by Glen Johnson
I reached across and flicked the switch that turned it off. Leaning back into the seat to digest what I had just seen. Closing my eyes to see the pictures once again.
I awoke with a jolt. Something had stirred me from my slumber, having evidently nodded off while thinking about all the destruction that had happened to others and me since I had met him.
I noticed the curtains were dark. Was it a thick blanket of bruise coloured clouds covering the sky, announcing another bad thunderstorm? No. I glanced up at the clock. Quarter past nine in the evening. I had slept most of the day.
Before I had chance to think further on the subject, another noise stirred me from my thoughts. The sound of a floorboard creaking upstairs.
Looking around, there coming down the stairs, was the mummified remains of the old lady, steadily placing one foot in front of the other, as if being careful to not fall, which would probably rip the dry fragile body apart.
A cigarette rested in bony jaws, the smoke filtering out the nose and ear sockets and between dry split skins; there wasn’t enough bulk left to hold the smoke inside.
23
Plagued
Here we go again.
The withered dry husked remains of the old lady wobbled across the short gap. Taking surefooted steps to close the distance. The remains of the old dress she had died in hung from her skeletal frame. Bits of dirty cloth fell to the floor, accompanied by flakes of dried brown flesh.
I closed my eyes. I should have known he was going to do this, from the moment I had discovered the remains of the person in the bedroom. But I presumed the body he needed to use had to be at least warm.
The figure was stood directly in front of me. The smell wasn’t too bad; all the internal organs were now nothing more than sacks of dried leather. The only smell was that of mouldy clothes and what smelt like wet sawdust.
She went to sit in the chair, muscles cracking like leather whips, bones grinding together and popping like muffled gunshots. Small plumes of dusty skin particles accompanied each break, as the figure slowly lowered itself down.
Cigarette smoke continued to pour from hundreds of minuscule slits in the dry skin, from around the dried up eyes, crinkled ears and caved in nose, all making for a cloud of smoke rising, as if her head was slowly smouldering inside.
Once she was settled she gave a rattling noise – like a sack of bones coming to rest. A few remaining plumes of skin motes floated upwards, as a few more muscles eventually gave under the pressure.
An arm slowly raised, now nothing more than dried skin clung tightly to a frail yellowish white bone. Her hand went to reach for the cigarette. The hand couldn’t open because the muscles had dried like concrete. Her fingers twisted unnaturally from long years of painful arthritis. With the hand closed into a fist, she used the gap between the thumb and finger to grasp the cigarette. Her rings jingled together, rattling around on her bony fingers.
“Ahhhh,” she muttered, sounding like rocks rubbing together. “I foo inwoy a wood zfoke.” Her words sounding like a drunk because she no longer had lips and agile tongue with which to punctuate the letters. Her parchment like tongue scrapped along non-existent lips. It looked like a parrots black leathery tongue.
Then after a moment she said, “Zorry abwout ffeee vire.” Smoke curling out her face.
She meant the fire that he had caused. There was no point getting angry. What would it accomplish?
“Think nothing of it. I’m still here… For now.” I let the last bit hang in the air, letting the words sink in. Letting him know I’m only human. I can burn; I can die like any other mortal.
“Wike I zaid, I’m orry.” Dried hand replacing the cigarette. The dried up gums clamping down to keep it in place, almost cutting the cigarette in half.
“Sorry but I’m finding it difficult to understand what you’re saying. Especially if you’re going to be talking for a while. I think I’m going to miss half of what you say.” I twisted my body in the seat, trying to get comfy.
“Ah. Wood foint.” She lowered her head with a barrage of snapping and cracking sounds that echoed throughout the house. Then suddenly something started to happen – hair, old and grey, started to wiggle from her dry scalp, as if a living thing. Her head was still lowered, a strange noise issuing from her dehydrated lips. Her hair was now flowing, whipping from side to side, growing longer by the second and looking like Medusa’s snakes.
I crawled back into my seat as far as it would allow me.
Her head rose, no snapping noises now. Her head was rejuvenating, like a horror movie of Dracula returning from the ashes. Skin crawled like worms across her face. Red ligaments attaching back to muscles that seemed to grow from the dry bones. Lips inflated like small balloons, swelling and growing like juicy fattened worms. Gums now shining bright and covered in moisture. Eyes starting to bulge with juices and mapping veins, now rolling back down inside the sockets. Eyebrows sprouting like fast forward photography.
I rubbed my hand over my aching eyes. In front of me was the dried mummified remains of an old dead woman, but with a living face – all pink and fleshly. Still wrinkled and old, possibly similar to what it looked like before she had died. But it looked freaky set upon such a dilapidated mummified carcass.
“Etter?” she asked. “Ofps,” she muttered with smacking gums. A mummified hand reached into the recess of what was left of her tatty, moth and fungus eaten, dress, bones cracking and dry skin rendering in the process.
Then a twisted hand appeared holding onto an old set of rotten brown false teeth. With a quick motion and the sound of smacking lips, the filthy teeth were slotted into place.
“Ahh, now that’s better,” she announced, giving a long, squeaking laugh. Blackened, decaying artificial dentures now swimming around on her glistening gums. But her voice was more understandable and resembling a little old grandmother’s.
“Sure,” I whispered.
She took the cigarette into her wet lipped mouth and drew long and hard on it. Smoke no longer issued from holes in her face, but was pulled down into what was left of her lungs. Now the blue smoke issued out of splits in her dried chest, worming its way through her hollow rib cage and the tatty cloth of the dress before spiralling upwards. In fact, I didn’t think she even had lungs; they were just useless dried sacks. So I didn’t want to think about how he was pulling down the smoke.
“As I said, sorry about the fire. I simply wasn’t thinking.”
I didn’t bother to answer again; I had already given my comment on that subject. The fact he apologized like he had simply knock a vase off the side and it had broken on the floor.
Her eyes swivelled in the sockets.
“Ah yes, Moses.” Long suck on the cancer stick. “Do you know he was put in a basket and left to float down a river? His mother, Jochebed simply not caring what happened to him.” I knew a bit more of the story than that. Knew his mother was hiding him for his own safety. I had even seen Nicolas Poussin’s famous painting of 1638, depicting the very same rescue.
“He wound up in the arms of one of Pharaoh’s many daughters. Princess Bithiah kept him and raised him as if he was her own. He had all the benefits of the great house, the teachings, arts, you name it. Funny thing was, Pharaoh’s daughter hired a slave to help raise him, and it turned out to be Moses’ own mother Jochebed. Fancy that, eh?
“Anyway, Abraham’s descendents were now nothing more than slaves. Building Pharaoh’s palaces, temples and pyramids. He had promised a mighty nation to Abraham’s descendents, now they were nothing more than peasants, raking sand and lifting bricks, which they had made from mud, straw and water from the mighty Ḥ'pī, the Great River, or as you know it today: the Nile.
“And as you probably know, without this majestic watercourse, Egypt wouldn’t exist. There would be no Pharaoh. No slavery. And no need for rescue. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian once wrote Egypt was the gift of the Nile.”
She shifted what little weight she had that made up the re
mainder of her body, snapping sounds accompanied her movements.
“But of course God hadn’t forgotten His promise. Moses was His answer to their problems.
“Moses was a little dyslexic you know. Hated speaking to crowds. Stuttered worse than that annoying man o-on the t-t-train.” The simple mention of the train incident made me shiver, thinking about how he had reacted to my statement and questions. A deity having a tantrum.
“Also a killer! Funny, Cain was sent away for killing someone. Moses was made into a prophet. Go figure. He saw an Egyptian officer beating a fellow Hebrew, and struck him down, dead. Even his people knew what he had done, and even mocked him, saying, ‘what if I don’t do as you ask, will you strike me down also?’
“Moses fled Egypt, hiding in the desert for forty years. He ended up living among travelling wanderers. He even married the daughter of one. Hobad gave his daughter, Zipporah to Moses after he defended her at a well. Dating was much easier back then. They had a son called Gershom.
“He’s also one of the characters of the bible with more than one name. His mother called him Jekuthiel. Heber by his father. His brother Aaron called him Avi Zanoah.
“But time passed. The Hebrew nation became larger, all still toiling under Pharaoh’s heavy yoke. Until one day when Moses was up in the mountains – looking for a lost sheep – he came across a burning rubus sanctus bush. Of course as bushes do, it spoke to him,” she said the last bit with complete sarcasm. Her wrinkled face screwing up tight, in what looked like a cross between a smirk and the effects of the Spanish Inquisition.
“Moses of course didn’t see anything strange about a talking piece of shrubbery. He even went and had a conversation with it. He talked with Moses for a while, telling him His plans, and what part Moses was to play in them.
“But Moses wanted no part in it, saying people wouldn’t believe him, call him mad. Also commenting about his trouble talking to people. Of course Moses didn’t want to go back; he was a criminal – a killer after all. And he wasn’t completely stupid. Up until then he had been living a carefree life. Had a wife, a child. He would rather stay hidden, than go upsetting pharaoh – a god among men.
“God persisted, and gave him two signs with which to convince the Hebrews that he was being sent by their God. First he could put his hand inside the folds of his tunic and remove it covered in leprosy. Second he could toss his staff to the ground and it would become a serpent. Old trick.
“Of course the magical practicing priests of Pharaoh’s nation were following my teachings, not that they realized it of course. With my power they could replicate powerful spells.
“Moses gave in; he went before Merneptah the Pharaoh, the thirteenth son of Ramesses the II, demanding his people be set free. Of course Pharaoh was the most powerful man on earth at the time and wasn’t about to do what some run away adopted prince, turned killer, then cattle herder was demanding.
“Moses tossed down his staff, turning it into a large snake. Two of Pharaoh’s magic practicing priest tossed down their staffs also. Of course Moses’ snake swallowed theirs up; He never likes to be outdone.” Another cigarette appeared between the mummified fingers, not coming from a packet but seemingly out of thin air.
“Pharaoh, stubborn and ungiving refused to allow the Hebrew nation – his slaves – to wander free. What would the nations around about think if Egypt couldn’t even keep a handful of slaves in order? They would be at his throat like a pack of wild hyenas. In the movies about the event Merneptah is depicted as a strapping young godlike muscular figure. For example, when Yul Brynner portrayed pharaoh in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments? But in reality he was an unhealthy, potbellied sixty-three year old when he took the throne.
“So Moses returned to Pharaoh’s presences the next morning, when Pharaoh was about to go down to the Nile and worship the river goddess Anuket.
“Moses humiliated the powers of the Nile Goddess by turning the waters of the Nile to blood. Of course it goes without saying the goddess was something I had made up. If there is only one God, stands to reason there would be only one true religion.
“There are thousands of different religions on the face of the planet today, and only one true religion, worshipping in the proper manner. All the others are of my making, trying to draw as many people away from Him as I can. As I’ve already stated.
“One of the best tricks I ever played was convincing mankind I don’t really exist. Most think the evil is inside them. Not an entity but an emotion or intent. If that were true, how could I – as it say’s in Job chapter one and verse six – enter in before Him. There’s no evil inside God. So it’s obvious I’m a real entity, a fallen angel.
He returned to the point about misleading mankind through false religion.
“A person cuts down a tree. With one half they cut it up and make their home from it, or use some to cook their food. With the other half they carve it into an image of a god, bow down and worship before it. Wood can’t see, can’t hear. What’s the difference between the part they cook their food with and the part they make into a holy image? Nothing I tell you.” That terrible smile.
“Psalms one hundred and thirteen, chapter five and six states: A mouth they have but cannot speak. Eyes they have but cannot see. Ears they have but cannot hear.
“All the roads lead to Him they say. Load of shit I tell you. Only one true God, one true religion.”
I wanted to ask what the true religion was but didn’t want to risk interrupting her.
“As I’ve already said, in the Book in Deuteronomy it states never to repeat the same prayer over and over, don’t recite remembered words. Some religions parrot the same words over and over, many times a day, their whole lives.
“In the book of Exodus chapter twenty and verses four and five it states: Don’t carve for yourself any graven images. Don’t kneel down before them. As well as Muslims – that I’ve already mentioned – some churches you walk into are so jammed with icons and huge wooden images it’s hard to even see the walls.
“For instance, the cross, do you know it existed thousands of years before Jesus even came down to the earth? I created it in Caldea, used by their God Tammuz, being in the shape of the Tau, the first initial of the name. And Bel, another Caldea God who was represented by a cross. Also from the Greek God Bacchus. A Norse God Odin. All symbolized by a cruciform devise.
“Crux Ansata was carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and kings. A symbol of their authority as the priest of the Sun God and was called, the Sign of Life.
“Even more disturbing is the Phallus, the cross symbol that represents the penis, that at one point – in Israel’s blacken past – they drew all over the inner walls of their sacred temple.
“All these images are identical to the image His son is portrayed on when mankind killed him. An image that was around eons before His son even came to earth. One of my creations.
“If you really want to know he died on a stake, a simple limb of a tree. Why go through the trouble of hammering another piece of wood to make a cross beam, when you can simply nail their hands above their head?
“You got to remember, the Romans were killing thousands at the same time, all in the same manner. Do you think they would waste the wood, make one execution stake when they could make two from the same material? Romans weren’t the only ones, Seleucids and Carthaginians were also dealing out death in the same manner, and hundreds of years before Jesus even came to earth, from as early as the sixth century BC.
“The word Crux comes from the classical Greek word Stauros, which means upright stake or pale. The word most forms of His Book use is from the word Xylon, which means wood cut ready to use.
“I simply made such a mundane item into one of the most worshipped images known to mankind. And think about it, you all worship the very item His son died on. That’s kind of morbid, don’t you think?” She giggled to herself.
“The trinity was an Egyptian concept as well; their three Gods were all join
ed at the hips and shoulders. Funny that the Trinitarian dogma is one of the central doctrines of Christendom, when neither the word trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears anywhere in the bible. Actually it wasn’t put into practice until the fourth century anno domini, or AD to you. Four hundred years after the Pharisees had His son killed. It was the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD which established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and adopted the Nicene Creed, as it was called. If it were as important as the churches make out, wouldn’t the first apostles have mentioned it? Wouldn’t the world trinity appear in the bible itself?
“In fact, a Latin theologian named Tertullian was the first person credited with using the word trinity and that was almost three hundred years after Jesus died.
“As I said, I don’t deny things or wish to change them, it’s so much easier just adding to them.” The old woman’s decayed body shook with laughter. It rained dust and dried skin.