Khasekhemy's quaint little cottage in the grove was in chaos.
From the outside, it didn't look so bad. The grass was long but not completely overgrown, as though the owner had just gone on holiday for a couple of weeks. The ivy which constantly threatened the brickwork hadn't been tended to. It didn't look abandoned, but there was a definite air of absentness or absent-mindedness, like nobody who lived inside (if indeed, anybody did) had stepped out for a little while.
The inside told another tale. The front door had been left unlocked and slightly ajar, so anyone could walk in - not that any of the locals ever did. Khasekhemwy may have been nervous and unintimidating, but he was still a deity, and deities commanded a certain amount of respect. Or, at least, enough to not have their houses broken into. If anyone had pushed open the door, they would have found a fine layer of dust on all the images and texts hanging on the walls, and bits and pieces of crumbs and dirt on the floor where it hadn't been hoovered. Anything broken about the house (and there was a surprising amount) had been moved to the hallway and discarded there, as though the owner wasn't sure of the proper method of disposal. A couple of spindly chairs with broken legs propped open the door to the front room, a few broken plates were piled up on top of some wooden slats which were probably shelving units at one time, and there were several stacks of water-damaged books. Some of the items didn't appear broken, just unclean: there was a coffee table with mug stains on it, and an entire bag of what seemed to just be dirty laundry. All of the items had been carefully placed, not simply thrown away, and there was enough floor space to navigate around them.
If anyone looking in had proceeded further into the house, with its warren of doors and corridors, they might have heard crashing and banging emanating from deep within. The house had been magically enhanced upon the time of occupancy so that it was larger on the inside than the outside, in order to accommodate the archives and libraries Khasekhemwy insisted on taking with him wherever he settled. The jumble of rooms and corridors was a stark contrast to the almost obsessive, tidy organisation of files, books and documents within the rooms. Khasekhemwy himself, if one were to follow their ears, could be found in the kitchen.
He was almost unrecognisable at first. He was wearing his turban still, but that was the only familiar item of dress: the rest of his clothes looked as though they'd been purchased at the local market. Rather modern biege linen trousers and a white shirt of typical Shaman style hung loosely off his tall, bony frame; an awkward fit. His feet were bare. A variety of utensils were scattered about the kitchen surfaces - not all of them items one would expect to find in a kitchen, and some of them in states of disrepair - giving the room a surprisingly cluttered feel compared to the other, neatly organised rooms. Khasekhemwy was sat at a small, rectangular dining table with four chairs surrounding it, hunched over, his nose almost touching the packet of matches in his left hand. With the other hand, he was tentatively stroking the packet with a match, staring at it as if he expected it to explode. Scattered across the table were the majority of the contents of the packet, all of which were broken. He was so engrossed that he didn't notice his visitor at all. |