A Man Called Moses Part Two

I fell into a deep, travel-weary sleep once I discovered my room within Ramses’s palace. I discovered, upon the arrival of morning, that three visitors had arrived at the kingdom. They claimed to know me.

I could think of nothing I needed less than Moses’s old friends to identify me as a counterfeit.

I dressed quickly, exited the palace, and discovered the dreaded Calves had arrived as my “old friends.” The three bounty hunters stood at the bottom of the palace’s golden steps. Two of them grinned at me.

“Hello, Moses,” the first said. He clearly knew I wasn’t Moses, given the way he pronounced the name.

My eyes darted, frantic. Plenty of people stood nearby. Did any of them stand in earshot?

I marched down the steps. “Gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

“Drop the act,” said one.

“We know who you really are,” said the second.

The third displayed a silver ring.

My heart stopped. The ring belonged to Moses. I had thought to steal it, but the robbery felt beneath me, so I allowed the dead man to keep his treasure.

“Do you suppose,” the first hunter asked, “that the pharaoh would care to hear how we came upon this ring?”

My knees shook. “I should like to know, myself.”

The second hunter explained. “Someone witnessed your little funeral out in the dunes. We dug up the real Moses, took the ring from his finger as proof of his demise.”

“How do you suppose,” the first hunter asked, “Ramses shall react when he discovers your deception?”

“So poorly,” said I, “that my mangled remains might prove unrecognizable. You three would discover yourselves without an identifiable corpse with which to claim your bounty, should that happen.”

The second hunter laughed. His rotten teeth stunk. “We didn’t travel all this way to leave empty-handed.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

The third hunter spoke for the first time. His eyes sparkled with a cunning that turned my bowels to water. “Your head can fetch us sixty silver pieces.”

I nodded. “I can cover that.” I hoped.

“You’ll have to perform better than that,” said the second hunter.

The first hunter agreed. “We want sixty gold pieces. Each.”

I nodded as if that shouldn’t provide me with a problem. “I can collect your prize, but not right away. I only started this scam. To ask Ramses for so much gold so soon would arouse his suspicion.”

The first two hunters opened their mouths, but they fell silent the second the third spoke. “How long?”

“Ten days,” I said. It sounded a nice, round figure.

Scowls answered my request. “Too long,” said the third hunter.

“Then turn me in,” I said in a heated rush.

They hesitated.

“Agree to ten days,” I told them. “You can always backtrack later, if your impatience defeats you.”

That satisfied them. “Very well, Moses,” said the third hunter. He led the other two from the stairs. “We’ll wait . . . but not from afar.”

I watched them leave.

God, I recalled, would owe me all the gold in Egypt if I released the Jews from their bondage . . . a task for which I needed to return.

I entered my room, found my snake, Stiffy, still disguised as a staff. With Stiffy in hand, I headed towards Ramses’s audience chamber, where I discovered a long line of Egyptian citizenry who waited outside that chamber.

One of Ramses’s soldiers handed me a small, stone square. A glyph of a man walking with his arms held out to either side decorated the stone.

Another soldier, seated at the entrance to the audience chamber, said, “Now serving Owl.”

The other people in line examined their stone squares. “That’s me,” an old man said. He presented his stone square, a glyph of an owl carved upon it.

The seated soldier rose and led the old man into the audience chamber.

Several minutes passed.

The soldier returned. “Now serving Man with the Head of a Goat or Something.”

“Right here.” Another person in line turned in a stone square decorated by a carving of a man with the head of a goat or something.

This routine continued, until, at long last, one soldier announced, “Now serving Man with His Arms Held out.”

I turned in my stone square and allowed the soldier to escort me into Ramses’s audience chambers.

The king’s throne, carved from wood and festooned with sapphires, sat atop a small series of golden steps. Several soldiers stood guard near the bottom step.

I could cure all my problems if I walked away with only one of those steps.

The pharaoh seemed surprised to see me. “Moses? What brings you here?”

I licked my lips. “About that whole ‘Freeing the Jews’ business . . .”

Ramses rose from his throne. “I will not hear of this matter again.”

I summoned my courage. “I warn you, Ramses.” (I rubbed Stiffy just right, cued him to drop his disguise.) “Behold the power of the Hebrew God!” I tossed Stiffy upon the floor, where he immediately uncoiled.

A young boy cried with wonder. “He turned his staff into a snake!”

I crossed my arms, certain that I had accomplished Ramses's attention.

I hadn’t even fazed him. “A simple magician’s trick.” He snapped his fingers.

Two soldiers dropped their own “staffs” upon the ground. These snakes-disguised-as-staffs uncoiled.

Ramses straightened, stared down at me. “We’re done here.”

“Look!” cried the same boy as before.

My mouth dropped. The soldiers gasped. Stiffy ate the other two snakes.

Ramses sat, lost for words.

I seized the opportunity. “See the Hebrew God’s power? You mustn’t defy Him. Grant my people their freedom.”

Ramses’s fists tightened. “One snake eats two, and I, in rational reaction, should free thousands of slaves? Offer me something more persuasive.”

I possessed other tricks. “I shall, if you do not grant the Hebrews’ their freedom, turn a portion of your drinking water into blood.”

The crowd gasped.

Ramses’s dark eyes glared at me with naked fury. I swallowed, concerned that I had pushed the pharaoh too far.

“When the sun sets tonight, Moses, and your threat turns up empty, I expect silence to fall forever upon this debate.”

A conman either knows when he’s pushed his luck far enough, or he enjoys a slit throat. I bowed and retreated from the audience chamber.

I headed towards one of the kingdom’s many lakes. The pouch that hung from my belt possessed enough red powder (I hoped) to turn a portion of the lake red.

I knelt at the lake’s edge, stared down at my reflection. I looked tired, my black skin blistered by my travels. I discreetly removed the powder from my pouch, dropped it into the water, and stood.

I mimicked a religious rite while the powder converted as much water as it likely would.

“Behold!” I cried. “I have, with the power of God, turned your water to blood.”

Egyptian citizens, soldiers, and even slaves gathered around me. They stared at the petite, pink blemish that floated atop the lake. The crowd looked far from impressed.

“What did you do?” a soldier asked. “Cut open a mouse?”

The citizens and soldiers laughed.

“Look!” cried the boy from the audience chamber (I suspected that the brat just wandered about the kingdom unsupervised). “The blood spreads.”

Everyone gasped (they did this often). The pink spot had indeed spread. The entire lake appeared a pit of dark blood. The other lakes followed suit, as did the entire Nile River.

How? God had told me that He hadn’t the power to perform miracles. That He “overstated His abilities in certain autobiographies.” If He hadn’t caused this, who had?

One soldier noticed the gathered Jews. “What do you lowlifes think you’re doing here? Back to work, or I’ll—”

I don’t know what possessed me, but I stepped between the soldier and Jews. “Anyone who strikes a Hebrew shall face the fury of God.”

Everyone froze while they digested this.

“What if,” one soldiers asked, “the Jew in question starts to go on about how he devised a mathematical system for beating a blackjack table?”

“I guess you would have to strike him, then,” I admitted. “Everyone hates those twats with their stupid, card-counting schemes that never work.”

“Wait!” said a citizen. “If you just keep count of all face-up picture cards—”

I shot him a warning look. He shut his trap.

The crowd parted to reveal Ramses, who stood in decorative armor and a velvet cape. He stared at the water. “What have you done?” he whispered to me.

He knelt at the nearest lake, dipped his finger into the blood . . . examined it.

His eyes slid towards me. “I refused to speak to our father after he expelled you. I promised he would never hear my voice until he welcomed you back.”

Ramses stood, rubbed the blood he collected between his thumb and forefinger. “This is how you repay me?”

What could I have said?

Ramses marched past me. “For every morning that the blood remains, I shall order one of your fingers sliced from your hand.”

Bad news. I hadn’t the palest notion how to reverse my parlor trick.

To be continued . . .

(You can read my movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com & you can catch my novels, such as “Daughters of Darkwana,” on Kindle. Thanks for reading. See you next time.)

A Man Called Moses (Part One)

The desert proves a rough place. Bandits might cut your throat while you sleep. Slavers might kidnap and sell you. Some religious, nut-job might slice you open to make the moon happy. Scorpions. Snakes. Heat. Thirst. Illness. Sandstorms.

I used to change my name every couple of days. Best way for a conman to avoid crucifixion.

I had a pet snake named Stiffy, which I trained to stretch out and hold perfectly still. I used him to trick people into thinking that I could turn a walking stick into a snake.

I could slip some powder into your water and let you believe I turned it into blood.

I studied the sky enough to forecast an eclipse.

I could convince you that I possessed all sorts of evil powers, provided that I didn’t give you time to think too hard about it.

I could trick any village into handing over its gold. I settled for a few meals, though. I couldn’t eat gold, which attracted robbers, anyway.

Those villagers often hired bounty hunters to collect my head. Seemed they didn’t appreciate my trickster’s tactics.

Rumor had it that the Calves accepted a contract on my head. The Calves served as the three nastiest bounty hunters in the dunes.

These guys would’ve killed their own daughters for the right price. They loved their gold. They hammered it into armor—useless armor, given gold’s pliability. They just liked to look shiny, I suppose.

I came across a stranger out in the dunes, about a week ago. His robe looked filthy. Sunburns and blisters covered him. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer, but I couldn’t let him die out there, alone.

He resembled me quite a bit, once I subtracted his bug-infested beard.

I carried him into the nearest town (where no one kept a price on my head), rented a tent, and tried to get the doomed man comfortable. He mumbled a lot, even for a delirious wanderer.

I couldn’t believe what he told me. Not at first. His details seemed too knowledgeable for forgeries, though. A conman knows a conman. This guy felt honest.

He called himself Moses.

Yeah, that Moses, the Prince of Egypt, who recently got himself expelled by his pharaoh father because he tried to free the Hebrew slaves.

Rumor had it that the pharaoh died recently. His oldest son, Ramses, inherited the crown.

How could my opportunistic side not feel aroused?

A scam grew in my head, one that might set me for life. If I went about it properly. One lousy misstep would damn me.

If I successfully presented myself as Moses, perhaps Ramses would permit me into his kingdom.

I wanted to live like a prince (Not a king. Too much responsibility, and I never would make a decent leader).

Moses died before dawn. I rehearsed, in my head, my game plan while I buried him.

I would travel to Egypt to plead for the Jews' freedom. Ramses would not (of course) grant me my wish. He would (I hoped) allow me to return home if I never again mentioned the Hebrews. I would (with mock averseness) agree.

I set out on my journey

My cracked feet burned and itched by the time I arrived at Ramses’s kingdom.

I heard the cruel crack of the slave masters’ whips and the screams that followed. I witnessed the short-lived, crimson clouds that sprayed from the slaves’ tortured backs whenever leather snapped through flesh.

The Hebrews saw me, and my lingering concerns regarding my resemblance to Moses vanished. Their eyes widened. Those not already on their knees fell upon them. They cupped their hands and praised God for the return of their champion.

The slaver masters didn’t know how to react. Egypt’s prior king had expelled Moses. However, Ramses ran the kingdom now. Not a single slaver driver dared to raise a whip against Ramses's brother, but they sounded the alarm of my arrival.

Countless men opened the mammoth, stone doors that served as the kingdom’s front gate. Ramses, decked out in the gaudiest wardrobe imaginable, stood on the other side of that gate.

He stood within a chariot, just to look impressive, I suspect.

I swallowed my sudden fear. I could only imagine the unspeakable death that awaited anyone who dared to imitate Moses.

Ramses and I stared at each other for what felt a century.

Ramses spoke. “What fate dared to return you to my door?”

I straightened. “Ramses. I spoke with the Hebrews’ God. He demands that you let His people go.”

Ramses laughed. “You mean your people? You are one of them, after all.”

I stifled my surprise. I had not heard this bit of information.

I recovered quickly. “Yes! Let. My. People. Go!”

Silence followed.

Ramses removed his crown, exposed the single, long, black braid that decorated his otherwise bald, black head.

“Moses,” he said, “our father passed into the next world. I will not set free his slaves only to dishonor his memory. However, I will dare to defy your expulsion and welcome you home . . . if you abandon your love of the lowly Jews.”

The Jews in question held their breaths.

Sorry, guys. I’m not your savior.

I pretended to consider Ramses’s offer. Then, I agreed.

Misery swelled from the slaves, but what more could I have done for them?

Ramses stepped from his chariot. His gold chains jingled while he clapped my shoulders and kissed both my cheeks. “Welcome home, Moses.”

He led me onto his chariot. His gorgeous steeds steered us towards his palace. We passed rows of fruit merchants and potters. Soldiers practiced their drills upon a courtyard. Priests performed extravagant admirations to Ra.

I entered the palace, and, within moments, four beautiful, painted women stripped and bathed me. They dressed me in a soft robe and sprinkled me with sweet perfumes.

The women led me to Ramses’s dinning hall, where a wonderful feast awaited me. I ate in a manner far beneath a prince of Egypt, but I couldn’t contain my stomach’s savage wants. I stuffed myself with dates, meats, and cheeses.

Ramses gave me leave to return to my old bedroom. My throat closed in response. How could I explain that I didn’t know where my bedroom sat? Such a confession would expose me for a fraud.

“Please, brother,” said I, “accompany me to my chambers.”

Ramses refused. “I’ve a kingdom to rule. Crucial decisions await my words even at this late hour.”

I didn’t even know which doorway led towards my room. If I selected the wrong one . . .

“If it pleases you,” I said, “I will enjoy a stroll through the cool, night air.”

Ramses nodded. I retreated outside the palace.

Choruses of crickets filled the darkness. Mosquitoes buzzed. I still heard the cracks of the slave drivers’ whips.

I, with my snake, Stiffy, in hand (he, still in the falsehood of a staff), climbed one of the smaller buildings. I strolled across its roof, watched the Hebrews suffer.

It seemed little wonder that Moses wanted to free them, but what had the foolish prince hoped to accomplish? A man could not rescue these people. It would take the strength of . . .

The flicker of fire commanded my attention. It glowed just beyond the slaves’ quarters, within the fields of scattered, dry bushes.

Fire should spread quickly in such settings. Yet this fire seemed uninterested in travel.

I climbed down from the building and approached the fields. The mysterious fire, I realized, remained on a single bush, which didn’t appear to burn.

“What is this?” I whispered, enchanted.

I noticed a lazy, buzzing sound, as if the bush snored.

“Um, hello?” I said (I felt remarkably foolish for it).

The bush’s snores broke with a start. “Huh! Who's there?”

“I’m, ah, Moses.”

“Bully you are,” said the bush. It slurred its words. “You’re just pretending to be Moses. Moses is dead. I would know. He and I just shared a few beers and a bucket of chicken wings up in Heaven.”

“Watch your volume, bush,” I said in a hushed tone. “I would rather not have my true identity discovered.”

The bush snorted. “You haven't yet discovered it, yourself. In any case, My divine Will—” <hiccup> “—led you here. This is all—” <burped> “—part of the program.”

I suspected that this bush and Moses shared more than just “a few” beers.

“What program?” I asked.

I awaited an answer. None came.

The bush began to snore again.

I clapped my hands to wake it. “Hey! I’m talking to you. What program?”

The bush awoke with an even greater start than before. “What! Oh. Right. The program where you lead the Jews out of Egypt.”

My eyes widened. “Lead the Jews out of Egypt? Are you crazy?”

The bush shrugged. “Everyone asked me that exact question when I designed the platypus. That duck-billed beaver’s doing just fine, though, I’ll have you know.”

Words failed me.

“I’m God,” said the bush. “Perhaps you’re familiar with my work.”

“Then why not free the Jews, Yourself," I asked, "with Your godly powers and so forth?”

“Um . . . actually,” said the bush, “I might’ve overstated My abilities a bit in certain autobiographies. Now everyone thinks I can go around doing whatever I please. If that were true, wouldn't I have put tits on everything?”

“But if You can’t free the Jews,” I asked, “how could I?”

“I have faith in you people,” said the bush. “I build you out of strong stuff. None of that cheap, Chinese crap. Do as I command. Save the Jews and whatnot.”

I stared at the bush, which once again snored.

How could I save anyone?

If I did, though, God would owe me a free pass. He would have to look the other way if I wandered into any sort of damnation.

I could think of many damnations into which I’d care to wander.

I considered the enormity of the task set before me.

I might’ve felt further fear, had I known that a certain trio of bounty hunters called the Calves had followed my trial.

. . . To be continued.

The Near-Marvels of Malt So

“What do you mean ‘Someone already invented it’?” Malt So asked. He pressed his cell phone against his ear.

“I’m sorry, Malt,” Ned Baws said. His voice crackled from the cell phone’s speaker. “Ace F. Plirst patented the same contraption over a month ago.”

Malt felt the color drain from his face. He paced his living room, ignored his ten-year-old son, who complained whenever Malt blocked his view of the television.

“I spent years designing this device,” Malt said. “How can Plirst just jump out of the shadows with the exact same invention?”

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Ned said. “A common need generates every great idea. You and Plirst—and probably countless other science professors—saw the same need and thought of the same way to fulfill it. Someone had to complete the project first. It wasn’t you.”

Malt felt sick. “It’s Edward Scissorhands all over again.”

“ . . . Pardon?”

“Edward Scissorhands,” Malt said. He increased the speed of his pacing, stomped harder than necessary. “I spent two years writing this great screenplay called Eddie Staplerfeet. Then, when I tried to pitch the project to producers, they all told me that some hack already started a project called Edward Scissorhand. Can you believe that?”

“I can’t,” Ned confessed. “I really can’t.”

Malt threw his free hand into the air. “What do I do now, Ned?”

Malt’s ten-year-old spoke from the sofa. “Invent something else.”

Malt glanced at his son. “That’s your advice? Just let it go and move onto the next project?”

His son rolled his eyes. “Or not. Whatever. Just move so I can watch Firefly.”

Malt spent the next few weeks experimenting in his basement. He mixed chemicals, tested soils, and studied the stem cells of bananas (yes, bananas).

After he discovered success, he called the university at which he worked, asked the operator to connect him with Wreer T. Goer, the head of the agriculture studies department.

“It’s kind of late, Malt,” Wreer said. “I nearly left my office for the day.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” Malt spoke in rushed, excited sentences. “I’ve invented the greatest chemical compound imaginable.”

Wreer moaned. “Not more juice to help people regrow their hair! I can’t deal with another one of those ‘discoveries.’”

“No, no, no,” Malt said. He paced about his basement/laboratory. “That sort of snake oil always sat beneath me. I’ve created something far more exciting.”

“Well?” Wreer yawned. “Out with it, already. My wife’s waiting with a pot roast.”

“I’ve created a serum that allows us to grow an entire banana tree from a scrap of banana peel. The tree reaches fruit-bearing adulthood in merely—”

“—Two weeks?” Wreer asked, unimpressed.

Malt deflated, slowed to a stop. “How . . . how did you know that?”

Wreer’s sigh echoed from Malt’s phone. “One of you colleagues patented that same serum two days ago. Try to keep up.” Click. Wreer disconnected.

Malt stood, frozen. The phone, too heavy to hold, slipped from his hand, crashed against the ground.

He swallowed, stared at the table upon which his latest work sat. Potted, juvenile, banana trees. Microscopes. Charts. He swung his arm, swept everything off the table and onto the floor.

His palms slapped the table. He leaned forward, fought to control his breath.

His anger evolved into wild laughter. Of course, someone else invented such an obvious idea.

“That’s the trouble with you, Malt,” he whispered to himself. “You’re too predictable. You have to invent something so crazy, nobody else in the world would’ve ever thought to construct it.”

His eyes danced with a curiously sweet madness.

He went to work immediately. Three sleepless days later, Malt invited every news organization in America to the début of his amazing, crazy invention.

With heavy, black bags under his eyes and no fewer than a hundred television cameras pointed at him, he took the stage in his university’s auditorium.

He raised his hands for silence (nobody had said a word prior). “I’ve called you all here today to announce my latest, completely original invention, unlike anything anyone ever thought to make.”

He reached beneath a black blanket, and lifted from it a large, assault rifle. “This. Is. The. Spork Gun.” He pulled its trigger, fired a high-speed, plastic spork at a target set across the stage.

The spork slammed through the target’s bull’s-eye.

Malt laughed a bit too long. “Any questions?”

A reporter lifted her hand. “How does your Spork Gun differ from the one invented last Friday by that Korean kid?”

Malt froze. “ . . . Come again?”

Another reporter explained. “A ten-year-old from Korea invented this exact same nonsense less than a week ago.”

Another reporter asked Malt, “Do you always steal other people’s ideas?”

Malt’s wild, wide eyes darted from one reporter to the next. He read the same bored expression on every face.

“O . . . kay,” Malt whispered. His hands trembled. “Maybe the Spork Gun isn’t all that original. But you know what is?” He aimed his weapon at the crowd. “Using it to take you all hostage! That’s right. I am taking you all hostage with a Spork Gun!”

One reporter cheerfully asked, “Like that guy did in New Jersey over the weekend?”

“What?” Malt asked. “Well. Um. For what did he exchange his hostages? Money? Ha! I’ll trade you all for a football helmet filled with cottage cheese.”

“Didn’t that happen in the movie Airheads?” someone asked.

“No!” Malt roared. “I’ll trade you all for Pogs. Remember pogs?”

“Of course we do,” an elderly reporter said. “A hostage negotiator in Miami just traded a chest filled with Pogs for a room full of hostages. I believe they were all reporters, imprisoned at gunpoint inside a university auditorium.”

“You know what, then?” Malt asked. He tossed aside his Spork Gun and unsheathed a sword he had for some reason. “I’m not taking anyone hostage. I’m going to cut off my arm, instead.” He did. “How’s that for original?”

A reporter rolled her eyes. “Why does everyone want to copycat that woman who used a sword to cut off her arm?”

“I’m confused,” another reporter said. “Are we still hostages?”

Malt (who felt a bit lightheaded), sat in a deepening puddle of his blood. “I think I’ll just go to jail, please.”

That night:

MSNBC: “Today, another man used a Spork Gun to take hostages in a school. When will our government pass stricter, Spork Gun regulations to prevent these tragedies?”

Fox News: “Thanks to unnecessary, nanny-state, gun regulations, not a single reporter taken hostage today had a Spork Gun with which to protect him- or herself.”

CNN: “Justin Bieber has a new hair cut! More at eleven.”