Pharoah

 

His stone face cannot be spoken to. He is silent as the day he was turned into granite. Communication is a one-way street. The words are just my words, staring back. Ancient is a way of life, incomparable, agreed to by the parties. The gods give glimpses, as they do, giving and taking. There is all the time in the world, however long that is. Attention to detail is painstaking. His head must have been a headache. His goatee is curled to a nicety. His cheek is not to be taken for granted. His stare is their stare, staring back. Blank to some, his eyes are born cartouches. The florid world arises between blinks. Words cannot encapsulate its every movement. Sculptors etch away at an asp or a lily. Majesty vies with mortality, formality with futility. His day job was preparing everyone for the night ahead. As fortune would have it, his name is lost. His game is an impossible guess, survival and loss in either order. He was the boss, counting the cost. Days were spent chiselling his name on a lintel. Date indeterminate. Source the Delta, the Valley, who can tell. He turned rock hard even as his flesh was turning to water.  His people looked the other way. It was enough for them he kept peace with the gods. His lion’s body went to rest in the sanctuary. In time terms, his long look back became for them a glance over the shoulder. The people woke to a new day. Saluting made way for looting. Travel was an improvement on travail. Thoughts make way for the photo opportunity. Sent from my iPhone to friends, pictures of pharaohs, heaps of hieroglyphs, priests at an angle half in the frame. Medium busy day for visitors to the gallery. Their eager expressions, their mobile profiles. Reading the millennial rollcall of pharaohs. Their low-fidelity of opinions fill the rooms. Like being in a sepulchre. Beings and opinions circulating in the airy half-light. My iPhone, what is it. The black hole in the middle of the room. A cartouche of all the news that fits. Its date determined by a technician in the Valley. In time terms, the blink of an eye, the touch of a fingertip. Getting it right, the light and shade. I amble, wearied, while they dart from stone to stone, children with their iPhones. They snap stone face with glee, one more oblong of ancient, a cartouche of a meaning they will flick through later. All those mummies and dadoes. Their days are spent scrolling through memories. They are not looking too close. They are not looking too deep.