by Joshua Grant
Past the wall, I saw an open field and I ran toward it until I stumbled and fell to the ground from exhaustion. I lay still, panting and crying as the dust settled around me. Finally, I looked up and realized I had fallen on the downward slope of a riverbank. I slowly looked up, and what I saw confirmed my suspicions as to my location.
Egypt. Across the river, I saw the pyramids of Giza rising into the sky. One of them was currently under construction, surrounded by varying levels of scaffolding. I watched as thousands of men pushed stone blocks up ramps connected to the scaffolding on top of large, wooden rollers. I felt horrible, nauseated and weak with despair. Behind me the screams echoed while before me, construction of the pyramid continued. The slaves building it had no idea what was taking place just a couple of miles away.
I became more aware of my surroundings, half-hidden in a green cluster of fronds, grass and shrubs that stubbornly clung to the riverbank and leeched moisture from the soil of the wide, brown water from the river slowly rolling past in front of me. I idly watched a dragonfly skimming across the surface of the water while my heart gradually slowed. My throat felt parched and dry, both from my screams and sobs as well as from thirst. I slithered further down the riverbank on my stomach, much as a snake sliding through the knee-high grasses back home. I felt smaller than small, stunned by the violence and depravity I had just escaped.
My face burned with anger – at the Egyptians, at God, at life. I reached out my hands and dipped them into the cool water, then splashed it over my face and head in the hopes of cooling down, both physically and mentally. As I slowly lifted myself to my knees by the river’s edge, I heard someone approaching. I quickly ducked into a nearby patch of reeds, so as not to be seen.
Through the reeds, I saw a woman cautiously approaching the riverbank. In her arms, she carried a straw basket. From inside came the sound of a crying babe. Could this be the infant Moses?
The woman carrying the basket was lovely, and fairly young. She cast several wary glances over her shoulder as she stepped closer to the riverbank, not more than twenty yards from my hiding place.
“Here we go, my darling,” she cooed.
I moved slowly and carefully, slightly parting the growth of reeds in front of me to get a better view. Even with reeds partially blocking my view I saw the tears in her eyes. She gazed down at him with love and adoration, her smile brave for the babe, though I saw the slight tremor that belied her heartbreak.
“Now listen,” she spoke to the child. “You may not be able to understand me, but this is important. I don’t know what is going to happen to you, but I do know God must have a wonderful plan for your life to have spared you from that massacre. Even though I’ll miss you dearly, God needs you more than I do. Just remember that above all, Mommy loves you!”
Her voice broke at those last words she uttered, barely able to say them aloud. After kissing her baby gently on the lips, and then the forehead, she reached forward and placed the basket in the river. Just before the basket touched the surface of the river, she paused. I could image that she was tempted to consider forsaking God and keeping her baby, Moses. Then, after casting her gaze back toward the horror taking place in the town behind her, she sighed heavily, as if realizing that her baby would almost surely be murdered if she kept him. With firm resolve, she placed the basket in the water and gave it a firm push toward the middle of the river, where the current would bear her child to safety. She reached out toward the basket with one hand, her other fist pressed over her lips to prevent herself from screaming, as if she fought every instinct within her body to prevent flinging herself into the river after her baby.
As I watched, my heart once again aching, and the lump in my throat rising, tears started flowing again from my eyes as Moses’ mother stared after the basket floating down the river until she could see it no more. With a choked wail and shoulders shaking with her despair, she turned and walked back toward the little village where she lived with her family. Her face was pasty and gray, her eyes glazed as she stumbled back toward town, her world collapsing around her.
Up until then I thought I had a pretty tough life, but the image of her walking away in sorrow suddenly, and for the first time, made me seriously question what was really true about my own life. Could I really be so vain as to think that I had lived one of the worst hard-luck stories ever? The Bible was full of stories just like mine. I was living through one of them right now.
Since I knew that this part of Moses’ story was over, I decided to skip forward in time. Pulling the T.O.M. device from a pocket in my robe, I thought for a minute. “Thirty years ought to do it,” I muttered.
I typed the number ‘30’, followed by the letters ‘Y-E-A-R-S’ into the device, but nothing happened. I frowned. My heart gave a leap of panic at the thought of the device not working anymore. I glared down at it, willing it to work. I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong. Then I realized I hadn’t finished the sequence, which was natural, I guessed, particularly in light of what I had just experienced and my more than slightly frazzled nerves. What I had typed into the display screen remained, as if it expected more input. In a brief moment of clarity, I pushed the button labeled “Activate”. The swirling mass of light appeared before me and I sighed in relief as the portal took shape. In another moment, I stepped through it, wondering what would greet me on the other side.
Chapter 6
When I stepped through the other side of the portal, I was shocked. I had expected to emerge in some sort of village, but instead found myself in the middle of a desert. My head hurt again, and as I rubbed my forehead and squinted against the bright sunlight sending invisible shards of pain into the back of my eyes. I turned in a slow circle, alarmed at the sight of miles of endless sand hills to the west and north, flat desert that looked desolate to the east, and what looked to be a shimmering mirage of an oasis to the south. My heart leaped with panic. Was I to die out here in the middle of the desert? Would I die of thirst, of a scorpion bite, or worse, would hidden drifts of sand swallow me whole and pull me underneath, never to be seen again. Okay, so I watched a lot of movies, but seriously, what was I supposed to think? I was in the middle of the desert, lost, with no idea which direction I should take to find people or water. I had no food, and the sun was scorching my skin already.
The only thing I did have control over was my ability to pray, and I did just that. “God,” I said, shielding my eyes with my hand as I gazed toward the brilliant light blue sky. “Show me the way, okay? I don’t want to die out here, alone.”
After considering my situation, I turned and started walking south, toward the mirage. I knew it was a mirage, for it shimmered and disappeared occasionally, only to reappear in a different location along the horizon. However, it just might also mean a large body of water, and I wondered if I was anywhere near the Nile River, where the little baby Moses had been sent downriver by his heartbroken mother.
I walked, tripping numerous times over my own feet. I had never been particularly coordinated walking in the beach sand near my home, and here was no different. The sand was deep, and my feet sank up to my ankles in the loose sand as I walked, chaffing my feet in my sandals.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long before I saw something different. If it was a mirage, it was more solid than the one I had been following. I stood still, thinking if I stopped moving, I would be able to tell if this new sight was a true mirage or something else. After several moments staring at the moving objects, I realized it was a caravan of some sort. A long line of single-humped camels plodded along, their graceful necks curved in a deep U-shape, while atop them rode long-haired and bearded nomads. As the caravan grew closer, I saw that they looked like a well-worn bunch of people. Their faces were browned like cured leather, their eyes sunk deep above sharp cheekbones. They wore turbans of various colors; gold, brown and a deep purple that looked well-worn and softened by age and use. Their robes flowed down around them and down the sides of the camels, their
feet wrapped in soft leather boots. Several camels bore packs of food, water gourds and tents. Both beast and man were coated with a layer of dust, so much so that if they had all lain down on the desert floor, they would have blended in perfectly. The caravan was within fifty yards when I began to jump up and down, waving my arms. Couldn’t they see me?
“Hey! Please help me, I’m lost!” I shouted toward the caravan, hoping they would hear me.
The leader signaled for his camel to stop and the entire six-camel caravan pulled to a halt. As a group, the riders turned to stare at me. Not one of them moved in my direction. What was the matter with these people, I wondered. Couldn’t they see I was in distress? I walked toward them, and as I grew within speaking distance, I spoke again. “Can you please help me? I’m trying to get back to Cairo.”
The leader of the caravan chuckled and then turned to his fellow travelers. “Look what has found us, my friends. A runaway slave.”
I shook my head. “No… no, I’m not a slave. I’m just lost! I want to get to Cairo. Can you take me there?”
“You’re not going anywhere but back to work,” the leader of the caravan said.
By the way he dressed and the hint of arrogance in his voice, I guessed that he was most likely slave driver (and I was later proven right). He wore a sand-blasted white tunic and leapt down from the camel’s back, grasping a short, wicked-looking whip in his right hand. In his other hand, he held a coil of rope.
“Put this around your waist!” he ordered, throwing a coil of rope at me. “But I’m not a sla—“The whip cracked and I jumped back, barely avoiding the tip as it struck the ground in front of me, sending up a tiny cloud of dust. Despite my growing alarm, I didn’t think I would be able to convince them, at least now, that I wasn’t a runaway slave, so I acquiesced. I bent down and grasped one end of the coil of rope and tied it around my waist. Once I had tied it around my waist, the caravan leader tied the other end to the back of the saddle on his camel. I looked doubtfully at the rather short length of rope, knowing that I would be forced to either keep up with him or be dragged through the scorching sand on the trek back to Cairo.
I glanced at the other men still sitting silently atop their camels, but they stared down wordlessly at me, as if the sight of a man emerging from the midst of the desert was nothing new to them. I opened my mouth to try, once more, to convince them that I wasn’t a slave, but snapped it shut when the lead camel began to plod forward once again.
At first, I had little trouble keeping up with the camel, rarely falling more than a few feet behind, but as the terrain grew rougher, the sand deeper, I found myself stumbling more often. I had a wild thought to untie the rope around my waist and make a run for it, but where would I go? The men most certainly had weapons, for no one would be stupid enough to travel across the desert without some form of self-defense. No one but me, at least.
The hours dragged on and soon I felt exhausted. My thigh muscles trembled with weariness and my calves felt like they were on fire. The soles of my feet were burned and starting to blister from the hot sand grating against my skin, and my breath came in sharp gasps. None of this seems to faze my captors in the least.
Finally, late that afternoon, I saw the silhouette of a great city rising from the horizon. “Is that Cairo?” I asked. No one replied. I locked my gaze on the city, knowing that soon, we would stop to rest. I could drink some water and eat some food and then once again try to explain that I was no slave. Surely, someone there would believe me.
Two hours later, under the cover of darkness, the caravan arrived in Cairo. Despite my alarming predicament, I appreciated the beautiful, starlit night. People walking along the streets stopped and stared at me, tied to the camel of the leader, but no one offered a word. The streets I passed were lined with small huts and houses, a shop or two, and several bazaars and campfires where the smell of roasting meat made my mouth water.
Finally, the camels stopped and I looked up. We had stopped in front of a magnificent structure, with high, whitewashed walls. Guards stood on either side of a gated entrance, holding spears. A palace, I thought. Once inside the gates, I was quickly ushered toward what looked like a low-ceilinged slave barracks by the caravan leader.
“Into the slave barracks!” he ordered, shoving me roughly forward.
I tripped on a stray stone and tumbled forward, falling flat on my face.
“Get up!” the caravan leader shouted at me. “You lazy slave, you’ll be punished for escaping, and—“
“You, slave!”
A soldier standing nearby interrupted. He pointed to the ground in front of me.
“Bring that thing over here!” the soldier said.
I looked up at him and saw that he gestured to something on the ground just in front of my head. It wasn’t until I turned my head in the direction he pointed that I realized what he was talking about. My heart skipped another beat. The T.O.M. device had fallen out of my pocket and lay on the ground next to me! Oh my—
“Are you deaf?” the soldier screamed, louder than before. “Bring it over here at once!”
I scrambled to my feet and scooped the T.O.M. device up in my hand. With the caravan leader behind me and the soldier in front of me, there was no way I could quickly hide the device, even if I could find a suitable place for it. I reluctantly handed it to him, afraid that if I didn’t, I would be killed by this tyrant. The soldier examined the device for several moments, turning it this way and that, then over and back again with a look on his face as if he knew exactly what it was (which just shows how stupid he really was). Finally and with a shrug, he stuffed it in his pocket. My heart sank. How in heaven’s name was I ever to get the device back from him? Even worse, what would I do if he destroyed it or broke it?
“Go inside and get to bed. You have a very long day tomorrow.”
His tone implied sarcasm, as if he had some kind of horrible plan for me.
My spirit at an all-time low, I walked through the low doorway and into the slave barracks. The room was crowded with foul-smelling men sleeping on straw mattresses, but none of them even lifted a head to look at me as I stumbled through the darkness until I found a mattress to sleep on. Not only was it the only one left, against a far wall under a window, but it was also as hard as a stone.
My mind was spinning with desperation. What was I going to do now? Without the T.O.M. device, I’d never be able to go home. I had always been taught in times of trouble to pray to God for guidance, but because of the countless times in the past when I had prayed for things with no response, I was reluctant to do so. If God wanted me to get through this, He wouldn’t have allowed me to drop the T.O.M. device in the first place, I thought bitterly. Sure, He had saved me from death in the desert, but only to land in the hands of slave drivers who now held me captive!
Exhausted, I sank onto my mattress. Although it was as hard as a stone, I was so tired that it felt like one of the most comfortable mattresses in the world. After worrying for another hour or so about what to do, I finally decided that worrying wouldn’t do me any good at this point. I tried thinking happy thoughts (like getting home), and a few minutes later, finally drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up, the slave barracks were still shrouded in darkness. I figured that I had just woken up earlier than everyone else, so I decided to go back to sleep. I was exhausted, feeling as if I hadn’t slept for days. I idly wondered if that was another result of time travel through the portal. I heaved a heavy sigh, ready to drift off to sleep again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance.
“Wake up!” a harsh order suddenly split the silence. “You have five minutes to get outside and form a single line or you’ll be fed to the lions!” A soldier slammed open the barracks door, banging it into the wall as he stepped into the room.
The sound of men moaning, grumbling, and cursing under their breath followed the movement as the slaves rose to their feet and hurried outside, preparing for work. These people were obviously exhausted from th
e day-to-day labors of a slave, and carried the resentment to match. However, they didn’t dare test the patience of this soldier, so they moved as quickly as possible. I followed, wiping the sleep from my eyes and wondering what the day would have in store for me. Once everyone had formed a line, the soldier spoke, his voice gruff and unemotional.
“Today you work on a statue to be built in front of pharaoh’s palace. This is no ordinary statue, mind you. This is a statue representing the Pharaoh himself.”
He spoke with pride and arrogance, as if such a statue was the most important thing in existence and he was the one who would actually be doing the labor.
“Since it must be at least half as tall as Pharaoh’s palace you will have a lot of work to do. Get your disease-filled bodies out of here and get to work!” He said. “Of course, if you decide you don’t want to work, you can always give your complaints to my friend here,” he chuckled, gesturing toward his flail.
A slave next to me grumbled.
“What was that, Jew?”
The soldier spat out the last word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. I glanced between the age-worn slave and the soldier glaring back at him. The slave looked the other way to avoid eye contact, but it was too late; he had attracted the soldier’s attention.
“I know exactly what to do with scum like you,” the soldier said in a menacing tone as he walked toward the slave. He grabbed him by the neck.
