It was 9:45 a.m., October 7th, 1903 when I received the word I had been waiting for. I remember it like it was yesterday, will always remember it like yesterday, for that was the last of my days among the living. I had finally received a message from the archeologist I had been following. He had recently uncovered a mummy in the Egyptian sands, and who hadn’t, it seemed anyone with a shovel out there was turning one up, but this mummy was rumored to still be ‘active.’

We were to meet that night, after the sun had set and the mummy was most alive. It was finally my chance! I could bring such great wisdom from this ancient being to the masses. I, Eugene Bartholomew Jackson would finally be known as the reporter I’d always dreamed of being. My ghost writing days were to be over!

I pulled up to the dig site just after 8:30 p.m. anxious to meet this remarkable creature. Pen in hand, I pulled open the flap of the large tent and stepped inside. A small oil lamp sat in the middle of a table, its flame burning low, casting an eerie glow upon the scene. There, sitting at the table, wrapped in a cloak, was the mummy. Tattered strips of cloth encased his whole head, a split visible in the cloth where his eyes would once have been.

I sat down on the opposite side and drew forth my notebook. There was too little light to see for writing so I reached out and turned up the wick of the lamp. As the flame swelled, the mummy jerked back, nearly falling over in the process. “Ahh,” I thought to myself, “Being flammable would make one afraid of large flames.” I tried to correct the issue, turning the wick back down. As I turned the little knob, the tent plunged into darkness, I had turned too far. I don’t remember much else of what happened. I remember hearing a chair topple, a shuffle of feet, and then PAIN shot through me! The memory goes black after that.

So here I am, dear reader, able to convey only these few pieces of wisdom gathered from my meeting with the mummy. First, “fire could end ones existence”, as the mummy knew well, so treat it with care. Second, “things are true to their nature”, the undead exist only to prey on the living as this mummy did me. And last, “don’t let your own ambitions lead you to your death”. I did, and now I am a ghost writer forever, in a quite more literal sense.

[The end]

This is my entry for Day 7 of the Halloween Challenge (wisdom from a 1000 year ld mummy) hosted at Flutter by Literature. Join in the fun at any time!

Check out my previous entries!:

• Halloween Challenge:Day 1, The Witches Three (poem)
• Halloween Challenge, Day 2: Bedtime Story (story)
• Halloween Challenge, Day 3: Frantic (poem)
• Halloween Challenge, Day 4: R.I.P. (poem)
• Halloween Challenge, Day 5: “Mr. Coffin”
• Halloween Challenge, Day 6: Circus Ghost (poem)

Special thanks to Designer-Obst for the oil lamp image

© 2018 – James Sponseller – mindescapes.net