"Someone stole my gla.s.ses. You read that stuff to me," said the sheriff. "Make the fool mummy walk."
Charlie took this as a signal to move, himself, and sidled around through the shadows, closer to the Egyptian king.
"Here goes." The colonel bent even closer to the Pharaoh"s amulet, meanwhile slipping the sheriff"s gla.s.ses out of his cupped hand into his side-pocket. "First symbol on here is a hawk. Second one"s a jackal. That third"s an owl. Fourth"s a yellow fox-eye-"
"Continue," said the sheriff.
The colonel did so, and his voice rose and fell, and the sheriff"s head nodded, and all the Egyptian pictures and words flowed and touched around the mummy until at last the colonel gave a great gasp.
"Good grief, sheriff, look!"
The sheriff blinked both eyes wide.
"The mummy," said the colonel. "It"s going for a walk!"
"Can"t be!" cried the sheriff. "Can"t be!"
"Is," said a voice, somewhere, maybe the Pharaoh under his breath. And the mummy lifted up, suspended, and drifted toward the door.
"Why," cried the sheriff, tears in his eyes. "I think he might just-fly!"
"I"d better follow and bring him back," said the colonel.
"Do that!" said the sheriff.
The mummy was gone. The colonel ran. The door slammed.
"Oh, dear." The sheriff lifted and shook the bottle. "Empty."
They steamed to a halt out front of Charlie"s house.
"Your folks ever go up in your attic, boy?"
"Too small. They poke me up to rummage."
"Good. Hoist our ancient Egyptian friend out of the back seat there, don"t weigh much, twenty pounds at the most, you carried him fine, Charlie. Oh, that was a sight, you running out of the post office, making the mummy walk. You shoulda seen the sheriffs face!"
"I hope he don"t get in trouble because of this."
"Oh, h.e.l.l b.u.mp his head and make up a fine story. Can"t very well admit he saw the mummy go for a walk, can he? h.e.l.l think of something, organize a posse, you"ll see. But right now, son, get our ancient friend here up, hide him good, visit him weekly. Feed him night talk. Then, thirty, forty years from now-"
"What?" asked Charlie.
"In a bad year so brimmed up with boredom it drips out your ears, when the town"s long forgotten this first arrival and departure, on a morning, I say, when you lie in bed and don"t want to get up, don"t even want to twitch your ears or blink, you"re so d.a.m.ned bored...Well, on that morning, Charlie, you just climb up in your rummage-sale attic and shake this mummy out of bed, toss him in a cornfield and watch new h.e.l.lfire mobs break loose. Life starts over that hour, that day, for you, the town, everyone. Now grab git, and hide, boy!"
"I hate for the night to be over," said Charlie, very quietly. "Can"t we go around a few blocks and finish off some lemonade on your porch. And have him him come, too." come, too."
"Lemonade it is." Colonel Stonesteel banged his heel on the car-floor. The car exploded into life. "For the lost king and the Pharaoh"s son!"
It was late on Labor Day evening, and the two of them sat on the colonel"s front porch again, rocking up a fair breeze, lemonades in hand, ice in mouth, sucking the sweet savor of the night"s incredible adventures.
"Boy," said Charlie. "I can just see tomorrow"s Clarion Clarion headlines: p headlines: priceless mummy kidnapped. rameses-tut VANISHES. GREAT FIND GONE. REWARD OFFERED. SHERIFF NONPLUSSED. BLACKMAIl EXPECTED."
"Talk on, boy. You do have a way with words."
"Learned from you, colonel. Now it"s your turn."
"What do you want me to say, boy?"
"About the mummy. What he really is. What he"s truly made of. Where he came from. What"s he mean... ?"
"Why, boy, you were there, you helped, you saw-"
Charles looked at the old man steadily.
"No." A long breath. "Tell me, colonel."
The old man rose to stand in the shadows between the two rocking chairs. He reached out to touch their ancient harvest-tobacco dried-up-Nile-River-bottom old-time masterpiece, which leaned against the porch slattings.
The last Labor Day fireworks were dying in the sky. Their light died in the lapis lazuli eyes of the mummy, which watched Colonel Stonesteel, even as did the boy, waiting.
"You want to know who he truly truly was, once upon a time?" was, once upon a time?"
The colonel gathered a handful of dust in his lungs and softly let it forth.
"He was everyone, no one, someone." A quiet pause. "You. Me."
"Go on," whispered Charlie.
Continue, said the mummy"s eyes.
"He was, he is," murmured the colonel, "a bundle of old Sunday comic pages stashed in the attic to spontaneously combust from all those forgotten notions and stuns. He"s a stand of papyrus left in an autumn field long before Moses, a papier-mache tumbleweed blown out of time, this way long-gone dusk, that way at come-again dawn... maybe a nightmare sc.r.a.p of nicotine/dogtail flag up a pole high-noon, promising something, everything... a chart-map of Siam, Blue River Nile source, hot desert dust-devil, all the confetti of lost trolley transfers, dried-up yellow cross country road maps petering off in sand dunes, journey aborted, wild jaunts yet to night-dream and commence. His body?...Mmmm...made of...all the crushed flowers from brand new weddings, dreadful old funerals, ticker-tapes unraveled from gone-off-forever parades to Far Rockaway, punched tickets for sleepless Egyptian Pharaoh midnight trains. Written promises, worthless stocks, crumpled deeds. Circus posters-see there? Fart of his paper-wrapped ribcage? Fosters torn off seedbarns in North Storm, Ohio, shuttled south toward Fulfillment, Texas, or Promised Land, Calif-orn-I-aye! Commencement proclamations, wedding notices, birth announcements... all things that were once need, hope, first nickel in the pocket, framed dollar on the cafe wall. Wallpaper scorched by the burning look, the blueprint etched there by the hot eyes of boys, girls, foiled old men, time-orphaned women, saying: Tomorrow! Yes! It will happen! Tomorrow! Everything that died so many nights and was born again, glory human spirit, so many rare new daybreaks! All the dumb strange shadows you ever thought, boy, or I ever inked out inside my head at three a.m. All, crushed, stashed, and now shaped into one form under our hands and here in our gaze. That, that is what old King Pharaoh Seventh Dynasty Holy Dust Himself is is."
"Wow," whispered Charlie.
The colonel sat back down to travel again in his rocker, eyes shut, smiling.
"Colonel." Charlie gazed off into the future. "What if even in my old age, I don"t ever need my own particular mummy?"
"Eh?"
"What if I have a life chock full of things, never bored, find what I want to do, do it, make every day count, every night swell, sleep tight, wake up yelling, laugh lots, grow old still running fast, what then, colonel?"
"Why then, boy, you"ll be one of G.o.d"s luckiest people!"
"For you see, colonel." Charlie looked at him with pure round, unblinking eyes. "I made up my mind. I"m going to be the greatest writer that ever lived."
The colonel braked his rocker and searched the innocent fire in that small face.
"Lord, I see it. Yes. You will! Well, then Charles, when you are very old, you must find some lad, not as lucky as you, to give Osiris-Ra to. Your life may be full, but others, lost on the road, will need our Egyptian friend. Agreed? Agreed."
The last fireworks were gone, the last fire balloons were sailing out among the gentle stars. Cars and people were driving or walking home, some fathers or mothers carrying their tired and already sleeping children. As the quiet parade pa.s.sed Colonel Stonesteel"s porch, some folks glanced in and waved at the old man and the boy and the tall dim-shadowed servant who stood between. The night was over forever. Charlie said: "Say some more, colonel."
"No. I"m shut. Listen to what he has to say now. Let him tell your future, Charlie. Let him start you on stories. Ready...?"
A wind came up and blew in the dry papyrus and sifted the ancient wrappings and trembled the curious hands and softly twitched the lips of their old/new four-thousand-year nighttime visitor, whispering.
"What"s he saying, Charles?"
Charlie shut his eyes, waited, listened, nodded, let a single tear slide down his cheek, and at last said: "Everything. Just everything. Everything I always wanted to hear hear."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. His formal education ended there, but he furthered it by himself-at night in the library and by day at his typewriter. He sold newspapers on Los Angeles street comers from 1938 to 1942, a modest beginning for a man whose name would one day be synonymous with the best in science fiction. Ray Bradbury sold his first science fiction short story in 1941, and his early reputation is based on stories published in the budding science fiction magazines of that time. His work was chosen for best American short story collections in 1946, 1948 and 1952. His awards include The O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1954 and The Aviation-s.p.a.ce Writer"s a.s.sociation Award for best s.p.a.ce article in an American magazine in 1967. Mr. Bradbury has written for television, radio, the theater and film, and he has been published in every major American magazine. Editions of his novels and shorter fiction span several continents and languages, and he has gained worldwide acceptance for his work. His tides include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric, The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, The Ill.u.s.trated Man, Long After Midnight, The Stories of Rayy Bradbury, Dinosaur Tales The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric, The Golden Apples of the Sun, A Medicine for Melancholy, The Ill.u.s.trated Man, Long After Midnight, The Stories of Rayy Bradbury, Dinosaur Tales and and The Toynbee Connector The Toynbee Connector.