Pharaoh's Press Secretary

Archeologists at the Gamal Abdul Nasser School for the Study of Antiquity at Cairo University have completed the translation of a previously undeciphered wall of hieroglyphics in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses II, providing invaluable insights into the administration of his regime.

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF

MS. BIRD BIRD ARM BIRD SNAKE,

COMMUNICATIONS VIZIER FOR PHARAOH RAMSES II

MS. SNAKE:  Good morning.  I’d like to make this comment about the rejection of Pharaoh Ramses’ offerings to the gods on Offerings Day yesterday.

Pharaoh Ramses accepts the results of these rejections and the will of the gods.  But Pharaoh Ramses wants to make clear that these rejected offerings did not come from him, but rather, from wazirs and priests in local rituals.  As you know, the gods often reject these local offerings when they do not come from Pharaoh himself.  Pharaoh is still completely committed to his goal of Making Egypt Great Again, starting with his triumphant efforts to build the Pyramids and combat the rash of plagues now underway in Egypt. 

Egypt has never experienced a challenge like these plagues, but thanks to Pharaoh Ramses, we are defeating the plagues and preserving our economy’s golden age.  When the rivers turned to blood, some people--notably the Scribes and the Scholars, people who don’t love Egypt--exaggerated the threat out of personal and political animosity to the Pharaoh.  But the rivers then turned back into rivers, despite many negative predictions by the so-called augurers.  There was then a rain of frogs and there were similar warnings of disaster.  But we can now say definitively those were not Egyptian frogs, and that they came from our great enemy, Babylon.

I’ll now turn to questions.

QUESTIONER ONE:  Let’s return to the rejected offerings.  In almost all of the principalities and domains in Egypt, the gods did accept offerings from wazirs and priests whose offerings were diametrically opposed to those of Pharaoh Ramses.  Is this an indication that Pharaoh Ramses has lost his divinity?

MS. SNAKE:  Nonsense.  Pharaoh Ramses is still divine and will continue to be. And he will continue his successful efforts to reverse and eliminate the plagues now attacking Egypt.  You mentioned the rivers turning into blood and the rain of frogs, localized instances on which you scribes continue to harp.  But the rivers turned back to water and the frogs went away, thanks to Pharaoh Ramses’ historic efforts.

QUESTIONER ONE:  But aren’t these plagues ample evidence that the gods reject Pharaoh Ramses’ offerings?

MS. SNAKE:  Fake divination!  Pharaoh Ramses continues to enjoy the gods’ unqualified support.

QUESTIONER TWO:  And now we have flies, unimaginable swarms of flies.  What is your comment on this plague of flies?

MS. SNAKE:   Look, we’re Egypt, we’re a great, great dynasty, and we’re going to have flies, we have flies every season.  It’s hot and flies like the heat, everybody knows that.  When Ra the Sun God lowers the sun in the sky in the coming winter months, it will be cooler and the flies will disappear, just like that.  We will have even fewer flies than we did before, the number of flies will plummet, just as Pharaoh Ramses has promised!

QUESTIONER THREE:  How does the Pharaoh respond to the Scholars of the Library of Alexandria who point out that other nations in our region, such as Nubia, Libya, or Sheba, have not had anything remotely similar to our plagues, and that the concentration of plagues in Egypt is evidence they arise out of the war of choice that Pharaoh has waged on The Lord of Hosts?

MS SNAKE:  The idea that these plagues come from some unseen and likely imaginary Lord of Hosts is an insult to the intelligence of the Egyptian people.  As Pharaoh has said, they should call him The Lord of Hoax.  Look at the evidence that Pharaoh Ramses has had great success managing the plagues--more people have survived plagues in Egypt than in any other country! 

QUESTIONER THREE:  A follow-up: How does Pharaoh Ramses feel about the disproportionate incidence of lice, flies, and boils among the Hebrew slaves? 

MS. SNAKE:  With regard to the Hebrew slaves, let me point out the Hebrew slaves choose to live in filth and squalor and make other poor hygiene and diet choices that leave them susceptible to these various ailments, be they boils or vermin or flies.  Moreover, the Hebrew slaves are doing essential work constructing the Pyramids, and the Hebrew slaves want to complete the Pyramids, which are so important to Egypt.  And that is why Pharaoh Ramses enjoys a record level of support among the Hebrew slaves.

QUESTIONER FOUR:  On the pyramids, how do you respond to the critics who say Pharaoh Ramses is by-passing the review process while building these gigantic pyramids, relying on approvals from puppet committees?

MS. SNAKE:  I can assure you the Pyramids will be built and that people will think of Pharaoh Ramses every time they see them.

QUESTIONER FIVE:  With the plagues being visited upon us, the Egyptian economy is collapsing.  What is Pharaoh Ramses’ plan for bringing the economy back?  And will he continue to impose imposts on imports of grain from Mesopotamia?

MS. SNAKE:  Remember that our stockpiles of grain were depleted by the previous Pharaoh, Seti I, or as Pharaoh calls him, Sleepy Seti I. 

QUESTIONER FIVE:  But Seti I built up the stockpiles in the first place.

MS. SNAKE:  And then drew them down, demonstrating his senility and confusion. 

QUESTIONER SIX:  Are we any closer to a cure of these plagues?

MS. SNAKE:  Our Scholars at the Libraries of Alexandria are working day and night to produce a combination of herbs, incantations, and sacrifices to Isis that will prevent people from catching the plagues.  Until then, Pharaoh Ramses believes what many priests are saying--that a regular program of prophylactic scorpion stings and snake bites will help people avoid catching the plagues.

QUESTIONER SIX:  But isn’t it true that scorpion stings and snake bites kill large numbers of their victims?  Most scholars dispute the idea --

MS. SNAKE:  Let me answer by disclosing to you that Pharaoh Ramses has personally been stung by scorpions and bitten by snakes under the care of his own personal healer, Arm Man Snake Wavy Lines Bird, and has shown no signs of side effects other than a tendency to wander in his public pronouncements and pay inordinate attention to people’s backsides.  More importantly, he is yet to experience any of the plagues. 

QUESTIONER SIX:  But isn’t the rejection of offerings associated with Pharoah Ramses a clear repudiation of his war of choice against The Lord of Hosts and his management of the plagues?

MS. SNAKE:  Nonsense.  Your question is the kind of divisive fakery that—

A messenger enters and gives a scroll to Ms. Snake, which she opens and reads.

MS. SNAKE:  I have just been informed Pharaoh and many of his viziers, high priests, and courtiers have been infested with lice, boils, and vermin.  Pharaoh’s Royal Wife, lesser wives, and concubines are quarantining themselves in the Palace while Pharaoh is being moved to the Temple of Osiris for observation.  The Pharaoh feels fine, and I know the people of Egypt are praying for – wait!  There are lice on my arm!  And boils!   

Here the hieroglyphic evidence ends.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Not many people know that on the day after Halloween, all the ghosts gather at the historic Overlook Hotel, where Jack Torrance went from psychotic, failed author to ghostly, tuxedoed dinner guest in The Shining.  It’s their favorite go-to.

“

I want to welcome you all!” Jack said as the spirits filled the hotel’s magnificent ballroom.  “And as we say here, ‘Redrum!  Redrum!’”

There was amused laughter all around.  “Boo!” someone called merrily.

“The bar is open!” Jack said.  “Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

“I’ll have a soda pop,” said Casper, the Friendly Ghost.

Most everyone rolled their eyes at the little spirit.  “Well, I need a drink,” said Beetlejuice.  “Bourbon!  Bourbon!  Bourbon!”  A drink suddenly appeared in his hand.

“Just happy to be here,” replied Hamlet’s Dad.  “You know, it’s so refreshing to do some broad haunting.  The fear-induced bed-wetting, the candy-fueled stomach cramps, they’re much more fun than appearing on ramparts, trying to get two losers on night watch to avenge your death.”

“It was a great holiday,” said Dr. Malcolm Crowe, the psychologist from The Sixth Sense.  “I’m really into it, now that I’ve figured out I’m dead.”

“Sure, we had a good night,” said Captain Gregg from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  “But we’ve got to face the challenges.  There are things that scare people more than we do.”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but pointed a bony, wraith-like finger at him in agreement.

“The Captain makes a good point,” said Elvira.  “I was once the lead character in a Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit it was, and now I’m a cardboard pop-up display for undrinkable light beer.  It’s a long way to fall.”

“We don’t drink that lousy beer,” said George and Marion Kerby, holding martini glasses as they floated near a corner of the ceiling.  “We only drink gin.  Topper’s gin, in fact.  Thank heavens he stocks Sapphire.  Although his Virunga Mountain Spirits vodka isn’t that bad.”

“And I picked up this guy at a dance, and then I ghosted him—” there were groans at the pun “—and all he did was go to the graveyard to get his sweater back,” said Laurie, from the ‘60s radio classic Strange Things Happen in This World.

“It’s the zombies,” muttered Virgil bitterly.  “When I was escorting Dante through the levels of hell, did I stop to eat someone’s brains?  Hell no, so to speak.  I mean, you’re dead, why don’t you act that way?  They don’t even have enough class to be ethereal.”

“Absolutely,” said Quint and Miss Jessel from The Turn of the Screw.  “But there’s one place we can go that zombies can’t—a haunted house.  You can board up the doors and windows and grab a shotgun to stop the zombies, but it won’t stop us.  Mysterious pounding in the walls, inexplicable cold spots in the hallways.  They don’t know whether to call an exorcist or the HVAC guy!  But now the most frightening thing about a house is mortgage rates.” 

“That and radon,” the Amityville Horror said.  “It gives me gas.”

“Houses are fine, but for true thrills—haunting a TV set.  That’s the best!” exclaimed the Poltergeist.

There was disagreement.  “That worked back in your day,” said Dr. Crowe.  “But with HD and 4K flat screens, those nebulous images that could be any one of us are harder to hide.  I had a 14-year-old patient who used AI to bring a screenshot of a vaporous being making chilling noises into focus, and it turned out to be a 1-800 Kars for Kids commercial.”

There were tiny shrieks.

“Maybe we should think about other appliances,” said the Amityville Horror.  “Perhaps haunting a refrigerator so it turns vegetables into limp, moldy muck.  Or haunting a clothes dryer so it only produces one sock.”

“Boo!” someone said in agreement. 

Their conversation was interrupted by a fearful scratching on the window.  “What the—” said Jacob Marley, before breaking into a smile and rattling his chains in delight when he saw who it was.  “Catherine Earnshaw!” he said with a laugh.  “How are things on the moor, hon?”

Catherine Earnshaw floated through the wall.  “Anybody seen Heathcliff?” she asked.

“He went that-a-way,” said one of the Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Meanwhile, Banquo sat in a dark corner.  He had held his tongue but could bear it no longer.  “All this focus on scaring little children is what’s wrong with our profession today,” he said. 

“Everything scares kids—zombies, vampires, monsters under the bed, long division.  I wasn’t interested in scaring children.  That’s punching down.  I wanted to scare Macbeth, and I did a pretty good job of it, too.  I just sat there and nobody noticed me except him.  When a ghost gets a politician to shout unintelligible things into the air, he’s had a good day.” 

“Well, that or a political rally,” Elvira said.

“Hey!  No politics, we agreed,” Jack Torrance said.

“I agree with Banquo,” said Hamlet’s Dad.  “Where is the moral mission?  Where are the lessons learned from a life of sin?  Where’s the torment?  I remember when a ghost used to have the moral high ground.”

“All you did was try to avenge your murder,” scoffed the ghosts who haunted Lincoln in the Bardo.  “That’s not the moral high ground—that’s just holding a grudge.”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but instead pointed a bony, wraith-like finger at an empty coffee urn.  A waiter brought in a new one.

“But when did scaring people become our only goal in the afterlife?”  Virgil said.  “I wasn’t there to scare Dante, I was there to show him around the underworld, right down to the ninth level.  Although that was before Satan created a tenth for  misinformation promoters and

crypto executives.”

“We agree,” said George and Marion Kerby.  “We weren’t there to scare Topper.  He was more frightened of a downturn in the market than of us.  It was cute.”

“What blather!” Marley exclaimed.  “An adorable capitalist in need of relaxation and a cocktail?  Take it from me—I straightened Scrooge’s ass out!  Do you think Musk and Ellison and Bezos need a cocktail party, or a swift kick?  If it were up to me, I’d do them the way I was done--cover them all in heavy chains, wrap bandages around their heads, and condemn them to wander the Earth in search of salvation.  And that would be before they died!”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but instead pointed a bony, wraith-like finger to the expiration date on a yogurt container at the buffet. 

And so, the argument raged on.  Were ghosts supposed to scare children, like the Amityville Horror, or Quint and Miss Jessel from The Turn of the Screw?  Or were they supposed to deliver a moral lesson, as did Jacob Marley or the Ghost of Christmas yet to come?  Or were they supposed to afflict the comfortable, as did Banquo?  Or were they supposed to enjoy themselves, as Casper, or the Kerbys did?

It was then that a tall, black-clad figure rose in the back of the room.  They all turned to him.  He was the big man, the head honcho, the O.G., the venerable leader to whom they all deferred.  He swung his black cape off his shoulder to reveal a glowing pumpkin head under his arm.

“Look, I frightened Ichabod Crane so badly he’s still failing physicals,” said The Headless Horseman’s illuminated pumpkin head.  “But frightening little children can be a good thing.  Because when a child is frightened, that little boy or girl learns to overcome that fear.  It’s part of growing up.  It’s fine to point out the moral shortcomings of the haunted, or to help the haunted find love or a cocktail.  But our job is to help children grow, and to lose their fear of things that go bump in the night.  Can we all agree on that?”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come raised a bony, wraith-like thumbs up.

“Boo!” they all said merrily. 

And so, it was unanimous.

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THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. HUITZILOPOCHTLI

Some people think being a god means life on easy street.  (And I mean a real god, not some Caligula vanity project, or Eric Clapton, or self-deified guys like Kanye.)  Look at me, for instance.  I might be a god, but I’ve been looking for a side hustle for about five hundred years, ever since Cortez showed up and put me out of business.  So, by human standards, I’m divine, but by divine standards, I’m a bum--my worshippers are even fewer than my Instagram followers. 

What is an out-of-work, down-and-out god supposed to do once smallpox wipes out all his followers?  The only job I ever had was Aztec God of War, which is a pretty good position, but hard to move from laterally.  Whenever I’d apply for a job, like being a guidance counsellor or maybe something in a New Age bookstore--situations that capitalized on my divinity--the best I’d get would be a dismissive “overqualified,” and sometimes a screwy look.  It’s the feather headdress, I bet.

So, that’s when I started drinking.  There’s this place where all the Gods hang out, like an after-hours joint, although when I say “place,” remember all we Gods exist on a spiritual plane that transcends the human three or four or however many stringy dimensions.  If it were a “place” though, you’d think it was a nice, neighborhood tavern.  Even a God needs some me-time now and then.

Well, I’m there a few eons ago and I’m relaxing with Osiris.  He’s in the same boat I’m in--no one believes in him anymore, either. We’ve hit the skids together.  But, like I tell him, at least he has Aida--Verdi and Elton John?  Both?  Come on!   Either way, these Egyptians are very nice guys, and we both wear a lot of eyeliner, so there’s something else we have in common.  Not like, say, Odin and his crowd, who drink themselves blind every night and then go busting up the furniture.  No wonder he lost an eye.

So, we’re sitting there having a couple and relaxing, like I said, and in walks Jehovah.  Personally, I can’t stand the guy.  He’s so full of himself, strutting around, big head of white hair and white beard, Santa on steroids, like he’s the only God who created the universe.  As if creating the universe was a big thing!  We all had a laugh when those physicists discovered the entire universe was really just one field in which matter instantaneously transforms into energy and vice versa.  You see, that’s the trick--you make a “field” and let matter emerge from it, just create it and then let it do its stuff.  Cat’s out of the bag now.  It took Jehovah six days only because he got caught up in the detail stuff--water and land, beasts of the field, and so on.  Micromanagement. 

So, anyway, Jehovah.  In he walks.  He really likes to throw his weight around, and it pisses people off.  Even Buddha dislikes him with all that “me” talk all the time.  You know “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” it’s all about him. You ever see Buddha talk about himself?  Never.  In fairness, Buddha walks around barefoot with a bedsheet hanging off one shoulder and clasps his hands together to say hello instead of a friendly hug--it’s a little stand-offish.  He says he doesn’t judge us all, but I don’t buy it.

And then there’s the kid, Jesus.  (I mean, that’s his name, Jesus.)  Jehovah drags him around everywhere they go, but they weren’t always that cozy together.  In fact, they used to be on the outs--the kid felt forsaken and the old man watched him die, or at least that’s their story now.  But for Gods, life has a certain eternality, I guess you’d say.  If the kid died, it’s something he picked up on his mother’s side.  Nowadays they go on about how Jehovah so loved one of his worlds that he gave them his only begotten son.  Come on.  I had a son, too, and I had him by my sister (which is frowned on, I admit), but later I killed him, outright, none of this namby-pamby “forsaken” stuff.  Now Zeus, there’s a father for you--Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena--that’s just the A’s!--Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Heracles, Hermes, Persephone, Perseus, the Graces, the Horae, the Muses.  He had ‘em in bunches, like OctoMom.  He keeps to himself nowadays, although the other Greek Gods are mixers, always looking for someone to wrestle, or a swan to screw.

Well, Jehovah walks in with the kid and looks around the place.  It’s pretty crowded tonight--there’s no place to sit, and you can see it’s pissing the guy off.  I duck my head down a little while I’m chatting with Osiris, hoping maybe Jehovah won’t see me.  Osiris is droning on about the Nile and how it’s nicer than the Ganges when Jehovah spots me and he shouts out across the room, “Yo Huitz!  Wassup?,” that fake hipster thing.   That’s my name, Huitzilopochtli.  It’s Aztec. 

I nod back at him, trying not to engage, but Jehovah and the kid walk over and he starts up a conversation while they stand by our table.  You know, nowhere to sit.  “So, how’s the war business?” he asks, since I’m the Aztec God of War, right?  Also, the God of the Sun and Human Sacrifice, so I hear a lot of that–how are the human sacrifices coming?–like they’re the first God who ever refused those, or they didn’t enjoy the scent of a hundred oxen being roasted on their behalf, although most of them won’t admit it now that it’s passé. 

Jehovah orders a JD shot and a Bud from a passing waiter and the kid has a club soda with lime, and the old guy starts telling us how great things are, how many people are worshipping him, believing in him.  But Osiris is in a pissy mood and doesn’t want to hear it, so he blurts, “So what about Falwell’s wife getting piped by the pool boy while he watched?”  But Jehovah just shrugs it off--boys will be boys--and belches after he’s done with his beer.  He looks around for a place to sit, but there are still no open tables.  It’s a busy night.  

“Pace yourself, Dad,” the kid says.  “Remember--gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law, says Galatians.”  But Jehovah gives the kid a perfunctory “Yeah, yeah,” and orders another round.  “Sure I can’t get you boys something?” he asks Osiris and me, but we wave him off.

The kid shakes his head as the drinks arrive while they stand there.  “Dad, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, like it says in Romans 13.”  Jehovah looks back at him.  “Buzz off, son.  It’s five o’clock somewhere.”  He drains the shot and takes a long pull on his second beer, then looks around for a table again before he turns to me and Osiris.

“I like you boys,” he says.  The drinks must be starting to mellow him.  He puts a hand on my shoulder.  “You got anything going in the way of work?” 

I shake my head no. 

“Maybe I can help.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Sure, it would be my pleasure.”

“Hey!  What about me?” Osiris interrupts.

“You?” Jehovah scoffs.  “Aren’t you some kind of Moose-limb?  Go ask your guy.”

“Come on!  I’m two thousand years older than that dude,” Osiris exclaims, pointing across the room to Allah, who’s sitting in a corner, quietly drinking mint tea with a lot of sugar in it.

“OK then, both of you, I tell you what,” Jehovah replies.  “How’d you like to be saints?  I’ll make you both saints.”

I’m trying to absorb this when the kid looks up and smiles, seeing an opportunity to give Osiris and me a crash course in self-improvement.  “As it says in Colossians,” he says to us, “now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”

Osiris and I have no interest in a lesson in probity from this kid (as if he wasn’t boning the Magdalene girl--just like the pool boy, now that I think of it), and if these are the conditions for the saint business, they’re a little strict.  “Maybe we should talk about this,” I say.  “We might not be up to it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jehovah says, waving his kid off with a look like the boy invented stupid, then turning back to us.  “You want to be saints or not?” 

Sure, we nod, but then it occurs to me, “Aren’t there procedures for this sort of thing?  Heroic virtues, miracles, canonization, and so on?  Don’t we have to–“

“Forget that stuff,” Jehovah says, dispensing with it with a wave of his fiery fingers.  “I have a special sainting ceremony very few people know about.  Stand up and with your right hand hold your first two fingers in the air.”

I’m a little surprised that’s all there is to it and we’re about to stand up, when the kid interrupts again.  “But Dad,” he says, “Matthew says ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

“Keep it down, son,” Jehovah says, dismissing him without ever turning away from us, and he starts to recite the oath.  “Do you swear, or affirm, you will be good, renounce sin, do saintly stuff, and so on?”

Osiris and I look at each other, trying to figure out what’s going on, but what have we got to lose?  “Sure,” I say.

“Sure,” Osiris repeats.

“And you renounce your old pastimes and embrace sainthood in my holy name as your new pursuit?”   We agree--this could be our ticket back to the big time, we figure, even though we’re still trying to figure it out. 

Jehovah says, “Cross your heart?”  And we do it.

Then Jehovah says, “Bow thy heads, so that I may bless thee.”  And he mumbles some stuff in a language we don’t understand, and we understand plenty of them, and when he’s done, we look up and he’s smiling at us. 

“OK,” he says, “you’re saints now.  Welcome, St. Osiris, welcome St. Huitzilopochtli.”

We smile broadly, eager for the adventure that lies ahead.

And then Jehovah’s pleasant expression disappears.  “Ok, so you’re saints now, not Gods anymore,” he barks gruffly.  “So, get the fuck out of here.  I need the table.”

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