The Mummy
Aaron tapped his fingers on the the desk beside the keyboard. He was waiting for his page to load up on what felt to be the slowest computer known to man. This was the dumbest assignment he had ever heard of. He was twenty-three and the assignment that the professor had his class do seemed like something that should have be reserved for his high school years.
"Looking up what happened on my birthday," he gave a half bitter laugh, "I wasn't even born on election year... Finally!" He surfed through the pages to find the paper that was printed out on his birthday. After about scrolling down half way through the page, a small picture and a catchy headline caught his eye. There was a picture of an eerie tomb with a mummy laying on some slab near the far wall of the room.
"Horror found in a nearly finished pyramid..." he read to himself, "...What... on Earth...?" he clicked on the correct page to read the rest of the article, "Jar of blood found... mummy preserved... young man met... tragic end? Jesus! They mummified him while he was alive?! That doesn't make sense.... man that must have been one ugly ******** when they opened him up..." He leaned back in his chair staring at the screen, and here he thought nothing interesting ever happened on his birthday.
"Hey, Aaron," arms wrapped around his neck and a pair of generous lips pressed against his temple for a quick kiss, "find anything interesting?"
"Yeah check this out," he clicked back to the main page.
"Oh, how tragic!" the woman behind him gasped, "Imagine all those people who died in that fire!"
"Yeah, but look at this" he pointed to the article with his cursor.
"An Egyptian tomb is more interesting then a fire that caused ten people to die?" she asked skeptically.
"That mummy on that table was some dude that got mummified while he was alive," he told her, "Though they don't understand how it happened, but it looks like there was no blood in the body, they think it was put in jars like the one they found."
"Then how could he still be alive?" she asked, now interested.
"They don't know, but apparently he still had air in his lungs, so he was still breathing or something.. and get this, his bones weren't crushed or anything and his organs looked like they died like a half an hour before they found him. Which is ridiculous because of how old the wrapping was and the fact that the just found the damn tomb thing a week before this..."
"I wonder if they could ever explain it?"
"I don't know, I didn't think of that," he admitted, "Hmmm..." he clicked on the address bar and typed in a search engine and waited for the screen to pop up. "Soo...." he turned around to look at the female behind him.
"Yes?" she had a pair of playful ruby lips that curved into a secretive smile while her dark brown eyes danced with merriment.
"Tonight we're dining with your parents?" he couldn't help but to smile at her feigning innocence.
"Oh," she gasped, then looked thoughtful, "Is that tonight?"
He chuckled and shook his head, his blue eyes shined with amusement. "You can't play dumb with me. I've learned to see through that ploy." He turned around and began to look up the strange mummy and what had happened to it over these twenty-three years.
"Oh fine, I guess I can't fool you all the time," she hugged him again. Her soft, short, brown hair meshed into his blonde locks. "Remember, we have to be at mom's house at seven."
"I know, I'll pick you up around six," he turned his head so he could kiss her on her check and still keep an eye on the screen. "Don't worry, I'll be there."
"Alright, tell me what other creepy things surround the mummy case." She left him to his research and the Egyptian mystery.
---
"Hey, Cleopatra, wanna ride?" someone asked.
"Yo, Cleo, we're talkin' to ya!" another called out.
Kathy ignored them and kept walking. She was used to this sort of thing since she fifteen. No matter how much she told them that her name was not 'Cleopatra' they still insisted on calling her that. Over the six years she learned to block them out of her mind .
"Where you goin' Cleo?" the third man called out, "We're over here!"
Kathy picked up her pace. When was she going to learn how to drive a car? The three men started to walk after her as if they were casually going the same way as her. She began to walk faster, her pace was now barely short of running. When she started to cross the street the men stopped at the corner of the side walk and just laughed at her. They turned around and went back to the place they had been when they first started to bother her.
It seemed to take forever to get home but she didn't mind. To her it was like a mini test, if she got home alive and ok then she deserved Aaron. He was the best guy she could ask for. She'd also spend hours to make sure her make up, hair, and attire was nothing less then perfect when ever she would go out with him. True tonight she was just going over to her parents house, but that was no excuse to slack off now! She would also stop at nothing to be ready on time.
Time seemed to pass relatively fast, before she knew it there was a knock on the door. She quickly finished putting on her lipstick and grabbed her purse as she headed for the door. She knocked on one side mimicking the first few notes of 'Shave and a Hair Cut'. The person on the other side completed the score with two simple timed taps on the door. She grinned and unlocked the door and flung it open. Two arms wrapped around the waist of her dark blue silk dress and kissed her on the cheek.
"You look beautiful,"' Aaron said after pulling back slightly and taking in the sight of her.
"Thank you, you don't look half bad yourself," she teased him. She hadn't realized that he knew her so well until tonight. He wore a simple black suit, a light blue shirt, and a navy tie to pull it all off.
"Marry me," he kissed her on the lips.
She laughed, "I already said yes a month ago and now your wearing lipstick."
"Battle scars," he joked and kissed her again, "The car awaits us, gentle lady."
"Your strange," she shook her head and pulled out a white handkerchief and wiped the lipstick off his mouth. He picked her up and she reached out and grabbed the door handle to pull it shut. He held her in front of the door so she could pull out her keys from her purse and lock the door. Then he carried her down stairs of the apartment building and to his car.
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