A Man Called Moses Part 3

I paced within Moses’s old bedroom inside Ramses’s palace. Morning would arrive soon, and Ramses’s soldiers would arrive with it. They would drag me outside and cut one of my fingers from my hand. I could do nothing to prevent it.

I had arrived here, in Egypt, to pull off my greatest scam yet. I had used my resemblance to the recently, and secretly, deceased Moses to trick the pharaoh, who mistook me for his younger brother.

I had only aimed to live as a prince. The goal hadn’t felt so greedy.

Then God showed up in the form of a burning bush, asked me to free the Hebrew slaves from Ramses’s kingdom. If I succeeded, God would owe me a favor.

I thought my conman’s clever tricks could persuade Ramses to release his slaves.

My tricks backfired. I pushed Ramses too far. I had (somehow) turned the lakes and rivers to blood. Ramses had afterwards ordered me locked away in my room. I would forfeit a finger every morning that the blood remained.

This morning would prove the first, and I hadn’t a clue how to make the blood vanish.

To further complicate matters, a trio of bounty hunters called the Calves, wise to my true identity, gave me ten days to collect for them a handsome amount of gold. The Calves would expose me as a fraud if I failed.

I didn’t just swim over my head; I rested miles below the ocean’s surface.

Footsteps sounded near my locked door. My heart raced. My hands tightened around my pet snake, Stiffy, whom I had trained to mimic a staff.

Someone outside my door turned the lock. I held my breath while I expected Ramses’s soldiers to pile inside my room.

The door opened. A woman entered. She stared at me with an expectant expression.

I blinked, confused.

“Don’t you recognize me, Moses?” she asked. “It’s me. Nefertari.”

Ramses’s wife? I nodded. “Right. Of course you are.”

An expression of hurt spread across her face. “Please, Moses. Don’t act like that.” She approached me, placed a hand on my face. “Surely, we didn’t end our relationship on such bad terms that you must treat me as a stranger.”

I stood at a loss for words. Moses and Nefertari shared a relationship before she married the king? I wondered what someone might pay for such a juicy bit of gossip.

She squeezed my arm. “My husband’s soldiers shall arrive soon. We must flee now if you wish to escape his rage.”

I allowed her to lead me away from my room, down a set of stairs, past a Starbucks, and into a room filled with dull, practice weapons and board games.

“Hello,” someone said.

I turned and spotted the kid from Ramses’s audience chamber. “Um, hi?”

Nefertari waved at the child. “This is your nephew, Spot.”

I performed a double take. The kid served as Ramses’s son?

“You named him Spot?” I asked.

She nodded. “Moses, you must remain hidden here, where my husband will never find you. Spot promised to keep silent about your presence.”

Ramses would never find me in his son’s room? That spoke volumes.

Spot smiled up at me. “Do you like to play games, Mister?”

Kid, you don’t know the half of it.

. . . Someone found, later that day, a frog in her living room. Gross exaggerations followed. The nightshift workers soon discussed the "millions of frogs Moses unleashed upon Egypt."

The next day, some guy about to get sucked into a pyramid scheme discovered lice in his hair, so that became that day’s “plague.” Everyone overreacted accordingly.

Ramses found a fly in his soup the day after that, so everyone gossiped about the billions of flies I had sent to swarm across the country.

Friday. A cow threw up. People couldn’t contain their terror. “Moses’s god poisoned our livestock! What will we do?”

Saturday. Someone located a boil on his ass. Time to panic.

Sunday. Some guy set his roof on fire while trying to light a fart. Everyone freaked out about how I had set the sky on fire. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Monday arrived with locusts of something. I honestly stopped paying attention at that point.

. . . Spot and I played board games. I won every time (I cheated).

“Too bad, kid,” I said as I collected my winnings (I could always talk Spot into gambling a bit). “I really thought you would’ve won that round. Try again?”

Spot nodded. “This time, I’m gonna sink your battleship in the first round.”

“I bet you will, sport.” He wouldn’t. I switched the position of my toy ships whenever I needed.

“Excuse us,” someone said, so close that I jumped from my chair.

The three bounty hunters collectively known as the Calves stood inside Spot’s room. Two of them grinned at me the way a child grins at a stack of birthday presents. The third hunter’s cold eyes drilled into my core.

“How did you get in here?” asked Spot.

One of the grinning hunters answered. “We’re good at sneaking into places.”

The other grinner spoke. “You disappeared on us, Moses.” He pronounced my name in such a way that reminded me he knew my true identity.

“The pharaoh’s been looking for you,” said the first grinner. “Seems you owe him some fingers.”

“And you owe us,” said the second, “some gold.”

I glanced at my board game-winnings, not nearly enough to cover the amount I had promised these hunters. They would certainly betray me afterwards, even if I could pay them.

The third hunter’s voice dripped menace. “When people owe us gold, we don’t like to have to look for them.”

I walked towards them so I could whisper. I didn’t want Spot to overhear our conversation. “The next plague will force Ramses to release the Jews. I’ll make Ramses pay them for their services. Then, I’ll funnel their pay to you. Okay?”

The third hunter snorted. “What plague? Your tricks don’t fool us.”

I nodded. “I haven’t caused any real plagues, but I’ve studied the sky most of my life. Tomorrow, the moon shall block out the sun, cast all of Egypt into darkness. That ought to scare Ramses into submission.”

The hunters leveled their skepticism straight at me.

I waved towards a few empty chairs. “Have a seat. If the sun doesn’t vanish tomorrow, you may do whatever you like to me. Would any of you care for some string cheese while you wait?”

The third hunter shook his head. “String cheese causes Asperger’s.”

“Oh, that’s just a stupid rumor,” I said.

The third hunter straightened. “My wife ate string cheese when she was pregnant. Now, our son falls down every five seconds.”

I didn’t believe that Asperger’s caused anyone to fall down. The bounty hunter’s son, I suspected, existed as a clumsy idiot. I did not feel inclined to share these beliefs.

The door opened, and Ramses, surrounded by several armed soldiers, marched inside Spot’s room.

The pharaoh’s furious eyes zeroed upon me, and I felt myself sink just a little bit deeper into the ocean I created for myself.

. . . To be continued.

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