I opened my eyes to find myself in paradise.
My second awakening could not have been more different than my first.
Instead of cold stainless steel, spotlight-pierced gloom, and the imminent threat of disembowelment, I woke up in a cozy, bright, cheerful box filled with heaven.
My main memory of that first morning was a sense of complete sensory overload.
That, and Crindi’s unfailing smile.
In those early days, that smile was the one thing I could rely on to make me feel that things might turn out OK when everything was coming unwound.
(Spoiler alert—things didn’t turn out OK.)
(Also: unwound. The mummy jokes really do write themselves.)
You’d think 4,600 years of forced rest would mean no sleeping for the rest of my life, but it didn’t work that way for me—maybe because I was stacked up in a mummy warehouse instead of a proper tomb.
Counting all my joints, I’d probably moved my various body parts a total of about one foot getting them unlocked, but it took me three straight days of sleep to recover from that minuscule bathtub workout. My body was still useless for doing much besides blinking my eyes.
I awoke from some disturbing dreams about suffocation and rebirth lying on the softest mat I’d ever experienced, wearing the softest fabric I’d ever had next to my skin, with my head resting on something fluffy. The sound of flutes and harps and lutes floated gently to my ears from nearby musicians. The captivating smell of something delicious filled my nose with every breath.
(Bacon. It was bacon. I’ve since eaten at least ten pig’s worth and I definitely associate the smell of frying bacon with paradise. I understand that I’m not alone in this.)
My first thought was, OK. Maybe that really did happen. Maybe I really did wake up in the future and lounge around in a hot bubble bath drinking vinegar.
Maybe. But it was still only one possibility among many, including an extended mental breakdown and disassociation from reality.
I painfully turned my head to look at where I was. Crindi was doing something several steps away in a small cooking area and she wasn’t holding a harp. I made a mental note to investigate the phantom musicians the first chance I got.
It was a bright room with white walls and soft light streaming in through a window covered with wooden squares. Outside, gray clouds churned slowly by, but not a wisp of a breeze came through the window. Very curious. To me, the finest glasswork possible was colorful beads or small statuettes. I had no idea it could be fashioned into a crystal-clear pane of invisibility.
The room was large by my standards. One of the largest rooms I’d ever been in. But more cluttered than any I’d ever seen, with the amount of stuff you might find stacked in the tomb of an important (but dead) rich guy.
There was an amazing profusion of strange and unrecognizable items filling up every flat surface. The only furniture was a small, exquisitely crafted, white table and two spindly chairs, and the raised mat I was lying on, which I later learned was called a bed.
I’d never seen a room constructed from anything besides brown bricks of sun-dried Nile mud coated in smooth, beige mud plaster, with one or two decorations, possibly a table, and not much else. Certainly, all of these items wouldn’t have been packed into a room that was part kitchen.
Was this woman sleeping in the same room where she cooked and ate like a peasant? If so, she was the richest peasant I’d ever met. Very odd.
On the table, there was a miniature, not-quite-real-looking, pointy green tree festooned with glittery balls. The walls contained multiple, unbelievably realistic drawings of cats, some wearing jaunty red caps and green vests.
(Ancient Egyptians were the original cat people. It was nice to see that humans still liked putting them in little outfits, and that cats still enjoyed getting dressed up.)
A white candle burned by the little tree, mixing the smell of a soft floral scent with the bacon.
When I glanced upward, I was startled to see that nothing was holding the ceiling up. Horizontal logs from palm trees supported any roof I’d ever seen. But here was more of the smooth whiteness, and one of those suspended lanterns, thankfully not burning my eyeballs at the moment.
There was a folded, faded green quilt on the floor near the foot of the bed with another of the fluffy rectangles set on top.
(Although I would have scoffed at the need for such a thing up until that morning, don’t even try to come for my favorite pillow. You’ll pry it out of my cold, dead hands before I let it slip from my grasp willingly.)
A narrow, yellow, slightly open door led off to some other room and a wider yellow one was closed, with a metal box above a knob and a chain fastened to the frame.
I eventually came to understand exactly how close to the poverty line a graduate-student stipend forced Crindi to live in London, one of the most expensive cities on Earth. I learned that single-room studio apartments—flats, I mean, before any Brits get a bee in their bonnet—aren’t the height of luxury.
I even figured out that some assembly required meant that furniture wasn’t handcrafted and artisanal, in spite of how amazing it was compared to the chairs and tables I was used to.
But that morning, the first morning of my new, impossible, and bewildering life, it was like everything the priests had said about paradise was hallucinated nonsense. The most I had expected were a few green fields instead of the vast, arid desert I was used to, some swaying reeds, and possibly an extra couple of goats.
After all, I was certain I hadn’t been mummified with a single amulet to pay off Anubis or bribe Osiris, and I’d still been reborn into incredible luxury. None of which I’d ever done anything to deserve.
Soon enough, I was certain, a loud, disembodied voice would apologetically proclaim, “Oopsie! Seems I put you off on the wrong level. My bad. Sorry about that.”
The floor would open up into a bottomless chasm and I’d fall, clutching at bedding, my stomach screaming that it still hadn’t gotten a chance to taste the glories of fried bacon.
I’d curl up with my precious pillow in a final resting place that was much darker, much hotter, and filled with a considerable number of flames.
And given that the unforgivable sins of my past were forever beyond my reach to fix, it would be exactly where I really belonged.
. . .
A quick side note about death and gods, the two favorite topics of Egyptians of the ancient variety.
First off, we were very, very serious about dying. Obsessed, actually. Which is why we had not one, but two gods of the underworld.
Anubis, the black, jackal-headed dude who guards the gate and decides who gets to go frolic in paradise and who gets to go frolic in hell.
And black-skinned Osiris, who doesn’t get an animal head, just a fancy, pointy, sort of pope-y hat with feathers, who lounges around in the actual underworld doing whatever he feels like. But never leaving, since his brother killed him and what’s left of his reassembled body is stuck there.
(Don’t ask. The details are gross and the whole thing is such the drama. It’s best to look the other way while the gods are up to their murder and other crazy shenanigans. But yeah, we were zombie worshipers, which is cool but also disturbing.)
We spent our entire lives knowing without a doubt that we were going to die and preparing for it. This is different from you modern types. You spend your entire lives pretending you aren’t going to die while simultaneously doing everything you can to make it happen faster.
I know, I know, this is rich coming from someone who not only brewed beer but drank large amounts of it ever since she was a small child. The difference is we thought that delicious liquid food, which came straight from the gods themselves, had no health downsides at all.
You have no excuses whatsoever. But far be it from me to judge.
(Ha ha, little joke there.)
When it came to death, we Egyptians had our figurative carry-on bags packed with necessities for the afterlife so we could grab them at a moment’s notice.
Unlike you, panicking at the last second, wildly cramming socks and underpants into a suitcase that you know won’t fit in the overhead bin.
(That’s not judging. I’m just stating a fact.)
Death should be peaceful, not frantic. Last-minute, panicky prep is the sort of thing that draws the attention of gods when you least want it. Not that you ever want it. Trust me on this.
Nothing good ever comes from gods paying too much attention to mortals. If you spend all your time beseeching them and shouting “Hey! Yo! Down here. I’m talking to you!” they’ll take a break from family feuds to have some fun with the peons.
That’s when things get very real, very fast: worldwide floods, flaming chasms, burning hailstones, and other assorted genocides.
This is why we always set out something like a thick slice of fresh bread, a cup of spiced beer, and a couple of trinkets when we prayed. While the god is focused on eating or fussing with a new hairpin, they’re distracted enough to take suggestions without getting annoyed at the interruption.
You start with a compliment, because who doesn’t love a compliment? Say you’re at Hapi’s altar, who is the green-haired, blue-skinned god of the annual Nile flood.
(The gods all liked to have their own distinct “look,” but honestly, I always thought Hapi’s choice of blue skin and green wig was cringey—like a sad, juvenile cry for attention.)
The compliment doesn’t have to be sincere, just heartfelt. Like: “The flood sure is deep this year!”
Then elaborate a little. “The new mud is the thickest I’ve ever seen! The fields are looking nice and black, exactly how we like them. Thanks for keeping the smell of rotting plants to a minimum. Super appreciate that.”
Say it like you mean it. Sincerity counts. Fake it if you have to.
Then slip in your request. It’s best to phrase it like more of a suggestion.
“But honestly, the mosquitoes are killing us. As in literally killing us. If you could look into it, if it’s not too much of a bother, maybe you could send a few million bats—or frogs, your choice!—to take care of that for us? If it works with your schedule, of course.”
Lord Hapi, or whichever god you’re chatting with, will get the message fine. This is the moment when overly zealous worshippers get in trouble because they can’t leave well enough alone.
They keep making the same request over and over, like they’re afraid the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing god won’t get the point if it’s not hammered home accompanied by a ton of “oh lords” and such. That’s when you get plagues and other fun and games.
Smart worshippers fade away without leaving any identifying information. That’s the way to handle a god. No whining, no making it all about me, me, me until they want to squash you like a bug.
I hope I’ve cleared a few things up for you on these critical topics.
I’m pretty much an expert on death because of my direct experience with near-deadness. Also, god-handling, since my fam was tight with Khepri, our village god, since way back, and we had him all figured out.
So, ask away if you have questions. Always happy to help avoid human extinction events such as hellfire, surprise meteors, locust hurricanes, and the like. And now, back to Teppi’s Psychotic Break in Wonderland.