As we pass over Cairo
My first glimpse
Over the pyramids perfect ancient geometric boxes
Lit up in a multicoloured lightshow
As a child I visited the museum with my father
Perched on his shoulders, fingers dug into his scratchy beard
We navigated the labyrinth of tiny dark rooms
Peering at golden objects of rings,
A jaguar head, a golden mask, papyrus
Curses, death and betrayal,
Murder
Buried under sand in a tiny space under the world
A dead boy’s things
Travelling the world
Guards in every room with guns and no smiles
For me
A five year old
with hot dogs and the campground slugs
On the brain.
A dusty room in the Cairo Museum
My eyes travel the golden objects once again
Laid to rest in glass cases
Familiar objects
Not rediscovering, but remembering
The treasures of my childhood.
My Entrance Tickets!
2. The subject:
The realization that a family vacation and a seemingly "over my head" experience as a child was an experience that had a major influence on me as an adult.
The other treasure I remembered the most- the jaguar's head.
I always thought it was a lion, but read somewhere it's actually a jaguar.
3. The short piece of Creative Non-Fiction.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Cairo. Please make sure your seatbelts are fastened, your seat is upright and your tray tables are up. The flight attendants will be coming through to pick up your headsets and any spare garbage you may have. On behalf of the flight crew, we’d like to thank you for flying British Airways.”
I snapped my seatbelt snug and got back to admiring the view from my tiny window. Dusk had just hit the streets of Cairo and the lights were popping on here and there. I could see the mini green lights of mosques lighting up their tall and slender minarets and I knew, once and for all, I’d arrived in Egypt.
The plane took a dip to turn left, which favoured my full view of the city. The streets cleared and I saw a large bare patch of smooth sand in the distance. We were heading towards it- could I be so lucky? Our turn continued slowly right over top of the most famous monuments this world has ever seen: The Pyramids of Giza.
‘No humans were ever supposed to see the pyramids from this angle’, I thought, as we flew directly above the ancient structures. This is the view that God and birds see. From directly above, they looked like perfect square boxes with an “X” drawn through them. Perfect and symmetrical and five thousand years old.
As a five-year-old child, my parents had taken my sister and I to see the King Tut Exhibit in Seattle- my first trip outside Canada. My parents had told me we were going to a museum to see a dead boy’s things. The idea that this boy had died thousands of years ago and he had been a king was lost on me. I thought were were going to see toys. The more they told me about King Tut, the more I felt sorry for him.
“Why did he die? I asked.
“Because someone killed him.”
“Why did somebody kill him?”
“Maybe because they didn’t like him.”
“Did he have toys?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you said he had a mask.”
“Yes, but he didn’t play with the mask.”
“Wasn’t he allowed to?”
“He probably never saw it.”
Poor King Tut.
Twenty-three years later on the plane descending into Cairo, I explored my memories of that trip. I remember getting up bright and early to stand in line for tickets with my family. In fact, I remember being cold and tired and wanting to sit down more than the visit to the Seattle Museum itself.
But it was time to enter the exhibit. My sister and mom went together and I got to ride on my father’s shoulders, my fingers dug into his scratchy beard under his chin.
“Don’t touch anything,” He warned me. “Or we’ll end up in jail, okay? I’m serious.”
I totally believed him.
We made our way through the labyrinth of small dark rooms, each containing a treasure or two, and two armed guards in each corner. I wanted to say hi to them, to ask them why they had such big guns and why they seemed so unfriendly, but dad had warned me about them too, and the thought of going to jail with kindergarten approaching was too much for me. So I stayed quiet.
Vaguely I remember the jaguar’s head, the goddesses that surrounded King Tut’s sarcophagus in the tomb, the coffin, some rings and the big mask. I liked the Egyptian boats and papyrus reeds that dad told me were weird looking flowers. He did his best to make the stories come alive to me at a five year old level.
“Why are his rings so big?”
“Maybe he had big fingers.”
“You said he was a little boy. Was he a giant?”
“Maybe.”
Carried like a little queen myself through those dark little rooms, my told me stories of death, intrigue, gold, grave robbers, a murder of a boy king without any parents, and treasure hunters finding their dreams buried in sand.
“So he wasn’t really a boy anymore when he died?”
“He was eighteen.”
“Will I die someday?”
“Yes, we all will. But it won’t hurt, I promise.”
“Promise?”
“Yup.”
“Can we have hot dogs for dinner?”
“That’s what you want? Hot dogs?”
“Yup. Do you think when we get back to the campground the big slugs will still be out?”
I remember that conversation well. I had no idea why my father was laughing as we exited the biggest exhibit Seattle had ever seen to date. King Tut, death, slugs and hot dogs. It all made perfect sense to me in 1978.
A few decades later I stood in my khaki pants and dirty traveller’s t-shirt in front of King Tut’s mask once again. I had just come from the Valley of the Kings where I’d paid the student price to make my way down the long passage way down down down to where Howard Carter had uncovered the treasures of King Tut’s tomb. I marveled at the tiny dull space that once held these immense treasures, no bigger than a dorm room back in university, now a dusty vacant hole in the desert.
But here in the dusty Cairo Museum, I rediscovered those priceless treasures that were really an underestimated part of my childhood. I did countless reports on those treasures through the years. I used tracing paper stolen from the art room at school to carefully copy out the precious objects one by one and colour them in perfect Egyptian symmetry for extra points in art class. The Egyptian catalogue my parents had bought us was well used, dog-eared and sticky, from years of perusing the objects we’d seen in person so many years ago. I'd won an art contest with a pencil crayon drawing Egyptian eagle with outstretched talons. I'd stayed up all night to finish it. In University I studied Art History and took all the Egyptian Art History classes that would fit into my schedule.
Twenty odd years later, at the same age as my father when he carried me through that exhibit, I revisited the objects I had become familiar with as a child, through my father’s explanations like I was getting reacquainted with old childhood friends. The giant rings, the jaguar’s head, the golden goddesses with arms outstretched, and the giant golden mask with perfect lined lids and peaceful expression, all laid to rest in their glass cases. All familiar friends, waiting for me, in the mighty Kingdom of Egypt.
I finally made it!
XXMelanie