Ever since then my life had changed. I no longer went to the public school. I no longer cared about other simple things. My life was centered on Egypt. My excitement, my joys, my love, my passion, and my heart belonged to Egypt and to King Tutankhamen.
My parents taught me the Egyptian language. I was even able to understand the Hieroglyphs. They showed me how the Egyptians used to live. My life became a history class, but an interactive one.
My father was either teaching me or he stuck himself in his basement for hours upon end. I never found out what my father was doing until six years later, when I snuck into the basement to behold the machine.
I was curious. My father spoke nothing of his project during out lectures. But I knew that what he was doing was important. He always would bow his head in reverence before entering the basement. Some days he would leave the basement with a smile, but most days he was frustrated. Every time I tried to talk to him about it, he would tell me,
“Don’t worry Teremut. When the time is right, you will know.”
This slightly angered me. I was 16 at the time and thought that I had full rights to know what my father was doing; because, this seemed to have everything to do with my destiny. All my lectures seemed to be pointing to what my father was doing, yet I had no idea what. I had to know.
Finally my day had come. I made it my day to know. My father left one weekend. The time was now or never. I spent an hour with a small piece of metal trying to open the lock on the door to the basement. The door clicked open. I lifted the door so that it would not squeak on the hinges. I had to be careful, even though it was midnight and my mother always went to bed early.
The small corridor was dark as I slipped through the crack in the door. My breath was quick. For several years I’ve wondered what was in here, and yet I never had the courage to see for myself.
I closed the door behind me and quietly walked down the small corridor. I used a small mechanical device, called a flashlight, as a lamp to illuminate the room. The small amount of light showed to me a large bench strewn with hundreds of pieces of paper, something similar to papyrus. Thousands of symbols, lines, numbers, and equations were scribbled all over each of these pieces of paper.
Several large pieces of paper were pinned up against the wall behind the bench. These had pictures of some kind of machine. Designs. My father was designing some kind of machine. But where was it?
I turned around in the small dark room. Two other benches lined the right wall. One of them had a small box with hundreds of wires attached to it. There were about ten different clocks or watches laid out on the bench. Each one was at exactly the dame time as the others; except one, which was exactly two minutes slow.
The other bench was full of large textbooks. Physics, mathematics, engineering, astrology and astronomy. There was even one large textbook entitled, “Einstien’s Theory of Relativity.” My father was reading in the middle of the chapter entitled “Time.”
“What is my father doing?” I whispered quietly.
I turned around to see a pile of boxes in the corner. Each one was delivered here from different places, including several boxes from Egypt. I dared not open any of them for fear that my father would find out that I had been down here.
I turned to look once again at the first bench and noticed several hieroglyphs on the wall to the left of the bench. I saw several symbols that I recognized. I saw a depiction of my father bowing on one knee under the rays of the sun. He was in the act of worshiping.
I was startled to see several depictions of myself on the wall. One depiction showed me also in the act of worshiping under the rays of the sun. Another showed me walking along side the pharaoh as if I were his shadow. One depiction showed me wearing the crown of pharaoh, sitting upon a throne of gold.
I shuddered. A chill ran up my spine as I dropped the flashlight. I knew that my father was serious when he told me that I was the destiny of Egypt. But to know that my father believes me to be a pharaoh?
“I can’t be pharaoh.” I whispered to myself. My breath was heavy. “How can I be pharaoh?” This is ridiculous. There’s no Egypt left to have a pharaoh. “I wont be pharaoh.”
A silent click sounded down the corridor. Someone just opened the door. There was no escape now. I figured that I had better not try to hide either. Maybe now I would get some answers.
The room burst into light as my mother flipped a switch on the wall next to the corridor. She stood there with her arms crossed in her usual disappointed gesture. Her glare pierced my heart. It felt heavy. I had hurt her somehow.
She was wearing her simple brown nightgown. Her hands were quivering, despite the fact that she had them folded in front of her chest. A tear trickled down her cheek. She was neither frowning nor smiling. With a single eyebrow raised she asked;
“Teremut, what are you doing here?”
I knew that a lie would only make the situation worse. I needed to get answers so I might as well be truthful about it.
“Father told me to find something in here...” I couldn’t believe it, I just lied. Why was I so afraid to tell the truth?
“Father kept the door locked.” I gulped. She got me.
“I know … but father told me to pick the lock.”
“Don’t pause.” She took a step forward. “When you lie you must not pause or stutter in your sentences, otherwise they will catch you.”
“What?” I was confused.
“If you are going to lie, you must not get caught in the act of lying.” She walked up to me and stood by my side, only she lifted her gaze from me to the hieroglyphs on the wall. “There may come a day when your life will depend on a lie.”
“Are you encouraging me to lie, Mother?”
“No. I am telling you to be so good at lying that even your mother can’t tell.” She didn’t take her eyes off of the wall, but placed her hand on my shoulder, directing my attention to the hieroglyphs. “We have been trying to teach you this virtue for quite some time now, my son.”
“What?”
“You have reached a new level in your teaching now. Your father has been worrying that you would not take the next step towards your destiny.”
“Wait, what was that step?”
“You went against our mandates and entered this basement. We were afraid that you would be too submissive.”
“You mean this was a test?”
“It was the first question to your real test. You are now ready for the next step.” She breathed in softly. I could hear a small quick sob in her breathing. “My son, what does my Egyptian name of Hafsah means?”
“It means, ‘married to the prophet’ right?”
“And this was no accident.” She waited for a moment. “Your father is a prophet.” She reached out and touched the depiction of father kneeling under the rays of the sun. “Aten, my god, the sun from the sky, has chosen him to bring glory back to Egypt. He has been chosen to bring the rays of the sun back to Egypt.
“The day that you were born, your father went out and knelt in a prayer of thanksgiving to the gods for your birth. The sun was high in the sky. Your father gazed into its depths for a moment. In that moment he received a vision.
“A vision of his son being crowned pharaoh of Egypt. He saw his son leading the armies of Egypt against the Persian empire, then against the Greeks. He saw the banner of Egypt strewn across all the land. A glorious vision indeed delivered to him from Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”
I now could see the hieroglyphs that depict this vision. There was the Egyptian banner across the middle east, and even partially into the southern portion of Europe.
“A vision of me?” My voice quavered.
“He felt knew it was you, but he never saw your face. Instead he saw the face and body of another.”
“What? Mother, I’m confused.”
“I did not understand myself for several years. He explains his vision as though having seen your soul or spirit dwell inside the body of a pharaoh. In the body of King Tutankhamen to be specific.”
That explains the depiction of me as a shadow walking in the footsteps of a pharaoh. But how?
“Your father has spent the last sixteen years finding a way to make this vision a reality. As you can see here,” she turned away from the hieroglyphs to wave her hand towards the three benches, “he has worked out every possible idea and theory.” She turned to face me for what seemed like the first time of the night. She was crying. “I tried to keep you safe from this vision. I tried, but your father is too adamant.
“He really is the prophet for Aten, my god, the sun from the sky. He loves his god. He made me believe. I tried to keep him from preaching to you. I tried to persuade him to not put you in danger.” she was sobbing now, cradling my head in her arms. “I can’t bear to see you hurt, my son. And now … now I’m going to loose my only son.”
“I’m not going anywhere mother.” I loved her.
“Yes you are, my son.” She sobbed and coughed over her shoulder. “You see, Teremut? Your father must obey the vision given him from Aten, the sun from the sky. He has made astounding progress with his last idea.”
“What is that, mother?”
“Time travel.”
My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe it. I used to think that time travel was just a fairy tail, or some random dream created by the whims of a little child. I have read stories about people using time travel to accomplish heroic feats. But never had I before thought that time travel could be achieved.
Hundreds of possible outcomes raced through my mind. There were theories that strongly suggests that if someone were to send anything into the past, then the dimension in which we live now would vanish as if it never existed. Then there was the more pleasing idea that if something was sent into the past, then a new path of history would unfold, not affecting the current course of time.
Basically I came to the same conclusion that my mother had reached several years ago; if I were to go back into the past, then I would never see my family again. Never.
Both of us have sunk down to our knees on the cold floor of the basement. In the warm embrace of my mother, I wept.
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