Egypt: The Uprising
The Battle for Maat
Copyright 2011 Amira Aly,
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Chapter 1
I chose to write in this tongue that most of you can understand; that is, if you ever wake up to read my blog posts. I am not a blogging veteran, but I do hope eventually that you find your way here to my blog.
I cannot express the situation any better than Ma’at has: “The world is in slumber while the battle is at large in Kemet.”
I wish I were dreaming—or even making this up to sound cool—but I am not. What I am about to tell you is real.
You might wonder who I am. I will tell you. My name is Aya. Not that it is of any consequence, but if you know me better, you might better understand the events to follow. If you were to imagine a fifty-pound overweight Catherine Zeta-Jones, you would come close to drawing a picture of my not-so-attractive frame. Looks? Think Whoopi Goldberg without the grin, or maybe Oprah without the glamour. So, in short, I am extraordinarily ordinary. The one special thing I can claim for myself is that, as a baby, I used to look up and gaze at non-existent shadows in the air and smile for hours, which gave my mom the creeps.
I do not have much success with the boys in my high school. I tried hard to pass for a nerd, but I never had the grades to show for it, partly because I was obsessed, day and night, with social networking and whatnot. As you might well be aware, January 25th of 2011 was marked by nationwide protests in Egypt. The people demanded to put an end to the autocratic rule of Saye’ Mubasher, the 82-year-old president, often nicknamed the “Vile Pharaoh.” He struck back with all his might and unleashed his goons on the unarmed protestors—thousands dead, and puddles of blood on the streets of Liberation Square, are the result of his atrocities.
I followed the development from in front of my monitor. I was what you could call a “virtual activist.” My Aunt Mema “would rather die” than see me or my brother, Shedy, take part in such dangerous activities. And since, as good children, we wish her longevity above all, we succumbed to her will and stayed behind while the rest of Egypt took to the streets.
In our quiet suburban Cairene neighborhood, Aunt Mema, Shedy and I spent our days and nights glued to the television, in disbelief. The horror, the violent deaths, and the demonstrations on the streets, were nothing like anything we had ever witnessed before.
A twist of fate got me involved.
“Aya, check on the Internet for any news on the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities,” my aunt said, with a sense of urgency that I am not at all accustomed to, while staring in terror at the television. “Oh, dear God! They are looting it! The museum is under attack. Armed thugs are flowing in by the hundreds. This can’t be happening! This is our history. Who we are. How can they defile us like that?”
The images were scary. Masked men with machine guns were shooting at the protestors protecting the museum. It was unthinkable that anyone would take advantage of the political protests and kill people by the hundreds to rob a few statues and papyrus scrolls.
“It must be the work of the tyrannical pharaoh himself, Aya,” she said. “May God have mercy on our souls.”
“Huh! Our souls, Mema? You gotta be kidding me! Mercy on those who died defending freedom yes—but us? We are worthless cowards.” Shedy could not contain himself. He broke out in tears and threw himself into my arms.
Although the same age, I had always been Shedy’s rock and confidante, especially since our father was murdered. Shivering in my arms, he reached out for Dad’s black and yellow striped, woolen Kuffiya. The hand-stitched, Badarian wrap had been providing us with much more than warmth for the last two years. It was all we had left of my dad’s things after Aunt Mema gave them all away—not out of charity, but rather to bury a painful memory of her older brother. My dad had told us stories of how this Kuffiya had been passed down in his family for generations. The story goes that it was weaved from the wool of sacred bulls of the El Badari village, where my dad’s family could trace back its ancestry to the predynastic Badarian culture, the founding culture of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Wrapped up tight in the shawl, Shedy went to sleep on the couch. I tried to get up as carefully as I could so as to avoid the loud squeaks of the three-legged couch, but instead I knocked down the black wooden chest that the tired couch was resting upon. Luckily, Shedy did not wake up. He just stirred in his sleep and moaned something that sounded incomprehensible, but sad all the same. Auntie Mema was starting to doze off in the chair herself, just like every other night as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
I tried to reinstate the chest in its rightful place. After all, I cannot deny our only couch its fourth leg. But as I was picking it up, trying to give it a good nudge, I felt a sharp prick to my thumb. I checked the box. Saw nothing, except for the smudge of blood left by my bleeding finger. As I was putting it down to get a Band-Aid, I noticed the box was shaking. A very slow, almost rhythmical, vibratory motion that you would miss if you were not paying attention. I picked it back up and placed it on the table. It did not stop vibrating. I could hear a faint noise: a soothing hum that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. The hum was inside my head, yet also around me. I felt myself become more and more relaxed, as if put to sleep by this invisible lullaby.
I then heard a familiar noise come from the computer in my bedroom right across the hall. The ring of an instant message. I was relieved to be out of this eerie trance. I glanced over at Shedy and Mema, and heard their heavy breathing—thank God they were fast asleep.
Anxious and puzzled, I sat at the computer hoping to forget all about the vibrating box and the dream-like state. I did not know what to make of the chest incident, but the pain from my bleeding thumb was keeping me from doubting that what had happened was very real.
I sat and stared at the screen expecting a message from one of my revolutionary friends giving me an update about the situation in Tahrir Square. I found instead an anonymous instant message. I did not think that this was even possible. I set my privacy settings high specifically so that no one could contact me except people on my contacts list. But, there it was, a flashing message on the screen. The message was composed awkwardly, almost like an email, with a salutation at the top.
Dear Aya,
I hope I did not startle you. Please accept my apologies. It is imperative that we talk. I am sure you are following the developments in Liberation (what you call Tahrir) Square, but what you don’t know is that things are much more than they seem. There is more at stake than meets the eye. The powers of evil are uniting against the innocents on the streets.
Sincerely,
Ma’at
Should I be changing my handle to Isis-Goddess-of-Magic now or something?
OK, I’ll play along. Not because I am intrigued, but because I am in the mood for some fun. But honestly, Ma’at? As in the feather-of-truth, Divine Justice Ma’at? Isn’t that just too lame? Should I be feeling awfully honored that a goddess is contacting me on messenger?
This “Ma’at” character went on: “I am no goddess, my dear. And I know that communicating through the Internet is highly unusual, but you must understand that the other options are, well, a tad more complicated and very unorthodox.”
The words flowed seamlessly on the screen as she typed. I was starting to feel uneasy—wondering whether I should just log off and call it a night. Just as these thoughts crossed my mind, the screen flashed again:
“Go get a bandage for your bleeding finger and come back. Don’t end the conversation before hearing what I have to say.”
Panic. Whoever was on the other end must have remotely activated my web cam and saw me holding up my injured thumb. With one quick slap, I closed the laptop and heard the signing off tune.
As I was looking through the medicine cabinet, I struggled to keep my calm. God, I hate these Internet freaks. I wish there was a number we could call to report these idiots. But here in Egypt, the authorities won’t care much about a middle-aged, nasty hacker looking for a thrill harassing some random girl. I would just have to take better care next time. I guess when Mema told me not to talk to strangers that also meant not chatting with them on the Internet as well.
That thought was interrupted by a loud hum coming from nowhere. Everywhere and nowhere, just like the first time I heard it. I plugged my ears with my fingers to see if the noise would grow louder or dimmer, a trick I had learned from my father to help me work through the tinnitus I used to get as a child. Just as my index fingers were uncomfortably lodged in both ear canals, I heard a laugh.
“You really do not have a choice other than listening to me, my poor child. Your blessed blood summoned me and so it is written. I would hate to commune with you the old-fashioned way, because ‘hearing voices’ is not a healthy psychological experience for a teenage girl, but you left me with no other choice.”
The word “commune” gave me the creeps. Oh, so that’s what it’s like! I remembered all the accounts I read in stories about telepathy and descriptions of great powerful entities “speaking to you” without actually talking. It was not what I had imagined it to be: words “forming” in your mind. You do actually hear a voice speaking to you—which makes it way creepier. The voice was neither warm nor deep. It was mechanical, almost robotic…sort of like the text-to-speech programs on computers.
“Umm, Ma’at, is that you?” I said out loud and then felt silly doing it. “Never mind, I know it’s you. Would you be so kind as to not talk back again, you know, in my head? It is very disturbing. Give me a minute and I will go back online.”
I went to my laptop thinking how funny it was for such a modern gadget to function as a Ouija board. Waiting for the computer to start up, I pondered my relative calmness in the face of this craziness. And here I have to admit that for years I have thought of myself as a rather eccentric teenager. Not that I received any magical powers at my sixteenth birthday or anything. It is just that fear does not come to me easily. My mother’s abandonment and my father’s untimely death made me immune to the madness of the world. If the road seems dark ahead I always ask myself: what’s the worst case scenario? I imagine it, dwell on it and get it over with. I mean, what is the ultimate disaster that could strike anyone—death? Death to me would simply mean me joining my dad (and probably my mom) in a much better place, so I fear not what everybody else worries about.
I typed in my password and waited for the séance to start. The screen flashed with Ma’at’s handle:
“I am no ghost, you know.”
Great! A spirit that takes offense—looks like we’re in for some fun.
“Being called a ghost must be an insult to a goddess of your caliber, being feather-headed and all,” I replied.
“I told you I am not a goddess. There is only but one true divinity,” she typed.
“Yeah, your father, Ra’,” right ;)
Believe it or not I had just winked at the voice in my head that calls itself
Ma’at. I must be cooler than I thought.
Ma’at’s reply was quite confusing.
“Bear with me and, in time, all will be revealed. Prehistory is filled with wonders. There are references to lost great civilizations, out-of-place archeological artifacts which do not belong to the conventional chronology of human history. Common mythological elements and references to similar events in many cultures around the world. All ancient civilizations speak of certain Higher Beings touted with special powers: Ra’, Amun, Nephthys, Isis, and Osiris, and the whole lot of us. Egyptian mythical gods are just part of the story.”
I took the liberty to interrupt, before I lost the last inkling of my sanity. “So you’re telling me that you guys actually E-X-I-S-T?”
Ma’at instantly responded. “I would prefer the past tense ‘existed,’ Aya. We are no longer here. I am but an ephemeral shadow of the Ma’at who once tipped the scales of justice. I am I, but no longer present in my entirety. Fragments from all of us remain. We give them different names; they are known to all religions and cultures, but not yet fathomed by scientists and medicine men. It is important that you believe even if you fail to comprehend these puzzling concepts I am sharing with you.”
She went on. “It is sometimes difficult to understand that life is a continuum. Not an isolated event. If you were to deny yesterday and the powers it once held, you could never understand the evil powers at work in today’s world. The trouble with modern humans is that they refuse to acknowledge the limitations of their science—and that will be their downfall because modern humans cannot fight the ones with the ancient knowledge if they do not fathom their tools. Yet, my child, you need not struggle with and try to grasp all the hows and whys of our existence right now. We have more pressing matters at hand. The looters have already gotten hold of what they were out to get.”
I could not help but interrupt, again, the stream of words flashing on the screen with a message of my own:
“The looters? What were they looking for anyway? And why contact me? Why not the Chief of Egyptian Antiquities or some other government Egyptologist hot-shot?”
I typed in a frenzy because the stress building up inside me was too much to handle. Here she was, Ma’at, the personification of justice and order in the universe, seeking me out to help protect some ancient relics and antiquities. And I was sitting on my desk, typing on my computer in response to her—unable to jump up and down, and scream with excitement.
“I did not seek you out, child. You called upon me.”
Gee, thanks for bursting my bubble.
“But this is not time for small talk now. Mubasher has ungodly allies. He will let blood flow in rivers to appease them. They have to be stopped.”
Ma’at went on. “You must come seek me out. Dress warm and kiss your brother goodbye. Go to the Sphinx and head for its tail.”
I shivered at the mention of Shedy. My sweet brother would be devastated when he woke up to find me gone, just like Mom went off on a cold winter night too many years ago. What did Ma’at mean, kiss him goodbye? What exactly was the plan here? Was I being magically transported to the ancient Egyptian underworld or something? Whatever this may be, I sensed a faint obligation to go, but I resisted the urge. Shedy and I had agreed, to his dismay, that we were not joining the protests in Liberation Square. If he woke up and found me gone, he would think I bailed on him.
At times like this, I missed my father terribly. He would have known exactly what to do and how to do it. Heck, he would have even driven me himself. My eyes closed, I uttered a prayer for him—and for myself. But he was not here, and that was that. Stepping out of the house at 3 AM was not something that sane sixteen year olds do. It’s not like there was much I could do anyway. Summoned or not, Ma’at was dead wrong about me. This must all be some sort of misunderstanding. Who was I to get involved anyway? I was just a regular schmuck who didn’t have an ounce of special in her. I signed off and curled up in bed with an old photo album of a family trip we took to Luxor.
Sleep, filled with dreams of Daddy and ancient kings, befell me.
Chapter 2
I woke up to Aunt Mema’s piercing screams.
“Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedyyyy!”
Hopping out of bed and into my sandals, I was sure of what had happened. Shedy was not as careful as I was. Shedy did not stick to his end of the deal like I had. My stomach tightened up in a thousand knots bringing my breathing to a halt.
“I'm going to look for him around the neighborhood. Stay here in case he comes back,” I said to Mema as I was going out the door. I purposefully avoided eye contact and words. Dwelling on our pain was not something either of us needed. I needed to find him before he did something stupid and hurt himself.
As I stepped out of the building, I noticed a few neighbors out on their balconies. The looks in their eyes were not of the regular, measly curiosity I was accustomed to seeing whenever they heard shouts and screams next door. There was genuine worry—and a faint hint of solidarity—especially on the faces of all the moms and dads.
“I saw him run that way,” said Fathia, Zeinab’s mom, from under her heavy face veil, pointing towards the tall building on the curb.
“Sweetheart, he went to Liberation Square with Mina,” said Georgette, Mina and Sara’s mother, with a warm, concerned smile.
“They were chanting ‘the people want the fall of the tyrant,’ and they rounded up a few other kids and they went.”
My chest tightened and I felt an overwhelming worry. Shedy was always so fragile—and so jinxed. He had asthma when he was a kid and could barely run the soccer field without turning blue. His appendix burst and he almost died when he was six. And he was just now recovering from a broken ankle on our last school trip.
I tried to keep Shedy out of trouble by being more overprotective than a ninety-year-old gramma. It had worked; we were fine. But now Shedy broke the rules, and I just knew—in my heart—that something awful was going to happen to him. I knew it. The “twin connection alert” between us, as we used to always call it, was very real. It always felt the same—a stab to the heart. When he fell and broke his ankle, I felt a sting. And as he went missing, I felt my heart crushed by some unseen hand.
I went home to tell Aunt Mema of the developments. As I approached the door, I heard her sobbing with the TV on in the background. I rushed in and saw the horror myself. Hovering planes, fighter jets, tanks—yes, army tanks—getting ready for a full-fledged assault on the four-million protestors in Tahrir Square.
Unable to believe her eyes, Mema stared at the screen waiting for some miracle to happen.
But I was not about to stand there and watch. My caution must be relinquished. I must rescue my brother. But could I call on the gods to help me?
“Ma’at?”
I typed my call to her on messenger. As strange as this may seem, I found her “status: online” comforting.
“There is nothing that can be done for your brother. His fate is sealed.” Her words on the screen were stabs to my heart. Fingers shaking, I typed the question I did not really want an answer to:
“Is he…”
She interrupted me.
“He lives. I feel his energy still. But he is not where you think he is, child. He has been taken somewhere into the darkness. His energy is dampened by the chaos around him.”
“W-w-what do you mean, his energy? I must go to Tahrir to save him. He is surrounded by the chaos happening down there. I must find him. Please, help me!”
“I have neither power to help you…nor you to help him, at least not now, not yet. What is written in the stars will be. We can only hope to stop the madness that is to follow. Blood is being shed as we speak now. Innocents, by the hundreds of thousands, are dying. You are but one. You cannot stop any of this—but you can save the rest of your compatriots.
Time is running out. I told you last night. And now the blood bathing the Asphalt will set events in motion…Go to the Sphinx. And fear not, for you are on the side of righteousness.”
That was her last message before the screen went blank. Yeah, fear not? Easier said than done, isn’t it?
I am not going to listen to this nonsense. I am not about to give up on finding him, without even trying. I could not let our father down. “Your brother was born the weaker twin. You need to take care of him, Aya. You need to always be by his side,” my dad had told me before he left the house that fated morning he went on his last tour of duty.
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I have not forgotten my promise.” I am going for my brother.
I snuck out, without a word to Mema, and I took a taxi to Tahrir. The cabby agreed to take me along only because he had a son in the protests whom he needed to check on, too. The cabby, Hassan, was as Egyptian as Egyptians can get, wondering how a nice little girl like me could roam the streets in such dangerous times.
“Are there no men in your family?” he said. If it weren’t for his genuine concern I would have probably slapped him.
He seemed not to know anything about the bloodshed in Tahrir. He spoke only of worry about the tear gas and arrests by the Central Security officers. He did not know—and I intended to keep it that way.
“My only son is there, you know. Has been there since this whole thing started. He was chanting with his friends Freedom…Dignity…Humanity and Liberty. I was there, too, ya know, till I had to go back to my taxi to get food for the family.” Hassan was proud of his son, and in his voice I could already detect a quiver of freedom.
“I was afraid I would lose Ahmed to the waters of the Mediterranean like his older brother, trying to make an escape for Europe. He was going to go, you know. His brother’s widow and kids desperately needed the money. And he desperately needed hope. He had been saving up the 5,000 pounds that Rayess Hegazy, the boatman, said was needed to cover the expense of making it to the Italian border. But when the revolution started, Ahmed took the anger and bitterness in his heart to Tahrir with him. He told me that he didn’t care if he died as long as he got to know the taste of freedom. The freedom that…” Am Hassan bit his tongue and searched nervously for a cigarette. But the tears in his voice gave him away.
The closest we could get to Tahrir was the beginning of the Palace of the Nile Bridge, Kasr El Neel Bridge, a favorite hangout spot for penniless lovers and the pesky cat-callers. The two copper lion statues greeted us at the entrance of the bridge.
Hassan stopped the car and we went on foot. As we crossed the bridge, we heard distant screams interrupted by the roaring of aircrafts. Non-stop bullets. The thundering clicks and clacks. Were these bones cracking?
The sight of the few bloodied running towards us brought our progression to a halt. The shadowy figures swayed in the distance—as if drunk. The long-haired shadow was holding on to an arm that was once there, pulling the stub to her chest. The shadows slowed down. Then they stopped and fell to the ground, all four of them—dead.
The fallen did not cause a bang. In fact, they seemed as if they had stirred an awry stillness in the scene. The screams, the gunshots, the crushing tanks, and the hovering planes were no more. The silence was artificial. No birds singing. No traffic and cars honking. No wind blowing. All the life force was silenced. The air smelled of blood.
Hassan ran, screaming. “You killed them. You son-of-a-bitch. Damn youuuuuuuuuu. May you be damned for all eternity.”
Cursing Mubasher and his goons in my heart, too, I stood still, unable to move.
As Hassan headed towards a tobacco kiosk at the entrance of the square, two figures hopped out of the kiosk and hurried towards Kasr El Nile Bridge. In the hands of one of them was a Kuffiya I knew all too well.
I ran the length of the bridge and stopped as I saw that I was treading in puddles of blood. I saw Hassan throw his arms around one of the figures, and the other continued his route towards me.
As he came closer, I saw his face. It was Mina, my brother’s best friend.
He held his right hand out with the bloodied yellow Kuffiya, and covered with his left the blood gushing of his empty eye socket.
I somehow made it home with Mina sobbing in my arms. I did not come back whole. A part of me stayed there, back there in the square. With the blown-up and crushed bits and pieces of those who were just seeking their freedom. I am not dead because I am a coward. But they were not and Shedy was not.
“I lost him…I am sorry, Aya…I lost him. I heard the shooting and…and with my hands I tried to hold on to him. I held on to him as they were shooting at us. He was pulled away by the crowds, but I hung on. I did,” said the poor soul as his mother was pulling him away and taking him to the hospital.
Go look for Shedy? How could I recognize an arm or a leg? Or bones crushed by a military tank? Or the splattered eyeballs with bullets in them?
All those who died were Shedy. And they will not die in vain. Not time for tears—now it is not.
I went inside my house to take Aunt Mema’s car keys. She was sleeping on the couch, clutching the phone in one hand and the remote control in the other. I kissed her forehead and bid her farewell. I did not want to disturb that sweet, but nosy, aunt of mine. I knew how she worried about us and I did not want her to have a fit.
My anger at Mubasher’s goons had made my blood boil, and my head throb with the bitterness of the injustice done to my brother. The sight of the splattered blood on the square’s ground made me want to scream for justice. The blood of innocents, spilt just because of a cry for freedom. What a cruel place the world was!
There was nothing for me in that house anymore. I wrapped the Kuffiya carefully around my waist and secured it with Mom’s pin. Part of you, Shedy, will always be with me. You are only gone because I failed you—I failed to give my life for yours. I am no longer standing on the bylines. The battle now begins.
Chapter 3
If Aunt Mema was not unable to drive a stick shift, I would have never made it to my destination. After fiddling quite a while with the automatic gear, I figured out that D was for Drive and that was precisely what got me to the Giza plateau.
It came as no surprise to me that not a single police officer was to be seen on site. There were no more policemen in Egypt. It seems that they vanished into thin air since the revolution started. The working theory seemed to be that they were still there, attacking protestors under false pretenses. Some people claimed that they were ordered to retreat into undisclosed establishments to create chaos to be blamed on the revolutionaries.
Whatever the reason was, it was strange to be on the Giza plateau in the wee hours of dawn and not come across a single policeman. Strange and scary.
I stopped the car as close to the Sphinx as I possibly could. And as I stepped out I realized that not having a weapon was probably a big mistake. When I was a child, the Sphinx scared me—but now I found myself running to it for refuge. My dad was nicknamed “Abo-el-Hol,” Arabic for Sphinx, by his close friends. Was it a coincidence? Maybe. But I found childish solace in the idea.
I was never the fastest runner, especially when the temperature was in the one digits Celsius, but I felt a strange heaviness befall me. As if I were being pushed back by a thousand invisible hands. As if I were not running through air—but some other heavier, disturbing medium. The resistance grew stronger as I approached the Sphinx, so I clutched my hands together, placing them on my chest and ran, swaying my body side to side, almost sideways, as I was battling my way through.
“Principles of aerodynamics, sweetheart. Less surface area equals less friction…less drag,” my father had said to me once. Shedy and I used to love flying kites together on the beach when we were little. When we got older, we started making model airplanes. Shedy wanted to grow up and be a pilot, just like daddy.
It was not just that the drag was reduced; it was eliminated altogether. I was slightly lifted off the ground and tipped slowly into a more horizontal position (good thing I was not wearing a skirt.) I was now rotating myself three hundred and sixty degrees along a horizontal axis, much like an airplane doing that crazy aerobatic stunt I used to love: the roll. I guess playing flight simulator with Daddy really paid off. I was effortlessly advancing through this no-longer-viscous wind wall. Weightless and free for the first time, I rolled and rolled. It was the most fun of my life, until I realized that the wind wall was really a wind tunnel. It was horizontal at first so I did not notice. But it went up, then down, then up again—higher and higher—then came to an abrupt downwards trajectory. And then, I experienced something I can only refer to as guided free-fall. I thought I would hit the ground near the tail of the Sphinx which I could see clearly as I was going down.
A few meters above the ground, the impossible happened: the Sphinx lifted its tail up and two hind-legs—much like a dog about to perform a circus trick. And my free fall took me down an opening large enough to let a spacecraft in.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” the scream I had been trying to bury down my throat came out and its echoes reached even farther than I had anticipated.
Trying to fake composure, I pressed my eyes closed and uttered a prayer for the protection I most surely need. When I opened them, I saw nothing but pitch-black darkness. I was never afraid of the dark—but I thought I might just change my mind. There was an unexpected freshness in the air around me. You would think that a secret-underground shaft would be poorly ventilated. In fact, this did not feel like a shaft at all.
I fell into what felt like an enormous hall, judging by the air blowing from all directions. I stretched out arms trying to feel my way around. Emptiness. Taking small careful steps into the darkness would have been an option, but my gut feeling told me to kneel on all fours. As I put my hands on the floor—if I may call it that—I realized that this place was neither a shaft, nor a hall. It was exactly how I described it earlier. It was emptiness. Solid, windy, nothingness. My palms on solidified air currents sent shivers down my spine. The shivers, like a small electrical current, then travelled up my neck and through to my head…then I started seeing, in flashes of light, my surroundings. Did my eyeballs just emanate light? I could not stop and think about that because what I was seeing could not be ignored. Silver, shimmering currents of water that felt like air were under me. What was that? Sort of like the mercury I used to see in my cousin’s sphygnomanoter when he measured Gramma’s blood pressure, but much brighter…more like liquid silver, but transparent. What a curious thing that was. I was standing on what looked like a flowing river, but felt like strong winds
My educated guess would be that this was some sort of river of souls. What was it called again? River Styx? Naaa, that was Greek. The ancient Egyptian equivalent was called dual-something rather. It was a real shame we didn’t study Egyptian mythology in our schools. Now I didn’t know where I was, and I had no access to the Internet to try and make some sense out of this all.
“Duat,” a voice in my head murmured. “The word you are looking for is ‘Duat.’ But this is no Duat and it certainly is not a river.”
“This is….” I saw the image of the wave hieroglyphic symbol flash in my mind. This was just great. Another mythological entity invading my private thinking space! Who was it this time, King Tut?
“This is water, right?”
“It is a wave of energy, Ka. But most modern scholars have been mistaken greatly in their interpretations.”
“As much as this is fascinating, I would still like to know who is doing all the whispering in my head. Osiris? Horus? The mighty Ra’?”
“Abo ElAinin. Abo ElAinin EL-Shawaf,” he said.
“Isn’t that a bit redundant?” El-Shawaf is Arabic for see-er, and Abo ElAinin roughly translates to he-who-has-eyes.”
“Abo ElAinin is my name. And I am a ‘Shawaf’ by trade.”
“Take off your footwear and place your toes deep in the Ka. Give yourself to it. Let it flow through your limbs. Let it ignite your spine and fire through to your brain. Fear not, and resist not. Just give yourself to infinity and let it carry you.”
I kicked off my leather sandals and planted my toes in the liquid silver marvel. The shimmering energy slowly coated my toes—engulfing them. The firing of innumerable spikes started in my feet and crawled its way up my body until it reached my neck. It was not transmitted to me through the gooey river. These tiny electrical currents were emanating from some undefined location inside my cells. I felt them spread from the inside out. Growing more and more intense by the minute, the zaps spread farther upwards and threw my head back in extension. The energy completely enwrapped the surface of my head. I could feel it. My hair, my scalp, my skin and my face, all were electrified—and electrifying. And through my eyeballs, the sparks penetrated to my brain pushing me to the brink of madness.
“Endure, Aya, Endure.” Him-who-has-eyes shouted in my head making the situation infinitely worse. The sizzling inside my skull was turning my brain cells into overloaded motherboards. I feared that my brain would be fried beyond recognition by the time the gooey plasma was done with me.
“You will be fine; the first time is the hardest,” said the other voice in my head. This one, also male, sounded younger and much more interesting, but I was in no condition to develop a crush on an invisible guy—especially one who, for all I knew, inhabited my head. When he spoke I noticed that the pain came in bouts and stopped when someone talked.
“It is not the speaking that makes the neuronal rewiring and plasticitization stop. It is the distraction.”
OK, so that was the last straw. I had lived my life mainly trying to avoid being a cliché. And here I was being brainwashed in a secret passage under the Sphinx. I saw that as complete failure.
I tried to talk back to the “voice,” but could not keep my thoughts focused to ward off the pain long enough.
“You’re a tough one, kiddo.”
It was right then that my heart skipped the proverbial beat. I finally fully sympathized with all my friends who fell in love through Internet chatting and correspondence. You do not need to actually see a person to grow fond of them.
Then I realized the fatal mistake. He could hear my thoughts. I had just made an utter and complete fool out of myself…
And just as that thought was crossing my mind, and the blood was running through to my cheeks in shame, the electrical currents decided to break the no-zapping-while-distracted rule…and all hell broke loose.
Excruciating pain befell me as my head rattled with explosion after explosion. My body started twitching, losing control over all its machinery. I gasped for breath, tried to move my face away from the Ka, but I sunk deep into it, losing all consciousness.
My eyes felt weighed down by a thousand teabags when I tried to open them. My body ached. My limbs weak, I was unable to get up. That was when he held out his hand to me and pulled me up. My head swayed back and forth, limp and uncontrollable. Conscious control over my body lost, and my thoughts all jumbled up, all that came out of my mouth was an incomprehensible mumble, much like a zombie from a second-rate horror flick.
“Lesson number one, kiddo, NEVER let negative emotions get a hold of you when you are Ka-wired. Shame, fear, hate, jealousy are intensified in the neurons by the flow of external energy…they short-circuit the system. You could have been killed. Now listen to me carefully. Focus all your energy on creating positive mental pictures. Happy, light, delightful pictures, not something that is bittersweet. More like little pink bunnies hopping around in cotton candy land.”
I saw Mom smiling as she handed me a candy cane—then the flashing thunderbolts started again and the agonizing pain set in. My jerking arms were held down by powerful hands. The hands pressed harder, almost breaking my bones.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” I heard myself scream.
“Sometimes the pain acts as circuit breaker. But you still need to get a hold of your thought-processing,” said the mystery man.
I started forming pictures of fluffy white clouds, sunshine and droplets of rain. A large majestic mythical bird came flying through the skies I had just created. A bird the size of a small dragon, with gold and glossy fiery red feathers approached me and I hopped on its back. The bird wore a collar and a name tag—“Bennu.”
I rode the fire bird at full speed. We sliced through the clouds. Cool air on my cheeks, raindrops in my hair, I never knew such utter happiness before. I was me, not an improved version of myself like I saw in dreams. I was not tall, or thin, or blonde. I did not have a perfect complexion or zit-free face. I was me, except for my jet black hair, as curly and unruly as my bird, falling freely on my back—not tied up in a bun.
For the first time in my life, I was completely free. Flying through the winds and the dew, feeling them on my skin clad with soft, pink rose petals strung into a dress. Bennu and I were soaring high. Together we started painting the heavens pink, purple and golden yellow. The higher we rose, the more effortless the glide became. We swished and swashed at the clouds. Loops, rolls, and extreme spins we were, hands down, the most invincible aerobatics team ever to take to the air.
I was glowing with utter bliss. I laughed and laughed like I hadn’t in years. I closed my eyes to savor the exhilarating ecstasy.
When I opened them, the magic was gone. I was back into the nothingness, but this time even the luminous river was gone. And I was stranded in utter darkness.
“Hello,” I called out. Where were the people who were talking to me? Where is Abo ElAinin? Where did that dude with the hunky voice go?
I was still lying on my back, like I had been before I initiated the vivid dream. My body was no longer flaccid. I regained control over myself, body and mind. The air around me this time was stale. The fresh winds of the earlier encounter with the Ka were gone. The ground beneath me was ice-cold and rough. I stretched my arms to the sides, running my hands back and forth on the sandy floor. I picked up a few of the fine textured particles which I assumed was dust. Holding the handful up to my nose, I detected the faint aroma of my grandmother’s hair after she had carefully slathered her hair up in henna paste in her monthly grey-hair-busting ritual.
I turned on my right side and I etched a sketch of my make-belief pet Bennu.
“Aww, the red of the henna powder must suit you well, Benben,” I said as I was looking down on where I had drawn the bird. The mere sound of my voice made me giggle. Then, realizing how silly I was, I heaved a sad sigh.
And what do you know? The whiff of air I breathed out seemed to take life of its own, increasing in intensity and blowing the henna particles around, splattering all over my face. So, I exhaled forcefully with my lips pursed to feed the whirling pool of Henna dust that was rising higher like a small tornado forming from the ground up.
I stretched my arms out in front of me and felt the dust specs aggregating. They were spiraling around a vertical axis, condensing, and then expanding a little to the sides.
The little specs of Henna dust were forming a bird figure.
I continued blowing air until my lung were burning, and then a little more. As the figure was becoming more condensed, I knew it was Bennu, from my vision. His long, pointy beak and extra large, soft wings were forming under my hands.
Out of breath and gasping for air, my creative endeavor had to come to a screeching stop. But the whirlwind continued swishing, growing even stronger. With all that wind, the Henna-dust storm was becoming thicker.
Suddenly, the oppressive storm stopped. And I heard the flapping of large, powerful wings coming from behind me. As I turned around, Bennu’s faint luminescence lighted up my darkness.
As I approached the majestic bird, I stroked his head.
“Hi, Ben-ben. Thank you for being real.” The stroke turned into a long hug after which he bowed his head to me, and lowered himself on the ground at my feet.
I mounted the splendid creature and held on tight to his neck. Seemingly knowing where to go, Ben-ben flew off into the darkness, with only the faintest flicker of golden light to illuminate our way.
I had already gotten used to being surrounded by that unnerving, pitch-black nothingness. But the glow of Bennu made the atmosphere all the more chilling.
Ben-Ben was such a good flyer; his strides were certain and calculated.
“Oh dear Ben-Ben, if only you could tell me where I am and what is the meaning of all of this.” I truly expected my new pet to answer. I mean, why would a fiery, luminescent, dragon-bird made up of henna dust that I breathed life into not be able to answer me when I called him? It didn't make sense. He turned his head and caressed my face with his beak—as if to apologize for his inability to speak.
Bennu picked up speed and we were now in what I was certain was a tunnel, barely big enough for us to get by. I looked around me at the walls. And in Ben-ben’s faint light I started to see etchings of bright yellow stars on what seemed to be a pretty blue background.
“Is that a drawing of the sky, Ben-ben?” I leaned over to look him in the eye. He nodded and I was satisfied.
The tunnel seemed to be finally coming to an end. I could see the shadows of the flickering candlelight in the distance leading through to an entrance.
“Faster, Ben-ben, faster,” I said as I patted him just above his right wing.
Ben-ben then went into turbo mode. We arrived at the entrance almost instantly. Then he stopped and folded his wings, treading lightly on the floor and bowing down his head.
That was my cue, so I stepped down and tried to cajole Ben-ben into going in with me, but he was one heck of a stubborn dragon.
Chapter 4
The hall I walked into was larger than I had anticipated. I could not discern its limits, especially with the dim lighting.
At first I did not notice the shadowy figure approaching, so I was startled. And I let out a small, ridiculous, little girl scream.
“Hey there, kiddo,” said the approaching figure, face still cloaked in darkness.
“S-T-O-P calling me kiddo!” I blurted out, then regretted saying it because I realized that it even made me seem more childish.
“You really still can’t get the hang of this mind entrapment thing, can you?” He held a candle to his face. His eyes were brighter than the candle light.
“By ‘mind entrapment’ you mean telepathy, I presume.” I tried to keep the staring into his hazel eyes at a minimum.
“No, I meant precisely what I said. Telepathy, or thought transference, is invasive and implies the superiority of the mind of the telepath over the other. But because of where we are, all our minds are enmeshed together. Our brain waves are in sync and looking into one another’s thoughts is simply a matter of proper, conscious control over your thought processes. You can also lock your mind away, if you want. But I would not recommend it. This symbiotic mental link up has its advantages, especially in times to come.” He ran his fingers through his sleek auburn hair whenever he said “mind” or “mental.”
“I will not ask about the said advantages, because, well, I have more pressing questions. Where are we? What exactly happened to me earlier? Did I have a seizure? And was Bennu an elaborate hallucination? Oh and yeah, WHO are you, anyway?”
“You saw Bennu?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Saw? I MADE the darned thing and then rode it all the way up to this hall. I don't think I would have made it through to here without, um, Ben-ben.” I blushed as I realized I had nicknamed a bird which I did not entirely believe existed.
“Hmmm, bnbn? This is divine intervention. Highly unusual,” he said, scratching the top of his head. “Let’s consult Abo ElAinin.” The way he pronounced the “Ai” in Abo ElAinin was a tad off.