.
Harold sniffed a little before nodding.
“Well,” said his manager, “so did everyone else. The text has everyone more excited than usual.”
“Because it’s a poem, maybe, a prayer, and not an inventory,” Harold said. Dr DeReal nodded.
“Or maybe because of the way I split it up, wanted to play with it, to tease out the meanings.”
Harold looked at his boss. Dr DeReal was young, younger than Harold, and wasn’t afraid to try different things.
“I thought it was a good idea,” Harold said, “I just couldn’t stop thinking about alternative translations.”
The manager nodded again then said, “I’m e-mailing an image of the complete text to everyone today. How many unique possibilities did you come up with for yours?”
“Three if you include a more general version.”
“Fine, then I’ll expect three translations from you. Sound good?”
“Yessir.”
“Great. Don’t take work home with you anymore, Harold.”
“No, sir,” Harold said.
He had a fourth translation, based on his dream, that he wasn’t going to share with his boss:
Head of penis
Rigid, waiting
Penis
The future
Freud would have been proud.
* * * *
The whole text was three stanzas, one for him, one for Wendy, one for Peter. Harold scrolled up and down, looking at the stanzas on his desktop, making notes on his tablet with his stylus.
Princess Ankh-hetep
Begs the gods
To bequeath the rod
That secures the future
The eye is blind
Stone made to wait;
The cylinder
Which seals one’s fate.
Flood of life
For fields to grow
Requires the rod
Requires the seed.
If that wasn’t a prayer for fecundity, Harold didn’t know what was. The mystery was over, then. Some ancient Egyptian princess wrote a prayer for penises. Once they had an estimate from the thermoluminescence dating process they’d probably discover it had been written after some sort of disease had ravaged the area.
Harold looked at his digital pad, rereading the stanzas. Most of the glyphs were either hieretic or demotic, but some of the glyphs weren’t typical of any Egyptian era that he knew of, and he didn’t recognize the princess’ name; “ankh” -- life -- was a popular part of royal names from several dynasties, but “hetep” -- peace -- only showed up in the third and fourth. Linking them together wasn’t something he’d seen before. It worried him. Maybe they were looking at a well-done forgery. It wouldn’t be the first time someone with a little creativity had managed to do a good enough job to get their artwork into his office.
Why is the eye blind? Why did the stone have to wait? Harold asked himself. Those two lines stuck out at him, out of place amidst the rest. He already thought of the “blind eye” as the tip of the penis, an old joke. But it could be the sun, it could be referring to Ra, although he’d never heard of Ra as being blind. Maybe the princess and her people thought Ra was turning a blind eye to their anguish. If so, why didn’t the author just use the hieroglyphic for “Ra” or “sun?” And he still thought of “waiting stone” as a raging hard-on but maybe it referred to bones awaiting burial, with so many dead, or the once-lush valley barren and awaiting the floods, if the cause of so many deaths wasn’t disease but drought.
Harold put his tablet down on his desk and wheeled himself to the lunch room. Maybe some food, a Snickers Bar, and some coffee would help his brain work better.
* * * *
Wendy was already sitting at the little table. She grinned at him as he rolled in.
“I hear we were all cheating last night,” she said, her voice teasing and light. For a moment Harold thought she was referring to his dream, where’d he made love to a caricature of a harem girl. But of course she was referring to the fact that they’d all kept working on the translation.
Harold smiled back at her. He liked her. He liked that her background was different enough from his that their translation attempts sometimes crossed and sometimes built on each other. Her black, curly hair was in a tidy afro, as usual, but today she was wearing makeup.
Once he’d fished his lunch out of the fridge and rolled up to the table he said, “You look good without makeup, you know, but this look,” he gestured at her face, “it really suits you.”
“Thanks, Harold,” she said, are mouth quirked a little, as though she was thinking about schooling him on something.
“Got a date after work?” he asked.
“Nope, just felt like taking a little extra time on myself this morning,” she said, then added, “What about you? You’re looking extra fine: new shirt and pocket protector?”
Harold laughed, patted his pocket protector self-consciously.
“Yeah, I was thinking maybe a woman might notice my new threads and ask me out. But enough about my thrilling love life,” he said, “What do you think of the text, the prayer poem?”
Wendy put down her yogurt and spoon and laced her fingers together. Her eyes were hooded. Harold could see the black eye liner and his mind flashed back on his dream. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, felt himself getting hard. He was glad he’d tucked himself under the table.
“I think it’s a fake,” she said, “It’s using all the wrong glyphs, making metaphorical statements that are more modern, not from any Ancient Egyptian era.”
Harold nodded. “I think so, too,” he said with a sigh, “The stanza Dr DeReal gave me was so --” he groped for the right word, “compelling. I wanted it to be genuine.”
“Me, too,” Wendy said, “Mine was the third stanza. All that talk about rods and seed. . .” her voice trailed off. She was staring at Harold. I am an asexual, he told himself, I do not react to other people getting hot and bothered! The self-admonition didn’t really work. He swallowed nervously, his own rod harder than ever, even after two orgasms.
“Do you,” Harold cleared his throat and tried again, “Do you think the reference to a, uh, rod could have been literal? An item they thought was imbued with magic?”
“I asked Dr DeReal for a list of contents recovered from the cave,” they heard a voice say. Wendy and Harold turned to find Peter standing in the doorway. “He’s going to e-mail it to the three of us after lunch.”
Peter, tall and overweight, lumbered into the lunchroom and sat at the table with them. He tilted back in his chair a little and looked down his nose at Wendy’s yogurt.
“You need to eat more,” he said, “Or you’re going to get too skinny.”
“Body shaming in the work place is never a good idea, Peter. I’m adding it to the journal I’m keeping about you,” Wendy said, her voice soft and a small smile on her lips. “When I’m manager, you’re out.”
Peter waved a hand as if swatting at a fly.
“Whatev’s,” he said, “Listen, the thing’s a fake. We all know it. I’m just curious now about the other things they’ve forged. Fuckin’ towelheads are some creative bastards, I’ll give them that.”
Wendy sighed and Peter said, “Yeah, yeah, another item for your journal.”
Peter looked at the other half of Harold’s sandwich.
“You gonna eat that?” he asked.
Harold looked at Wendy. She looked like a queen when she was upset with Peter, with that upright carriage and an aura about her that made him want to obey any orders. But then she took a deep breath, let it out, and she deflated a little. Whatever shiny strength she had disappeared. They were just three translators in a little office at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Three translators who’d spent too much of their free time yesterday puzzling over what was looking more and more like a forgery.
* * * *
Harold took it home, anyway, and tried looking at the poem as if it were full of penises.
Princess Peaceful Life
Begs the gods
For penis
So she can have a baby
Tip of Penis
Raging hard-on (why “cylinder” rather than “rod”?)
Penis
Baby-maker.
Semen (or maybe vaginal lubrication?)
Pregnancy
Needs penis
Needs semen.
If he were a modern-day forger, he’d probably write a penis joke, too. He was chuckling to himself at his impressively literal translation, but he was also constantly adjusting himself. He’d had a stiffy, off and on, all day. It was bothering him. After being asexual for years he was starting to wonder if his sex drive and orientation were changing.
His iPhone chimed. He checked his messages.
“Hey Harold. Can I come over to talk about the poem?” -- W
“Sure. Have you had dinner?” -- H
“No, not yet. But you don’t have to offer.” -- W
“Too late. Started on dinner for two. 7 PM.” -- H
“Thanks, Harold.” -- W
* * * *
The dinner conversation wasn’t stilted. It wasn’t even that embarrassing for Harold, considering he kept having flashes of his dream every time he looked at Wendy.
“What’d you think of the inventory list DeReal sent?” Wendy asked, once they’d covered the weather, why Peter insisted on being a jerk considering he was smart and had nothing to prove, and whether or not the Bull’s were going to win this weekend.
“I think we should ask if we can take a look at the stone cylinder,” Harold said, “It’s the only thing out of that list of stuff that might relate to the poem.”
“Other than the amphorae,” Wendy said, “Those might hold the wheat they’d hoped to plant if they got rain or the seasonal flood.”
“But I thought you agreed with me, that this is all fake,” Harold said.
Wendy shrugged, fiddled with her glass of water. She’d said no, thank you, to the wine and the Scotch. Harold hoped it was because she just didn’t like alcohol, rather than out of some sense of sympathy for him.
“I think it’s not a cache that’s going to be linked to any dynasty or specific Egyptian king, no. But it’s still possible that whoever made it, made it hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Maybe it’s a forgery in the sense that its creators were mimicking the Egyptians, that they were hoping it would help them with whatever calamity they were facing.”
“Or maybe it’s something that comes before the unification and subjugation of that area under Egyptian rule,” Harold said, then doubted himself. The use of hieroglyphics wouldn’t have dated back that far.
“Demotic?” Wendy asked, following his train of thought.
Harold shook his head, “Demotic was for business, hieratic for religion.”
“But if you go back far enough. . .” Wendy said.
“Yeah, if you go back far enough, demotic was it. I just didn’t want to see that, even though I was confused by some of the glyphs they’d chosen to use.”
“But, some of the symbols ARE hieratic.”
“Written during the transitional era?”
Harold was getting excited again. And hard. He blushed.
“What?” Wendy asked, noticing.
“I-- I’ve got an overly literal translation I’ve been working on.”
“Well bring it here! Let me read it,” Wendy said.
“It’s, ah, well, overly literal,” Harold said, unconsciously repeating himself. Wendy chuckled.
“We both know it’s about fecundity,” Wendy said. Then, in a gentler voice, “Show me.”
Harold left his napkin wadded in his lap so Wendy couldn’t see the profile of his hard-on and wheeled himself over to his desktop. He shuffled the mouse to wake the computer up. Wendy came over and stood behind him. He could see her reflection in the black monitor, then it disappeared when the word program came up, revealing his childish poem.
She read silently over his shoulder.
“Good Lord, Harold,” she said, “I like the way your mind works.” She put a hand on his shoulder. The sensation tingled and spiked its way down to his crotch. He didn’t dare move. “You didn’t seem like the kind of guy who liked -- rods.”
“I, uh, well,” Harold said, staying perfectly still, “No, I’m not gay.”
“But?” Wendy prompted.
Harold blinked rapidly. The warmth of her hand on his shoulder was distracting.
“I, uh, the poem, is, uh. . .” his voice trailed away.
“It’s all about penises,” Wendy said.
“Yes,” Harold agreed, “It’s just interesting to me that ‘cylinder’ is a better translation than ‘rod’ in my stanza. I mean, they use different glyphs in the first and third stanzas. And then there’s the idea that the ‘flood’ could either be male or female ejaculate. These are potential issues that wouldn’t be as obvious if we were satisfied with the explanation that it’s just a fecundity prayer. Breaking it down to its most fundamental meaning brings up those issues.”
“So you think the stone cylinder they found might be directly related to the poem,” Wendy said.
Harold nodded.
“Well, let’s see if Peter or I can convince DeReal to get us access to the cylinder,” Wendy said. She removed her hand from Harold’s shoulder and he felt his body slump a little, as though released from a spell. He swallowed nervously and wheeled himself back to the dining table, following Wendy, trying not to admire her figure.
“What are your thoughts on Princess Peaceful Life?” Wendy asked, once Harold had served up ice cream.
“The name is weird,” Harold said, “Another reason to think it’s a hoax.”
“Or another reason to think someone, thousands of years ago, was mimicking the Egyptians in the hopes of winning favors with the gods,” Wendy said, smiling.
Harold shrugged, said, “Why would a people, decimated by drought or plague or both, turn to someone else’s religion? Seems like they’d just make more sacrifices to their own gods.”
“Maybe the problem they had was ongoing. Maybe they thought it was time to accept the new gods, the ones that favored the Egyptians.”
“One of the things that always interested me,” said Harold, sucking thoughtfully on his spoon, “is how long the Ancient Egyptians lasted. I mean, the boundaries of the land they controlled shifted a little over time, but they lasted way beyond most modern civilizations.”
“Oh?” said Wendy, arching an eyebrow, “Western civilization seems pretty pandemic to me.”
“Yeah, but Western civilization is more like a virus; it’s spread from country to country. Americans probably have a hard time accepting it originated in Greece.”
“Or Mesopotamia, depending on how you look at it,” Wendy said.
“But Ancient Egypt was like this little island of unchanging social structure. Everyone did everything the same way for, like, ten thousand years.”
Wendy waved a hand, tilted her head dismissively, “Things change, people change. And you’re throwing prehistoric Egypt in with the dynasties. Take out prehistory and it’s, like, three thousand years. A blink of an eye. And don’t try to tell me that the inventing of writing didn’t change the social structure or that everyone did everything the same way for ten thousand years.”
Harold nodded, “Okay, maybe I’m overgeneralizing.”
“Yes, but you’re still correct,” Wendy said, “Ancient Egypt was its own bubble of rich, deep culture, while Western civilization spread like a virus.”
“I’m not sure which is better,” Harold said, mostly to himself, tapping his spoon against his upper teeth.
“That’s not a question we should ask ourselves when we consider the history of humanity,” Wendy said, “There are some unfortunate things about both civilizations; any civilization, really. It just makes sense, when you look at what was important to the Egyptians: the Nile, the agriculture, the stone. Why go looking for changing scenery when the Nile radically changes everything around you? Best to stay and work the land and hope you get enough food.”
“But the Greeks?”
“They just had a better alphabet. Otherwise we’d all still be arguing over whether Ra is the sun or carries the sun.”
“Spoken like a true linguist,” Harold said, smiling. Wendy grinned back at him.
“Thanks for the lovely evening,” she said, standing up, “But I’ve got to get home now, watch a few shows I Tivo’d, before I go to bed at some ungodly hour.”
* * * *
Harold had another dream that night. The wheat field was still green but the heads were starting to ripen. The Nile looked farther away than before, but the cliffs were just as close. He walked toward them, using a kerchief to wipe at his brow. He passed the place he’d made love to the sex slave, new shoots growing too slowly to make it in time for harvest.
He had just started to scale the cliff face when he looked to his left and saw Wendy there, also climbing. She was in a cartoonish version of an archeologist’s outfit, with the top too tight for her bust and the shorts too short to be useful. Her usually tidy, short-ish afro was longer, wilder. He felt a twinge of guilt that his subconscious self was so racist.
“Good to see you here, Harold,” she said, taking another step up, grasping the base of a shrub for support.
“Glad to be here,” he said. He was working hard to keep up with her but he couldn’t manage it. When he realized she was going to get to the cave first he let go of his competitive urges and just admired her ass instead.
“Keep your eyes on the prize, honey,” she called.
“Oh, I am,” he called back.
She had disappeared into the cave by the time he got to the entrance.
“Come on in, my right hand man,” he heard her voice echo up from the depths of the cave.
“Coming!” he called.
He woke up to find his sheets sticky again, his dick still hard. He masturbated, rubbing his own cum into himself, trying to think of any image, even the thought of the harem girl, to distract him from admitting he’d just had a sex dream about his co-worker. But the image of her ass in those shorts, her gleaming black thighs descending out of them, her beautiful hair, but, most of all, the way she so effortlessly scaled that cliff, leaving him behind, but wanting to include him. He felt simultaneously grateful and horny.
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