by M. R. Holman
conditioning."
The mummy pried the bottom of his sarcophagus from the ground, taking great care not to tip it back too far, lest it fall to the ground and crack or completely shatter. Sarcophagi were expensive. He snatched the small scrap of papyrus from under the sarcophagus and leaned it back down to the floor carefully. His hand shook slightly as he looked down at the hieroglyphs written on the papyrus. He always got so nervous when it came to calling Elaine.
He dialed her hieroglyphic phone number: Jackal, Falcon, Jackal, Knife Facing Left, Knife Facing Right, Sun, taking great care to make sure each number was dialed correctly. He always got so flustered when he dialed a wrong number. He pressed the call button and raised a shaking hand to hold the phone to his bandaged ear. He waited and waited but the phone never started to ring. He withdrew the phone from his ear and noticed that he had not pressed the call button properly.
"I'm just going to text her," he said aloud to no one, shaking his head in a manic sort of way. "I don't care how long it takes me to type it out, I'm just going to text her. It's less formal that way, anyways."
He typed her phone number into a message and very slowly began to type out a text.
"Hey.... Elaine..." he whispered aloud as he tapped the buttons repeatedly. "I... was... just... wondering... who... services... your.... air..... conditioner......? .... Mine.... Is .... not.... working....... Thanks...."
The mummy read and re-read the text multiple times, both silently and aloud, but he was still too nervous to send it. "Giza!" he shouted, his sharp voice echoing off the stone walls. His cat gamboled into his bedroom, and hacked up a fur ball that was older than most modern civilizations.
"Giza, how does this text sound: Hey, Elaine. I was just wondering who services your air conditioner? Mine is not working. Thanks." Giza's eyes glared at him dully, as though she was bored and indifferent. "Is that alright? Does it sound good? I mean, it's casual right? And just about air conditioning, right? Should I keep the ‘thanks’ or should I just end it after saying that my air conditioning isn't working? Giza? Giza?"
Giza had run away while he was reading off the text. The mummy sighed a long, very dry sigh and pressed the send button.
He began to pace around his bedroom, fanning himself furiously with one hand and staring down at the screen of his phone that was resting in his other hand. He had probably paced two to three miles before he received a reply.
“Ghoul Cooler’s House of Air Conditioners.” He read aloud. Did she mean Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioning Emporium? She had never been very detail oriented and her memory was somewhat lacking when it came to mostly inconsequential matters such as these.
He began to pace again. Should he text her to clarify? He did not want to be bothersome, or give her the impression that he was only using the situation as an excuse to talk to her. He decided to ask. The worst that could happen would be an ignored text message.
“Do you mean Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioning Emporium?” he typed into a text message. He began his pacing regiment again, but this time he received a response almost instantly.
“No, Ghoul Cooler’s House of Air Conditioners are Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioner Emporium’s competitor. Their prices and service are way better, but they’re a smaller company. Stay cool!” She ended the text with a smiley face emoticon. It was actually a hieroglyph of two stars aligned vertically next to a crescent moon. He knew that this smiley face hieroglyph emoticon would likely torment him for centuries to come. What did she mean by it? Did she mean anything at all? Was it just habit?
“No. No. No, I’m not doing this right now,” he said to himself, shaking his head vigorously as he exited the text message. He tried to open the browser on his cell phone to look up the telephone number for Ghoul Cooler’s House of Air Conditioners, but upon failing multiple times to click the browser icon with his bony finger, he walked to his living room to retrieve the phone book.
His phone book was covered in about an inch of dust and sand. He could not even recall the last occasion he had to use it. He flipped it open and it split in two directly down the middle. He closed his eyes in frustration and walked to the countertop and set down the two halves of the phone book.
“Why does everything have to be so difficult today, Giza?” he asked his heavily bandaged cat as it sat on the countertop once more, purring its low, guttural purr. The cat had no response other than continued sullen looks.
The mummy carefully turned each page of the broken phonebook half that would contain the air conditioner technicians. “Ghoul Cooler’s!” he exclaimed as he finally ran his bony finger over the hieroglyph for Ghoul Cooler’s House of Air Conditioners’ phone number.
“Jackal, Knife Pointing to the Right, Pyramid, Cat, Falcon, Falcon,” he read aloud from the phonebook, smiling to himself as he properly activated each button properly on the first attempt. Maybe his luck was turning around after all…
The phone rang once and an automated message began to play. “We would like to inform our loyal customers, that after three thousand years in the air conditioning business, Ghoul Cooler’s House of Air Conditioners has been bought out and merged with Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioning Emporium. Please direct any future calls regarding air conditioner purchases or maintenance to Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioning Emporium. Stay cool, ghouls!”
The mummy closed his eyes as the dial tone began to hum through the earpiece of his cell phone. Maybe his luck was not turning around after all. There was nothing left to do, he concluded, other than call Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioning Emporium over and over until he was able to talk to a repair technician. He scrolled through his recent calls until he saw the hieroglyphs for Cool Ghoul’s service hotline, and pressed the call button.
"...All of our representatives are currently busy. Please hold for a Cool Ghoul representative, or hang up and call again at a later time. Thank you for calling Cool Ghoul's Air Conditioning Emporium. We appreciate your business!"
He hung up and tried again immediately. The message began to play again and he repeated the process. The third time, the phone began to ring and the mummy became very nervous. His throat became tight, and he tried to swallow over and over to make sure he would be ready to speak when the time came, but was struggling due to the fact that he had not had a drink of water in several years.
“Good afternoon, this is Cool Ghoul’s service technician hotline. Feel the cool, you ghoul! How may I help you?” a high pitched voice said on the other end of the line. The mummy was still trying to swallow, his throat felt as though it was locked shut. “Hello? Is anyone there?” the voice asked confusedly.
“Guuurchle.” That was the only sound that the mummy was capable of making under the tension of having to greet the service technician on the telephone at that moment.
“We don’t take kindly to prank callers at Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioner Emporium. We are very busy, sir or madam.” The service technician hung up on him and he found that he was finally able to relax his throat.
He walked to his refrigerator, shaking his head the whole way and almost tripping over his mummified cat. He opened the door, ignoring the demented meows of Giza, and searched for something to drink. Since he no longer had appetites, or the organs to facilitate appetites in his body, he did not have a well-stocked refrigerator. He had some wine that he was saving just in case Elaine happened to show up for some reason. He had been saving that bottle for longer than he was willing to admit to anyone.
The only other item in the refrigerator was a jar of honey. He tipped the jar back and waited for the honey to pour into his mouth. He figured that it would be better than nothing. Due to the thick nature of honey, combined with the cold temperatures of the refrigerator, he had to stand still with his head tilted back and his mouth open beneath the honey jar for several minutes. He felt like a fool, and could feel his cat’s mocking gaze upon him. He did concede, however, that it was pleasant to stand in front of the open refrigerator door. If it would not ruin the motor in the r
efrigerator, he would just lie on the floor in front of it instead of calling Cool Ghoul’s again. With a fully mobilized throat, he called Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioner Emporium once more.
The phone began to ring, and although the mummy’s heart currently resided in a jar in his living room, and not in his body, he was quite sure that he could feel it leaping for joy as a different high pitch voice answered on the other end of the line. “Good afternoon, this is Cool Ghoul’s service technician hotline. Feel the cool, you ghoul! How may I help you?”
“Hello, I have a faulty air conditioning unit in my tomb,” the mummy said, not even trying to hide the relief in his voice.
“Alright, we can have a service technician at your residence in eight to twelve hours.”
The mummy could feel his heart slide back into the bottom of its jar where it usually resided, perhaps even lower. “Eight to twelve hours?” he asked in an outrage.
“Yes sir, we are very busy today. A lot of ghouls, goblins, and other creatures and beasts and such figures’ air conditioning systems are malfunctioning today due to the workload. Do you want service or not?” the high pitched voice asked exasperatedly. It sounded like an elf.
“Of course I want it serviced,” the mummy groaned into the telephone.
“Well, be at your tomb in eight to twelve hours and it will be serviced. Until then, stay cool, you ghoul!”
“Wait, wait, wait!” the mummy cried, sensing that the elf was about to hang up since it had repeated their slogan again. “Is there anything that could be done to speed up the process?”
A high pitched sigh on the other end of the line was followed by a lengthy silence. Finally the elf said, “I’ll give you a call if a technician is freed up before then. It’s unlikely though.”
“Thank you so much!”
“Uh huh. Stay cool, you ghoul.”
The dial tone began to ring and the mummy hung up his cell phone and placed it between a fold in his bandages around his waist. Now he just had to decide what to do for the next eight to twelve hours until the service technician arrived. Of course, someone could come sooner, but he did not want to get his hopes up.
He picked up his piece of papyrus he had been fanning himself with and began again. It split in half immediately. He looked around his tomb for another makeshift fan, but only saw the phonebook. He decided that he did not want to destroy it any further, so as not to make it any more difficult to find telephone numbers. There would, however, be a newspaper outside of the tomb entrance. In his preoccupation due to the heat, he had completely forgotten to retrieve it that morning.
The mummy walked to the doorway, his cat close at his heels, and opened the door. Giza rushed out, and the mummy was glad to be rid of her for a while. He bent over and grasped his newspaper, his bones grinding and crunching against each other as he did so.
As he sat down in his stone easy chair, he extracted the finance section of the Tomb Times newspaper and began to fan himself with it. He did not care much for the finance section, and frankly did not understand why it was important to get rich during the afterlife. Although, he had thought the same thing during his regular life. As he looked around his tomb, he realized that maybe if he had saved and invested wisely he could have a nicer tomb. He decided to read the finance section after he finished the rest of the paper.
While flipping through the newspaper in search of the local news section, he spotted the movie schedule for the local cinema and was struck with an idea. Why had he not thought of this before now? The theater was always air conditioned! It was even within walking distance from his tomb.
He did not even look at what movies were playing or what times they were starting. He just got up and went. The truth was, he could care less about what movie was playing. He was solely in it for the air conditioning today. Unless there was a cartoon movie playing of course. In that case he would choose the cartoon.
As he walked, he thought back once again on how his ex-girlfriend Elaine had been so annoyed by his interest in cartoons. What was so bad about a mummy enjoying cartoons? He even recalled that Elaine had drunkenly texted him to “grow up” after he posted a photo on Mummygram of his newly acquired VHS collection of The Mumnuts cartoons several years previous. She had apologized the next morning, but he had never forgotten what she said or the way it had made him feel. The spring in his step faded a bit, and he began to wonder if he should see a cartoon movie after all.
The marquee of the cinema, ironically called the Aztec Pyramid, even though it was within sight of The Great Pyramids of Giza, had come into view. The mummy was simultaneously relieved and saddened by the lack of cartoon film titles being displayed on the enormous white board. At least he would not have to decide if today would be the day he “grew up”.
“One un-dead adult ticket for ‘Dances with Werewolves’ please,” the mummy said to the goblin behind the ticket window. “How is it?”
“Meh…” the goblin said as it handed him the ticket. The mummy did not care that the movie was, as the goblin had so eloquently put it – ‘meh’. All he cared about now was that he was about to be immersed in artificially cooled air.
He forewent the snack counter and trudged straight into the theater that was showing ‘Dances with Werewolves’. He sat down in the empty theater and sank deeply into his seat. It was perfect. He had never felt more comfortable than he did in this moment. The chair was soft, the air was cold, and the theater was empty. Even if the movie never started he would consider this trip a success. He looked up and saw that the air conditioner vents were directly above him. He interlocked his thin, bony fingers across his chest and closed his eyes in ecstasy, until…
“Excuse me,” a gruff, dry voice grumbled, causing him to snap open his eyes. Another mummy was trying to get past him, but he was reclined too far.
“Sorry,” he said, sitting up so that the other mummy could pass. He had a date with him. For one horrifying moment he thought that it was Elaine, but as the dim light reflecting from the previews on the screen reflected off of her bandaged body, he saw that she was much taller than Elaine. For some reason, they sat only two seats down from him on the row. He looked around the theater, and saw that the theater was completely empty except for the three of them. Why did they pick those seats when the whole theater was available? Did they not want privacy? Did they not realize that he might want privacy?
The mummy sat up a little straighter in his seat as the other two mummies settled into their own seats. The previews ended shortly after, and the movie began. The goblin was right. “Meh” was truly the best way to describe the movie. There were werewolves and they danced. Sometimes they danced with each other, other times they did not. There was some historical and political subtext, but it was not interesting or well developed enough to be compelling. As the mummy began to reflect on this, his cell phone began to ring loudly.
“Shhhh!” the other two mummies shushed him at once.
“Sorry!” he replied, silencing the cell phone and answering it as quietly as he could. “Hello?”
“A service technician in your area finished early and was dispatched to your tomb. They will be there in twenty five minutes,” a high pitched voice said without taking a breath.
“That’s great!” the mummy exclaimed, completely forgetting to be quiet.
“Are you kidding me?” the other mummy’s date asked angrily.
“You two could have sat anywhere in the theater! Besides, this is the most ‘meh’ movie I’ve ever seen!” the mummy said in a loud whisper which included air quotes around the word ‘meh’.
“Hello? Will you be there?” the voice asked on the other end of the telephone line.
“I absolutely will,” he said as he hung up the phone.
“Good. Stay cool, you ghoul.”
He wondered briefly if there was enough time to stay until the end of the movie, but then decided that he did not care enough about the ending to risk missing his air conditioner service technicia
n. Plus, the two mummies in his row glared at him until he got up to leave.
“Hey, excellent review of ‘Dances with Werewolves’”, the mummy said to the ticket goblin as he exited the theater. “Totally ‘meh’.”
“Thank you, sir. I try to broadcast my wit via brevity,” the goblin said with pride.
“Brevity… I’ve never been very good at brevity. You’re right though, it certainly can convey the true spirit of something when the proper words are chosen. You know, I might try my hand at being brief in my descriptions.”
“You’re off to a bad start,” the goblin said with a deadpan glare.
The mummy smiled at him, but it could not be seen through his bandages. That certainly was a witty goblin. Before he knew it, he found himself outside the front door of his tomb. Giza was waiting on him, flailing her tail back and forth listlessly and meowing. He let her in, and as soon as he turned to close the door to his tomb, a ghoul wearing a blue and white striped uniform had appeared at his doorstep.
“Cool Ghoul’s Air Conditioner Emporium Service Technician, here. I’m told that there is an air conditioner in this tomb that requires service?” the ghoul said with a professional manner.
“Yes, indeed there is. Come in, come in,” the mummy said, shutting the door as the ghoul entered. “I’m so glad you were able to make it here. They told me on the telephone that I would have to wait eight to twelve hours.”
“Oh, customer service never knows what’s really going on,” the ghoul said. He sounded annoyed.
“Why is that?” the mummy asked curiously.
“The company outsourced the customer service department to save money, so the elves that work for customer service aren’t really even employees. They’re actually in the North Pole, I believe.”
“Interesting,” the mummy said, although this was not entirely true. Now that he was back inside of his overheated tomb, his focus was shifting back on getting the air conditioner working as soon as possible. The ghoul seemed to have read his mind.
“Where is your fuse box?” the ghoul asked.
“I believe it’s in the cupboard.”
The ghoul traipsed to the cupboard, opened the door, and then opened the fuse box. He flipped a switch and the mummy could hear his air conditioner start.
“Wait… That’s it? It was just a thrown switch the whole time?” the mummy asked, dumbfounded.
“Yep. It happens quite often when systems like these are overloaded. We’ll send you a bill in the mail,” the ghoul explained as he closed the door to the fuse box.
“Well, thank you. But, also, will I still be receiving a full bill? I mean, not to split hairs or anything, but you didn’t really