Cedar: Mama, what is the word b.l.u.d.g.e.o.n.e.d.?
Me: Bludgeoned. Hit a lot over the head with something heavy probably.
Cedar: Oh.
Tutankhamen was not a very significant pharaoh. But his was the last tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings and so he shot to fame, post-humorously. He reigned from age 9 to 18. He was possibly bl….bludgeoned to death or died from a broken leg. He was buried with his two still born daughters one at 4 months in utero and the other at almost full term probably because women were seen as protectors and it would have been believed that his daughters would protect him on his journey in Ra’s boat through the underworld.
Cedar: How is that possible?
Me: So, I guess it would seem that they saved the daughters bodies with the plan of burying them when their father died.
Cedar: Why did they die?
Me: Lots of babies and children died that long ago. Life was hard. Maybe that is why they spent so much of their lives thinking about what came next.
We read a bit more.
Cedar: I.n.c.e.s.t.
Me: Incest: marrying and having children with your family members.
Tutankhamen’s wife was his half-sister. Before she was Tutankhamen’s wife she was possibly their father’s wife and after Tutankhamen died there is evidence that she married her grandfather. And Tutankhamen’s parents (shared partly with his wife) were siblings.
Me: Well, there’s the answer to the question. That’s why the baby girls died.
Cedar: And why Tutankhamen had a weird mouth and a stumpy foot and was probably all whhhooooo in the head.
Me: Yep, that’ll be why.
Cedar: But why would he die from a broken leg?
Me: People died from all kinds of things because they didn’t have the medicines we have today. They didn’t know all the things we know. But they did know about the gods and all those stories that explained life to them. There’s still lots we don’t know today. We don’t have a cure for this virus, for instance and that is scaring people ‘cause we now live in a time where we think we know much of what there is to know.
Cedar: So was he bl….bludded to death?
Me: Bludgeoned. Possibly bludgeoned.
Cedar: Who did it, maybe did it?
Me: Donno. Maybe it was his wife who was tired of being married off to her male relatives and having dead babies.
Cedar: We don’t think much about what comes next, afterlife, do we?
Me: Well, we do use a lot of stuff that will outlast us. What will they find of us when we are gone? Plastic. A lot of plastic.
Cedar: Like this bin lid. They’ll find this bin lid. It will last thousands of years.
Me: Forever. But what story will it tell?
Cedar: That we threw stuff away?
Me: I think that story will be clear.
Later Joel takes the dog out for a late night pee. When he comes back he informs me that the restaurants and pubs are closed but three doors down the teenagers (who have just today discovered that their exams will be cancelled) are having a house party. I’m wondering whether there will be a rise in STDs and teenage pregnancies. I’m wondering also if there will be a rise in bludgeoning, alongside a monumental peak in the death of the over seventies. But just before midnight I receive a message on Telegram informing me that there are now fish swimming in the canals of Venice. And I wonder if the virus will start eating plastic. This could be useful. This hope, along with the fishes, which I am now counting, allows me to finally go to sleep.
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