S2 Ep. 8: Casper and Sid Uncover a Pyramid Scheme.
(Part Two of Two of "Sid Looks for His Mummy.")
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The Man Who Woke up the Buddha is the story of a guy named Sid who wakes up from a stroke and realizes he's the Buddha, even though he knows almost nothing about Buddhism. If this is your first time here, you might want to read the first chapter or two of Season One. Then you can pretty much go anywhere with a little help from the Family Tree.
Previously: Sid learned that his first words after surgery were, “Greetings humans…please remove bandages…wine gone bad…bread stale…let my spirit go…I want my mummy.” When he found out that Casper was reading a picture book about pharaohs, he realized some pharaoh was trying to get his attention. It turns out to be Menes, the first one.
The name Menes was all it took for the first pharaoh to stroll into Sid’s ever-widening mind.
We travel in the same circles, the Buddha reflected.
“So, Casper,” Sid said, “Let’s see what this Menes guy has to say for himself.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them quickly. He didn’t want to scare Casper.
“Turns out,” he said, as if he’d just found a new fact in a project he and Casper had been researching together—which, in their own ways, they had—“the first pharaohs came from outer space and they glowed.”
“Until now, they thought it was science fiction,” Menes thought, “And this guy spills it to an eight-year-old.”
Who else could really believe it? The Buddha mused.
“Glowed?” Casper said rapt. He now lay across the bed in the traditional tell-me-a-story position, at which point Maxfield II1 appeared out of nowhere and jumped up to join him.
Even though he had a mane worthy of a Hemingway trophy lion, Max II was the epitome of a scaredy cat. He rarely went outside because he was deathly afraid of dogs…except for Bieça whom he thought was some kind of freakishly overweight cat having a bad hair day.
This time, however, he’d been attracted by the appearance of three ancient Egyptian cats, Menes’s protectors, who sat on their haunches, alert to any potential threat. Max II would normally have been intimidated, but each one looked at him and nodded as if in thanks—a gesture of respect he’d never experienced before. For while, like their master, they thought bodies just took up a lot of space without contributing anything particular to the evolution, they still had a certain respect for any entity willing to take one on.
“Like one of your glow-in-the-dark toys,” Sid said, returning to the story of the pharaohs from outer space. “In fact, they probably would have loved a pair of your flashing sneakers.”
“It was our idea in the first place,” Menes thought. “If it weren’t for us, humans would still be padding around in pieces of deer skin.”
Menes…the Buddha said with what passed for sternness.
“We looked just human enough to get by,” Sid continued, “although we tended to be taller and skinnier and a whole lot nicer than humans.”
“You mean like the Ansionians? Were they hairless too?” Casper asked, sounding brave and scared at the same time. (Sid was relieved that Casper hadn’t noticed, he’d accidentally said “we”).
Sid didn’t have a clue who the Ansionians were. Undoubtedly some Star Wars creature. So he answered, “Like them, but their demeanor was more like Yoda.”
“What’s a demon-er?” Casper asked breathlessly, holding tighter to Max II.
“Actually, they weren’t demons…or mean for that matter.” Sid was rapidly losing track of what he did mean. “It’s just they were really smart like Yoda. Anyway, the Egyptians figured they must be kings, to glow like that. Especially because, when they died, they still glowed.”
“Really? How?”
We all glow after death, the Buddha thought. Just humans can’t usually see it.
“That’s what the Egyptians wanted to know. But first they had to make sure their enemies didn’t find out. It would be like having a nuclear bomb you didn’t want to fall intothe wrong hands.”
Casper kind of got this idea. At least as well as Sid did. “Who were their enemies?”
“Well,” Sid rummaged around in his subconscious, “Groups of people whose names ended in “-ite”. Like Hittites and Canaanites and Amorites—gotta love ‘em. A pun sadly wasted on Casper and on the Pharaoh for that matter.
The Buddha smiled wryly and sighed, if they and Abraham’s peoples had understood it then, they wouldn’t still be fighting it out now.
“Anyway,” Sid continued, “They wrapped their pharaohs in bandages and put them in huge pyramids for safekeeping. It’d be like if you had some gold and wanted to hide it.”
“They did put gold in there sometimes,” Menes reminisced.
“They did put gold in there sometimes,” Sid said, “in case the pharaoh needed some spare change, like to get a soda or something.”
Casper giggled.
“What, you think pharaohs don’t like soda? OK, fine. The point is that they glowed so brightly that even the pyramids glowed a little at first. That’s why the Egyptians figured their spirits were still alive and put a lot of food and wine near the mummies.”
“It was thoughtful,” the Pharaoh admitted.
“Then,” Casper asked urgently, interrupting Sid’s and Menes’s meeting of minds, “how did they eat the food and drink the wine in there if they were wrapped in bandages?”
“Well, they didn’t eat the way we do,” Sid pointed out, wondering the same thing himself.
“Maybe they cut holes in the bandages so they could kind of roll over and eat and drink.” Casper made a face as he came up with this unsatisfactory explanation.
“Cute kid,” the Pharaoh thought. “Probably too young to get the spirit-body and spirit-food thing.”
Menes, Menes, Menes, the Buddha thought. You underestimate the wisdom of young humans.
“Maybe, they ate the way Fatso did!” Casper said.
“Who?” Sid asked.
“Who?” the Pharaoh asked.
“You know, Casper the Friendly Ghost’s best friend.”
“How did he eat?” Sid asked.
“The food kind of floated through him,” Casper explained.
Sid was impressed. “You mean, it was like the spirit of the pharaoh could eat the spirit of the food.”
“Kinda.” Casper said.
“How did he figure that out?” Menes wondered.
Grownups should watch more cartoons, the Buddha reflected.
Sid, Menes, and the Buddha looked curiously at the transformation of this eight-year-old into an ancient sage.
“But he still got fat,” Casper added, as if that were the real mystery.
At that moment, Menes’s cats moved in a little closer, sensing the arrival of a new threat.
“Leave Grandpa alone,” Sid’s daughter-in-law Carolyn said. She had come upstairs to put an end to this graduate class in extraterrestrial Egyptology. “It’s time to let him rest.”
Sid had to admit—to himself if not Casper—that he was getting tired. “Come by again maybe tomorrow, ‘k Bud? You got a game?”
“Yeah. Will you be able to come?”
“Probably not, Casper, maybe next week. You still catching?”
“No, shortstop… I was faster than the kid who played short, and he was bigger so we switched.”
“Good thinking…” Sid’s eyes were getting very heavy.
“And they’re moving Stephanie to second base ‘cause she has a stronger arm.”
Carolyn gave Sid a look before taking Casper’s hand and he reluctantly rolled off the bed.
Sid drifted off, imagining the pharaohs escaping Houdini-like from their shrouds and spiriting themselves back to whatever solar system they came from, or were going next. They’d probably come to show humans a thing or two, and went back to regroup once they realized the humans needed to be shown three or four or five.
“All of that is true, but not the way you think. Even your idea of fine vibrations is coarse,” the Pharaoh sighed.
Maybe, Sid thought, the alien pharaohs left some jewels or something behind to keep the glow going. Or to find their way back. Maybe…the jewels turned into crowns into football helmets and how it be would great to see Junior play…and when Junior was born and insisting they call him “Sid, Jr.” and the look on Melissa’s face when she held him…and the look on his face before he was born. Before they were all born. Abbey, Jake, Melissa. All the grandchildren. Di. Even himself.
And even the Buddha.
His mind fell away, exploding into stillness.
“That’s all for now. Menes,” the Buddha said. “Your work here is done. Each light will turn on in him—in turn…and in time.”
Maxfield watched the cats disappear—no whoosh, no sound. In an instant. They were there and then they weren’t. Neither, he realized, was Casper. So he rolled off the bed, landed on all fours, and padded downstairs, wondering where Casper, and those mysterious cats, had gone.
Ah…the Buddha thought. Well played.
The careful reader might notice that Marcus’s cat is also named Maxfield. They were in the same litter, and there was quite a controversy about which came first, until Marcus’s wife Leila told Sid in no uncertain terms that theirs was first. So Sid and Di’s became Maxfield II—or, in formal situations—”Maxfield the Second.” (Leila was the only person who could speak to Sid in certain terms and he’d back down…or at least off to the side.)