‘Green Eyes’

Amidst all the ancient relics and ruins that were painstakingly displayed with the greatest of care, within the Cairo museum’s cold and corroded stone walls, with its suspended and brightly illumined lanterns and flame torches, was a ‘new entrant’.  A unique addition, it was deliberately kept hidden away, out of sight, in a solitary, confined and private area, away from the public gaze and waiting display, when ready.  It came in the form of a green-eyed mummy, aptly named by its discoverer as ‘green eyes’.  As it lay inside its gold, red and black sarcophagus, lean and shrivelled, it wore a pathetic and pained look across its face.  Indeed, it gave the instant impression of someone that had been deprived very cruelly of something, like food or drink perhaps, as its mouth was gaped.  Another distinct feature of this mummy was that instead of its arms resting naturally on either side, or even across its chest, for that matter, this one’s arms were stretched outwards, rigid and poised while it’s decayed hands, ended in sharp, chipped black talons, as if wanting to reach out to clutch or grasp, perhaps even tear at something and its head  was positioned upwards at an angle, as if about to rise. 

     All in all, it could even be said that this mummy was definitely not in peace; not this one.  Even the face had been deprived of its bandages and instead, roughly beeted, by its embalmers, with a green herb.  A paste to be precise, that was applied from the tiny clay pot that was woven to throat and which had now dried up over the centuries.  In fact, it had been applied all over its entire body.  So no bandages on this mummy, but for a loin cloth around its waist and sandals on its feet. 

     Two men sat crouched on museum chairs, on either side of the mummy.  One was elderly and respectable looking, in his late seventies, dressed in a white safari suit while the other was younger, in his mid-thirties dressed casually in baby blue jeans, white jumper and black plimsoles.  They were members, researchers to be precise, from the expedition that had unearthed the mummy from its tomb and were studying it with great interest.