End of an Era

The young man sits in the front of his family estate, chin on hands, hands on arms, arms on legs.  Clothed in servant rags from head to toe, he sits and waits.1

This is the first time since he could walk that he has been without the touch of gold.  Sweltering beneath a shell of cheap linen, he is naked, wrists longing the pull of his blue-beaded shackles, the flesh of his forehead squeezed slightly out of shape from his headdress.  He swears that he can still feel a prized scarab caressing his heart, cold when it slides around his neck first thing in the morning, growing warmer with the sun--blessed by Ra, his father's friends used to tell him.  Foolishly, he hid this one piece within a clay hollow of his bedroom wall, hidden by a half-cut brick.  He knew he'd never see it again.  He knew that time was precious, that they were coming for him.  He simply couldn’t stand the idea of his pride and joy being melted down alongside the rest of his family fortune and kept in a cold, empty storehouse someplace worlds away.2

The city’s regular scent of sizzling flesh is punctuated by that of smoke.  The real servants' screams won't come for at least another five or six minutes—until the flames have reached their upstairs quarters—until it’s already too late to save themselves.  Soldiers scramble past with arms full of valuables—everything from dishes to jewellery.  He even sees one stumbling awkwardly down the path with a potted tree from the foyer, forty-pound giant fern complete with sixty-pound pot with extravagant silver inlays.3

A soldier begins to jabber at him in a tongue he can tell nothing more of than the fact that it's a barely-understandable dialect of Egyptian further butchered by a Persian accent.  "You" something something something "horse."4

"Excuse me?"5

"You" something something, his father's name perhaps, something something something.6

The young man can only assume that this man’s bitterness despite a recent victory over what had previously been lauded as the greatest warriors in the world is on account of the lack of shimmering booty that should be tucked beneath his arm.7

To add emphasis, the soldier adds, "Toilet snake."8

The young man can only imagine what brand of vulgarity this man was trying to use.9

Frustrated, the soldier clubs the young man across the jaw then breaks off the arm of a statue in the young man's yard, evidently more eager for souvenirs than for plunder.10

The young man spat out some deep red iron that trickled into his mouth, wiggling a now-loose tooth with his tongue.  He stared at the ground, trying not to think of his parents, now undoubtedly dead, condemned to eternity as charred bone fragments instead of withered, sage-filled scarecrows.11

Instead, he thought of his necklace.  Gold pure enough to soften before a candle would undoubtedly melt in within a central chamber of the house, the hidden clay chamber acting more as a kiln than a safe.  He pictured the insect slowly melting away, squeals high-pitched and helpless as it was reduced to liquid, its intricate detail and lustrous paint melting together with its substance, forming one solid brick.12

He knew they’d be back to sift through the rubble.  He knew they’d kill him if he went back first.13

He buried his face in his palms and began to cry.  They’d find it, a conveniently shaped bar of gold, and send it to a cold, empty storehouse someplace worlds away.14