The Surprise Visit

I woke up groggy from a deep, but restful slumber. You know, the kind where we wake up and don’t quite know what day it is? Yes – that sort of slumber. As I sat up and rubbed my eyes to properly see, I noticed it was a dark, overcast morning. Had there not been any clouds, I probably would’ve noticed the reddish blue sky that still lingered from this morning’s dawn. As I sat in bed, mesmerized by the outside world, I heard a knock on the door. “Knock, knock, knock” came the sound – three rather rapid knocks on the door, as if in a hurry. I began to get out of bed when my still awakening senses were greeted by another rapid series of three knocks. “Knock, knock, knock.”

I managed to get to the door and rip it open right as the person on the other end was getting ready for another set of ear-piercing knocks. “What do you want,” I asked rather groggily, making it clear that I had just woken up and wasn’t in the best mood, just yet. The person on the other end of the door was well dressed and carried a briefcase, you know, the one that lawyer types usually brought with them. I wondered what sorts of things this person carried with them in that briefcase for a moment.

Brought back to reality, the early morning intruder cleared his throat and finally spoke after what seemed like an eternity: “Good morning, Sir! My name is Quincy Franklin – her majesty’s lawyer and closest confidante. May I enter your dwelling, sir?” Still attempting to seem awake, I asked the gentleman on the other side of my now fully open door “What is this concerning? What do you want?” Not mentioning anything and pushing past me he briefly mumbled something about how this is royal business and that I was some sort of a ‘baboon’ and that he ‘must get on with it” or some other similar vaguely British exclamation. At this point, this all sort of still felt much like a dream I hadn’t woken up from. Once I closed the door and turned to my early morning intruder once more, I asked “So – you’re in here, the door is closed – do you want to tell me what the hell you want, or do I need to call the cops? It is entirely too early for this nonsense!”

Sensing my threat, Mr. Franklin opened his briefcase and handed me an envelope that looked entirely too fancy – fancier than most anything in my home. As I stood there admiring the letter, focusing on the details of such an ornate thing in my hands, I completely forgot that I still had an intruder to deal with. With my eyes still on the letter, I began “Mr. Franklin, what is the….” I looked up and realized that as quickly as he came, he had left even quicker. Now, left alone with my thoughts and this strange piece of mail in my hand, I decided to open it.

What I pulled out of the envelope appeared to be even older than me – whatever it was, was written on parchment that could easily have been around at the time of ancient Egypt, if not older. Not being familiar with any ancient Egyptian, I was happy to see that the writing was, in fact, in English, and the kind of English even I could understand. After carefully opening the parchment and orienting it so that I could read what was written, I began to read, but what I read surprised me more than anything in this life ever had.