Walk Like An Egyptian

Walk like an Egyptian1

The King of Egypt was bored. He hadn't perpetrated a good poisoning for at least two days. As well as this, his queen, Ptymeup, had only recently kicked bondage into touch. She now favoured a more direct approach with her live-in lover Ramitin.2

Ptomain, the King, found himself upset on two fronts - his boredom and the change in his wife. After all, he thought, I like a bit of bondage and that, and, who ever heard of lovers dictating the speed? You could tell he lived in ancient Egypt.3

Ptomain called his Grand Vizier to his chamber. The vizier was one, Phukalot, of a long line of royal courtiers and wasters. He was an erect, stiff figure before his monarch. He sported the most enormous cod-piece which was highly decorative and even more suggestive. He bowed as low as he could manage in the circs. 'My liege,' he said.4

The king smiled one of his craftier smiles. 'We need some action round here,' he said, 'Ptymeup is off with her fancy nancy and I am bored.'5

The vizier wondered how he could ensure his own sub-plot while satisfying the king. 'A contest, Lord Pharaoh, would...'6

'...Stop! Shouted Ptomain. 'You know I don't like that name - it makes me sound like a card game.7

'A million, million apologies oh, great, omniscience. Ruler of the seas, Orbiter of the stars, Royal...'8

'...Oh, do give over and tell me about your contest idea.'9

Phukalot's brain had been racing all this time to produce a solution. 'The losers, my lord, they are the lucky ones, or, rather, you are the lucky one.'10

'The king smiled, 'The losers are mine to poison?'11

'Of course. Asp's milk, bed of poison ivy, arsenic - old lace, even. You decide - on the day. Whatever takes your fancy really.'12

At this point the doors to the great chamber were opened and the guards blew trumpets and sounded gongs and announced the arrival of Pepsi. Pepsi was a prince of the line and a big bag of wind to say the least. The king groaned. The vizier groaned. Even the guards groaned at their own announcement.13

'Enter,' commanded the king in his most regal of voices.14

Pepsi skittled down the grand staircase as fast as his rotundity would allow, rolling and puffing the while. The rolling and the puffing were necessary as he was the Regional Sales manager for Rizla cigarette papers and he never lost an opportunity.15

The king whispered to Phukalot, 'What does this pompous prat desire?'16

'Search me,' was the vizier's laconic reply.17

Pepsi halted at the foot of Ptomain's throne. He gasped out a eulogy of praise, 'My lord, great king, royal above royals. I abase myself. I genuflect. I give you...'18

A right pain in the butt, said Ptomain to himself. 'Ah, dear cousin, enough already. You are thrice welcome. I pray for you to the great God.' He paused briefly. 'Ta-Ra!' he said.19

'Ta-Ra, my Lord?' asked Pepsi in all innocence.20

'Of course. Ta-ra! Goodbye, Pepsi. Till another day.' 21

The king turned to Phukalot and smiled. 'Fell for it again!' he said. It is so handy having a God Ta-Ra. The God of partings.' He said all this sotto-voce as Pepsi obeised and grovelled backwards to the door. Even the guards smiled cheekily. But they would, wouldn't they? They were in their no-loin-cloth-undress-dress as it was so hot.22

The king allowed kindness to intervene and called his foolish cousin back to the throne. The vizier smiled on Pepsi and suggested that the king had really meant to pray to the God Fa-Ta, the god of winds.23

The king reacted strongly. He had had enough. 'Wind! Partings! What matters is I prayed, we should all pray from time to time. Now, let's get on with it.'24

Pepsi slumped and ruminated on the gods but failed to make the connection.25

'A contest for the populace, Cousin Pepsi, with public poisonings for the losers.'26

Pepsi managed to bounce a little on the spot, his bulbous cheeks and white and generous belly wobbling as he did this. 'A contest. What a good idea! Will maidens a-plenty be involved?' Despite his gross body and overdone ideas Pepsi could sparkle given the moment. In fact the older ladies of his acquaintance thought him a bit of a fizzer but, as he was first in line for the throne they, perhaps, made allowances.27

And so it was proclaimed. A contest to find the fittest male and the fittest female. The two to be publicly conjoined before the populace. The populace to please themselves about their own conjoinings then or later.28

The contests would run consecutively - males first - to give the winner a chance to recover himself before covering the female winner. The males would race up and down the great pyramid; the females would run round and round the lesser pyramid. The spectators would be required to be naked - just like the contestants - and this would give everyone more to look at.29

The male contestants were not many - rumours about the poisoned wooden spoon proving less attractive than the winning possibilities. Five took part: Snafu, Hitch-hyk, Utmost, Hore-alot, and Psambrown. Their female counterparts were sisters: Titi, Psmaltiti, Bigtiti and Mortiti. The spectators however could not see much difference between Bigtiti and Mortiti. At the last minute one other female joined. She was an overweight and redundant diva called Dhoremi who had failed to make it big at the Cairo Opera.30

The day dawned calm and sunny - well, that's Egypt for you. The king and his queen were carried by Nubian slaves on their thrones to a great canopied area to watch the games in comfort. It should be made clear that the king and the queen were on their thrones not the Nubian slaves; just in case you wondered. The throng abased themselves - there was no law against it.31

The men's race, as arranged, started first. The contestants stood proudly before their king but it was the queen who took more than a passing glance at their defiant chins, their hairless bold chests, their trim waists and sturdy hips and their...but by the time Ptymeup had got to their waists and hips they had turned and galloped off to the start at the foot of the Great Pyramid where a bald, gross and bandy-legged eunuch puffed into a great brass horn and the race began.32

Utmost sprang into the lead on the flat with Snafu bringing up the rear. They were cheered to the hilt by the maidens and matrons in the crowd who were well pleased to see whatever it was they were well pleased to see.33

Meanwhile the female competitors slipped gracefully out of their becoming shifts to display nubility, if not gentility, to the howling male spectators who - in their manly fashion - made light comment on the scene. ''Cor, cop aload of that one, gaffer, I ain't seen plums like them since before the seven plagues.' 'Talk about the 'Angin' gardens of Babylon...' 'The 'edge in my allotment don't grow 'alf as good as them there bushes.' 34

And so on. These and other such literate comments were hurled from the crowd to the blushing, and not-so blushing, delight of the sisters and the diva. Some matrons in the crowd were heard to comment favourably on Bigtiti in wondrous and wanton terms which pleased her no end - she herself was somewhat in awe of Mortiti, but that is another story. 'Get on with it,' shouted the lusty males in the throng as the maidens - maidens? - were led to the race course.35

Meanwhile the male runners were variously puffing or panting up the face of the great pyramid. As they reached the top they were in a bit of a bunch and decided that they were knackered and while they might fancy one or other of the females they didn't relish the wooden spoon.36

'Dead heat,' said Psambrown.37

Snafu agreed that it was very hot but what could they do about it.38

'Daft bugger,' was Hitch-hyk's response, 'He means we all finish together and have one each of the girls if we are lucky.'39

'Oh,' was Snafu's weary reply. 'I don't think I'm up to it.'40

'You can have the fat one then,' said Hore-alot.41

'Right, we're agreed,' said Psambrown again. Rallying his men he went on with a rallying cry, 'Steady down the slope lads, keep together but look as if you are trying.' So that's what they did.42

The king was not well pleased and said so. 'I'm not well pleased,' he said to Phukalot, 'but what can I do? Look's like the maidens - maidens? - are doing the same thing.' And they were.43

Bigtiti claimed to have got her chest (or a small firm part of it) over the line first but the Eunuch officials - experts from the first Olympic games - would you believe? - said differently. The males and the females paired off. The crowd did the same.44

The king was beside himself and Phukalot decided to leave him like that until another time. His sub-plot had worked. No winners, no losers just good connections for when he next needed to network. Psambrown and Psmaltiti - his plants - had done their jobs well and, so long as he got a piece of both of them, he would be satisfied.45

Unfortunately for him - or not so unfortunately, you might think - the only piece of Psambrown he got was a gift wrapped papyrus containing a neat prosthetic for a missing big toe. The left toe as it happened. This left Psambrown without his prosthetic which meant that he had decided tendency to fall over - to the left!. His gift was more than Phukalot imagined at the time. He was a budding entrepreneur - all Grand Viziers suffered from the disease. He grasped the opportunity to patent the toe plate along with other handy items for limbless ex-servicemen. There were, as it happened, a hell of a lot of them battered and injured and returning from a bloody great drenching in the Red Sea. Which event Egyptian historical papyri glossed over. This was in stark contrast to the hamming up the episode got in the Old Testament - see Exodus and Moses.46

By the time all this Exodus stuff happened the king had changed his name on account of the goings on between his queen and the very active Ramitin. Ptomain decided on the name of Ramsees. This was because most of the time he was watching not doing. Little wonder all those wet soldiers came trailing back from the Red Sea complaining about back pay and the lack of concubines, it all stemmed from top management. To be honest, they used different words, but they meant much the same. 47

"The Red Sea Incident," as he thought of it, preyed on Ramsees mind. He vowed vengeance. His smart soothsayers told him, over the giblets of a chicken, that the Egyptians would stuff the Romans somewhere down the line. Ramsees, sadly for him, had only a hazy idea of who had slipped through the kindly Red Sea. His courtiers were not brave or rash enough to enlighten him. What the soothsayers failed to tell the rather pleased king was that the stuffing would be done by a brazen Pharaohess to be called Cleopatra. The only real success she would have - they didn't tell Ramsees this, of course - would be in developing poisoning skills to new heights. They didn't bother to tell him about the Encyclopedia Egyptianus either - he would get a page, Cleopatra would have a whole chapter to herself.48

"Women on top," as they say.49