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Pharaoh Senusret, sir?

Samuel Solomon Sanders

By

About the Writing

In the tumultuous journey of Husani, from an overlooked ‘ugly boy’ to an unexpected apprentice of a sculptor, a singular event leads to an extraordinary opportunity as an aspiring artist in ancient Egypt; caught in a mishap that alters his fate, his world shifts drastically from loneliness to artistic mastery, culminating in a life-changing commission from Pharaoh Senusret that promises to redefine his destiny forever.

The Writing

Pharaoh Senusret, sir?Samuel Solomon Sanders
00:00 / 05:19

SSS                                                                                                  Thursday, January 5th, 2022


Pharaoh Senusret, Sir?


 The piece almost didn't get through. Yeah, that's right, my dream job, working under the vizier of Pharaoh Senusret, nearly slipped away like a flailing newborn into the broiling Nile. Or, I suppose, a man falling from a tree to be rewarded with a broken neck. Quite literally, actually. Let me explain.


My name is Husani, or 'handsome boy;' my name's denotation. People call me the latter as a nickname of sorts. Totally endearing, right? Yeah, well, I have something to say about that. 

I am as ugly as a bloated cow, as monstrous as a pig without a snout, as ghastly as a drowned cat, and as Well, you get the gist. My childhood days were lonely, and I was estranged from other boys my age. They would call me fatan qubih, or 'ugly boy,' and harass me ceaselessly. 'Fatan qubih, fatan qubih," they would call me, laughing all the while. 'Fatan qubih!' Each time I would walk up to a potential friend on the river banks, a taunt or scream would be the only answer to my greeting.


It's okay. Only some people need companionship.


One of these fruitless missions of friendship was the day I met Lateef, the old owner of the sculptor's shop near the square. I'm pretty sure. With one glance at his name, 'One of kind and mild nature,' you know where I'm headed with this. I had just been rejected for the fifth time that week in my quest for a friend, and, as any youth of sixteen would do in that particular situation, I had decided to take a walk along the dusty winding path to the city square to collect my thoughts. You know how it goes, that depression that might as well smother the life out of you, at times permanence and loneliness seeming hopelessly intertwined. I was indeed in a sorry state.


I strolled for quite a while that day, contemplating my contending thoughts. However, I soon grew thirsty and stopped near a small indent along a wall. After drinking, my weary head rose to the wondrously sallow sight of shining limestone placed carefully outside a shop's doorway. Observing closer, I noticed that this limestone took the form of a statue of an elderly man of about forty or so, the sturdiness of his limbs not unnoticed by me. The complexity of the carvings on the figure and yet the evident durability amazed me thoroughly; obviously, I had to get a closer look.


What happened next? Not my fault. 

Well, kind of.


As I crouched down to observe the statue, a tall, stout man walked through the shop doorway next to me, eyes upwards. With neither of us watching for warning the other, he ended up walking briskly into me, tripping over the statue (and me, may I say? Ouch), and. The statue was much more winsome when a head was attached. The man immediately started screaming his head off at me.


And this was Lateef.


It turns out that Lateef was the owner of the sculptor's shop, which, it also turns out, belonged to that statue. I was terrified of losing my fingers to this man for almost fifteen minutes.

'You stupid, stupid Ahmaq, do you know how long it took me to build that? To gather the materials? To carve that raw hunk of limestone into a shimmering statue of Pharaoh Senusret?' He scrubbed his face roughly and let out an angry sigh. "Just the beard alone took..." He sat down roughly, completely crestfallen.


I may be a bit of a klutz sometimes, but I'm not a complete jerk. And so, to remedy my... err, accidental decapitation of the most influential person in Egypt, I offered my plebeian services to Lateef. "Sir, uhm, I'm terribly sorry for breaking that beautiful piece; I'd be willing to work here for a month or so to pay you back. I'm truly sorry." Apparently, I have placating words of gold because, from that moment onward, I was Lateef's twenty-four-hour slave, day and night, carving and whetting and observing all the intricacies of being a sculptor. And let me tell you, there are a lot. I learned the art of molding limestone with the ease of clay, incorporating sunken relief to emphasize each subject's facial idiosyncrasies; I chipped and chiseled the cheekbones of Lateef's customers until my fingers bled scarlet and painted and stained them until my knuckles were splotched blue. I became a master of bejeweling the crowns atop busts, of polishing and priming the stones to perfection. Lateed even asked me to extend my stay at the shop. I, the 'handsome boy,' became the handsome boy, if only in my art. And then, the scroll came in.


Pharaoh Senusret requests a ten-foot-tall limestone statue of his excellency to be completed in one year. It shall be dropped off by camel at the gate of his excellency's palace at el-Lisht and shall not be delayed. This scroll is to be received by Husani Systran of Lateef Husain's sculpting shop. Thank you for contributing to Egypt's art world; his exaltedness wishes not to enslave you.


It's safe to say that my jaw became as heavy as the limestone chunk before me and consequently hit the floor.

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