Capulus Cum Silenti

Scene 1

(Cairo, Egypt, 2007 AD. Metatron walks down a main street which is extremely crowded. He is dressed in kaki pants and a green hoody. He keeps a steady pace as he walks, and looks around on occasion. He stops at a crosswalk where the light is red. Beside him is an Egyptian woman about 5’ 10” with black hair. She wears a white shirt and black jeans. The two look at each other for a moment.)

Isis: Metatron?

Metatron: (Blinks for a moment. Trying to recall the name.) …Isis?

Isis: (Smiles.) Long time no see.

Metatron: No kidding. Two hundred years at least. What’re you doing down here?

Isis: I could ask you the same thing. I thought you never got out because of your workload.

Metatron: I don’t. (He rolls his eyes.) Errand running for the Almighty which is, alas, in my job description. Yourself?

(The light changes. The two begin to walk across the crosswalk, along with the other pedestrians.)

Isis: Business. You know, the usual stuff, pissed off pharaohs, new excavations…

Metatron: (Raises an eyebrow.) Really?

Isis: Yes, really. What errands are you taking care of?

Metatron: Er, it’s kind of confusing. And not really something I should be freely talking about on the streets of Cairo.

Isis: Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be talking about my business out in the open either. You’d probably be interested in what I’m doing though.

Metatron: Isis, the last time we chatted was at the British Museum in 1870 while we looked at their Egyptian exhibit. It’s been a long while.

Isis: No kidding. (She pauses.) Why don’t we head over to a café, sit down, and talk like normal people over a cup of coffee.

Metatron: (Perks up.) Really, all you had to do was say “coffee”.

Isis: (Laughs.) Addict.

Metatron: I’ve been drinking the stuff since I was 10.

(Isis stares at him, slightly surprised by this.)

Isis: And you’re how old now…?

Metatron: At least 6 millennia.

Isis: That is disturbing. Yahweh gave you coffee when you were 10?!

Metatron: Er. (He nods.) It only allowed me one cup a day. When work started getting crazy I became dependent on the stuff.

Isis: (Shakes her head.) Sleep is a foreign concept to you, isn’t it?

Metatron: Sleep is all well and good, aside from the fact that it hinders productivity. How good is the coffee at this café?

Isis: (Grins confidently.) You’ll like it.

Scene 2

(A small café off a main road. Metatron and Isis sit opposite each other, drinking their coffee.)

Metatron: So, the new discoveries then.

Isis: All work and no play makes you rather dull. (She rolls her eyes.) Fine, business first. You’ve heard all about KV 63 right?

Metatron: (Nods.) Nothing more than a funeral stash, from what I’ve heard.

Isis: Kind of. Had 5 mummies in it, amongst other things. A few jars of organs, the normal stuff. Anyway, we’ve been wondering what tombs haven’t been found in the Valley yet, so I was asked to check it out. Plus there’s been some crap going on in the tombs with the tourists and whatever. The pharaohs have been bitching at us about it for a while, so I’m also trying to shut their whiney mouths.

Metatron: And the remaining tombs amount to how many?

Isis: (Smiles.) Can’t reveal. I’ll tell you this much, they still have some left to find.

Metatron: (Sips his coffee.) Oh wow, this is really good coffee.

Isis: Told you. So anyway, what’re you doing down here?

Metatron: Checking out a few new books and scrolls that popped up on the antiquities market. There’s a scroll of 1 Enoch circa middle of the second century going around. Pretty good condition, the text is pretty clean as far as scribal errors and intentional changes go. There are a few copies of Gnostic codices on the market too, but it’s nothing scholars haven’t seen before. A few fragments of the Apocalypse of Peter, third century. (He shrugs.) Yahweh likes to have me go down and look at documents that pop up on the black and grey markets down here. Claims it’s to “help predict how humans will react to scholarship that contradicts belief”.

Isis: (Taking a sip of her coffee.) Gospel of Judas must have been a field day.

Metatron: Surprisingly not. (He shrugs.) Scholars went insane, of course, and while the laypeople had an interest in it, it didn’t really seem to have an impact on their faith.

Isis: Huh. Whoda thunk? I admit, I’m surprised you don’t keep more accurate tabs on religious documents relevant to Yahweh.

Metatron: We do. Kind of. (He frowns.) We have a copy of every single religious text pertaining to Yahweh in our library. Usually an original or near original. Duma made a point of going down and securing the original or making like a scribe and copying it. We’ve got the writing available to us whenever in a typed form and Duma keeps the original scrolls under lock and key to prevent deterioration. There’s usually no reason for us to read them, other than for shits and giggles. So when the humans find a “previously unheard of text” we’ll go through, read the text and figure out what impact it will have on the human religious world. (He shrugs.) Usually it affects scholarship more than your regular believer. Mind, sometimes it gets a little out of control…

Isis: One of the cons about being the most popular world religion of the day, huh?

Metatron: (Sighs.) Tell me about it. We’re afraid of what will happen if they ever find the Q document though.

Isis: Q document…?

Metatron: Name scholars gave a source document where it seems three fourths of the canonical gospel drew their information from. It’s not exactly a definitive first hand account, but some information from there was skewed in the gospels and really wouldn’t go down well with believers.

Isis: Textual differences?

Metatron: (Nods.) A massive amount. Anyway, you mentioned something about angry pharaohs?

Isis: (Groans.) Oh. That. Well, over the past century or so, their tombs have become a bit of a, ah…(pauses to find the right word.) Tourist attraction. People coming in and out, archeologists taking away their treasures, that sort of thing. Most of the pharaohs aren’t even in their proper resting places anymore. Ergo, they are pissed and want us to solve the problem.

Metatron: They seem like whiney little bastards.

Isis: They’re really all right people, they’re just unhappy about their tombs’ conditions. On one hand, I don’t really blame them. On the other though, there isn’t much we can do. We keep trying to explain it to them, but they’re all rather thick headed.

Metatron: I think their genetics have something to do with their stupidity.

Isis: Incest can do that to a dynasty. (She laughs.)

Metatron: Considering the source…

Isis: (Snickering.) No kidding. (She rolls her eyes.) Anyway, we’ve been trying the best we can and I was in town to talk to the Egyptian Antiquity Authority about this.

Metatron: You know, I’ve always wondered how you pull that sort of thing off. It’s pretty obvious you’re not invoking your actual image or anything like that.

Isis: Oh no, I’d never. That would look very silly. The Greeks might pull something like that though.

Metatron: (Coughs.) Zeus.

Isis: Exactly. No, I’ve been smart enough to build up my own mortal identity here in Egypt, establishing myself as an Egyptologist and occasional archeologist so I can intervene on behalf of the dead.

Metatron: Ah. That is incredibly smart.

Isis: Don’t you people do something like that?

Metatron: Just for bank accounts and the like. I know Lucifer owns a small house in New York City and Uriel has a flat in New Orleans, but most of us don’t assume Earthly identities. We just kind of blend in and use money we’ve got stored away upstairs.

Isis: Easy enough, I suppose. (She finishes the last of her coffee.) You said you were going to take your time heading back upstairs?

Metatron: (Nods.) I don’t really have the luxury of vacations or taking days off, so if I’m doing Earthly errands I’ll take a little while longer and try and relax.

Isis: And Yahweh’s okay with that?

Metatron: (Nods.) It’s very understanding. It knows me well enough to understand that I occasionally need a brief reprieve from my duties. (He smiles faintly and finishes his coffee.) I’m probably just going to stay here in Cairo though and go to a museum or two.

Isis: I’m surprised you’re willing to walk around a museum. I figure you’d be the kind of guy who, given a day off, would spend it at a beach, swinging in a hammock, asleep.

Metatron: (Laughs.) Sometimes I’ll do that, but not often. I prefer to keep my mind engaged.

Isis: Fair enough. I really don’t feel like heading back home at the moment. Would you mind having me tag along at the museum?

Metatron: (Going slightly red.) M’lady, it would be an honour…

Isis: You sure you won’t mind fairly rude commentary regarding artifacts?

Metatron: (Finishes his coffee.) That’s why I want you to come with me. I’m sure that you have far more insightful and entertaining insight on the artifacts than the small information cards beside them do.

(Isis laughs. The two stand up and exit the coffee house.)

Fin.