I spent the next three years helping my father with the machine that would send me back in time. I learned much about physics, space, time, mathematics, biology and chemistry. Despite this knowledge that I have gained, I knew nothing as to how this machine was to work. My father specifically kept this a secret from me, even the main idea behind it all.
I soon learned what my mother meant about lying. They lied to me all the time, causing me many hours of anger and heartache. I had to learn the hard way how to lie and also how to tell when others were lying to me.
It was a difficult time for me. My parents knew. I knew. We knew that I was soon going to leave and never return. The only thing was that none of us knew when that day was going to come. Until it came.
“Come prince Teremut,” my father began to call me prince ever since that night when I entered the basement for the first time. “Hurry.”
He was frightened. He had just returned from an outing that he would not tell me about. It was important and imperative for the machine to work, that was all I knew.
He grabbed my shoulder and began dragging me towards the basement.
“What is it father?” I half suspected this to be another lie. Another test.
He didn’t answer. He only opened the basement door and slipped in, pulling me along with him. This scared me. My first fear was that he had found out about me spending the night with my girlfriend last weekend. I was sure that I had taken my parents’ lying techniques to heart well enough to paint the perfect lie. My parents did not even know about her, or at least this is what I thought.
I soon realized that my father was not upset with me due to the fact that he quickly closed the door behind us and locked it with four different bolts and locks. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my lie. It was something far more important.
My father let go of me and knelt in front of the wall with all the hieroglyphs. He lifted his hands up towards the symbol of the sun. He was holding a small test tube filled with a clear liquid, but there was a small dark spec floating in it.
“Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.” He slowly pronounced every word carefully in Egyptian. His eyes were closed. “My god, I have come this far to please thee.”
This was a different prayer than the normal recited one that I had always heard my father repeat. I could only guess that he was performing a ritual that was new to me.
“The sun from the sky, the glory of Egypt is at hand. Accept this offering.”
It couldn’t be today. I thought. The machine wasn’t ready. There was still more to fix, and we still needed to test it.
My father rose and turned to face me. His eyes were calm, but his eyebrows narrowed. He was serious. Fear gripped at my heart. My hands quickly became moist with sweat.
“Hanif!” my mother’s voice was hoarse outside the basement door. “Hanif! Unlock this door now!” I could tell she was frightened as well.
My father ignored her and slowly walked up to me. He took out of his pocket a small medical needle. He grabbed my left arm tightly.
“Don’t struggle.” he quietly whispered. “This is anesthesia, to reduce the pain.”
“What?” I pulled my arm out of his grasp. “What is the meaning of this, father?”
“There is no more teaching to be done. No more learning. No more waiting.” He took a deep breath. “We must please Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”
“I don’t believe you, father.” He had to be lying. The machine was not ready. “Now open the door and let me continue my learning.”
“Hanif! He’s not ready!” Mother’s voice became shrill. “Open this door!”
“This is no test, my son.” His voice was no longer the quiet soft whisper. It was growing in tension. “I failed to be unnoticed last night.”
“What?”
“The machine requires a piece of the pharaoh from the past in order to function.” He pulled out the test tube I saw earlier. “Here is a piece of the late pharaoh Tutankhamen.”
The spec was a dark brown flake about the size of my pinkie finger nail. It was cracked in several spots. I shuddered to think that this was once a part of an actual human being.
“I went to the exhibition last night to retrieve this. I misjudged how much security would be watching the body.”
“Hanif! Terem! Open the door!”
“I got this only at the price of expending one of the guards.” His eyes seemed to darken; they were no longer calm.
“You killed him?”
“It was necessary to appease Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”
My mother ceased screaming, only to pound on the door with what must have been all her might. She pounded again. The thud echoed in my ears.
“They will find us here.” he turned to view all the work we have accomplished. The machine sitting on the bench next to hundreds of pieces of paper full of calculations and drawings. The large pile of reread books on the floor next to the bench. The countless colorful wires connecting the machine to the wall and with other pieces. “All our work will be destroyed.”
Thud. Another hard pound on the door echoed throughout the basement.
“We will be imprisoned, or worse. Terminated.” He turned to face me again. A tear had left a dark wet streak on his face. This was his life. His whole life pursuit.
Thud.
“Prince Teremut. Please, don’t struggle.” He grabbed my arm again.
“No. I still don’t believe you father.” Once again I pulled my arm away. I walked to the door and placed my hand on the doorknob ready to let my mother in. I hesitated.
What if my father was right? I thought. What if today really was the day? If what my father said was true, then I will have to use the machine. I will have no other choice but to fulfil my father’s vision. And I will never see my parents again. They will take them away from me such that the machine will never be able to bring me back to them after I accomplish my task in Egypt. It was a one way ticket.
Thud. The pounding hurt my ears this time, ringing through what felt my whole being.
I gripped the knob tighter. A crash exploded outside the basement, in our apartment. A window shattered. Footsteps ran inside the apartment.
“No!” My mother’s voice was full of terror now. “Go, Teremut! Go! I love you, my son!”
I recoiled from the door. Afraid. A sharp pain erupted in my left arm. My father had snuck up behind me and injected the needle into my arm.
“Hurry, Prince Teremut. It’s now or never.” My father’s voice was quavering.
“Ow!” I gripped my arm where he had stuck the needle. He pulled me quickly over to the chair next to the machine. I sat down, feeling my arm slowly turn numb.
We heard struggle outside the door.
“No!” my mothers voice was angry.
“Where is he?” a deep voice seemed to crash through the door.
My father was working as quickly as he could. He grabbed the countless wires and began placing them in the right sockets on the machine. He ripped my shirt off and began pinching the wires into my skin. I felt no pain, but I felt the skin move under my father’s hands.
“No! He’s not here!” My mother shouted.
“Open this door, miss.”
A wire was placed over my heart. Another on my right shoulder. Several more lined my spine on my back. My father quickly placed ten more wires all over my neck.
Thud. The man must have begun to pound on the door. My mother was screaming incomprehensibly now.
My father placed the head piece over my brow. He strapped the leather strap around my head, keeping it place.
Thud. The pounding matched the headache that quickly appeared.
My father placed a dozen more wires all over my head. His hands were shaking now.
Thud. The door creaked. A few more hits and the door would fling off of its hinges.
My father tied my arms down to the chair. Fear of death was all I could feel now. Fear from the machine, not from the man outside. What was my father doing? Mother was right. Father was taking me away from her. He was hurting me.
My father looked up into my eyes. He wiped a tear from my cheek.
My mother’s screams fell silent.
Thud.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. It went all so fast. My head was spinning. It hurt. The numbness of my body began to tingle and twitch. My stomach retched. A sour taste of bile entered my mouth.
Thud.
“It’ll work, my son.” He was crying, but he held the tears back. “It’ll work.” I could tell that he was reassuring himself more than he was trying to reassure me. My father was brilliant, but there was always that possibility of failure in his mind.
“Father,” I coughed, and spit the bile out of my mouth to the side. “Father, I love you.”
Thud.
“No son. Love Aten, my Lord, the sun from the sky.” he paused, “He is your father now.”
He stood up and walked behind me to where the metal box, or the machine, was sitting on the table. Father flipped several switches on the wall. The power began to buzz, dimming the lights in the basement room.
Thud.
The buzzing grew louder. My headache intensified with the buzzing causing me to bend over as much as I could in the chair.
“Fulfill your destiny, my son!”
Never have I felt so sick in the head before. It felt like the room was now spinning around me. The buzz of power soon became the only audible noise. I closed my eyes, hoping that this would all disappear into a nightmare. But it didn’t.
I was scared.
Pain erupted first at my heart. My body jolted with the energy that was surged through my body from the wires connected to the machine. I screamed in pain, but my mouth didn’t move. My body jolted again, followed by another wave a shearing pain coming from my spine.
I felt the cold floor on my face for a moment. If felt as though a sharp pain stabbed my heart and ripped it out of my chest. Another stabbed my shoulders and yanked at me. My spine buckled under an explosive fire of pain. I screamed again, but no audible noise was heard.
A large bright light flooded my vision instantly blinding me. The buzzing noise left me with an echo of fear in my mind. The pain subsided from my body.
All I could sense was this blinding light that enveloped my entire being. It seemed to keep me warm at the same time keeping me cold. I could hear the light. It made a noise; one that I cannot explain. But at the same time I heard absolutely nothing.
Fear gripped me.
I must be dead. There’s no other explanation. I thought. And, yet, I’m thinking. Can I be dead and still think? Or am I still alive?
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