Page 17 of Ra
“Sometimes I forget where you came from, get lost in our conversation and can’t believe I’m living this. It’s crazy. Surely I passed out with heatstroke somewhere and either I’m dead or the paramedics haven’t managed to get me to wake up yet.”
Ra shook his head confidently. “No, you are not dead. If you were in fact dead, you would be speaking with Anubis and not me. You are very much alive, and very much awake. If you were dead and Anubis was usurping my chance to be here, I would have to kill him. That is how you know you are not dead.”
“How would I know Anubis? How would I know that I was supposed to be speaking with you rather than Anubis if it were Anubis that had poofed into being right behind me in your temple instead of you? How would I even know it was supposed to be different?”
He turned his gaze on her and bestowed a smile on her that shook her to her very core. “It does not matter in the slightest. You have been blessed. You are sitting beside Ra, discussing the nature of the new world, sampling new foods, and enjoying the radiance I bestow on all who are gifted such an honor.”
“Oh, dear God. I need a drink,” she grumbled.
“Thank you for your reverence. You are dear, as well. And you have a drink. It is there! You have water!”
“Not that kind of drink,” Azi muttered as she headed to the kitchen. Unable to stop the commentary running through hermind as she dug out a bottle of her father’s best Devlin Single Malt Whiskey and poured herself two fingers, neat. She lifted it to her lips and gulped it down, before adding two more fingers to her glass while standing in the kitchen as she did her best to ground herself in reality. It occurred to her that he had only addressed the bad. She walked into the living room to find him still sitting there, completely unconcerned with the fact that she left him to go into the kitchen.
“There’s good, too, you know. Did you see the good?”
“I did. And without good I have no doubt the entire race would have died out by now.”
“That’s true of any race, don’t you think?”
“It is. And it’s no secret, which is why I find it ironic that humans generally respond only to the powerful, rather than the kind and good.”
“I think it’s like anything — you can’t have good without the bad. You can’t have cold without the hot, you can’t have health without sickness. There is always the opposite side to balance it out.”
“Things are that way on purpose. It’s all about order. We maintained balance between the good and the bad. Without us, it appears that the bad is overcoming the good.”
“I can see why you’d think that, but you have to understand that the news is generally to report crimes and natural disasters. So, of course, there will be more highlights of them than the good stories. But they’re out there. The good is out there in large numbers, larger even than the bad, or like you said, we’d have died off by now. And we haven’t. We’re still here. Good will always win.”
Ra watched her thoughtfully as he finished off his food and sat back, his hand resting on his stomach. “That was delicious.”
“Would you like something sweet?”
“Like… honey?”
“No. It’s cheesecake. I have cheesecake. I keep it in the house because it’s my favorite.”
“I do not think that cheeses and cake will complement one another.”
“Trust me,” Azi said, going back into the kitchen and opening the box she called a fridge and rearranging items inside it before closing it, placing something on two plates and walking back toward him. “Try this,” she said, as she handed him the plate.
He sniffed it, touched it with his fork, then shrugged and took a tentative bite. He stopped chewing and looked up at her where she still stood next to his seat on the sofa. “This must be eaten daily as well.”
“I’m with you on that one, bud!”
They both sat quietly savoring their cheesecake, watching the newscast they were watching as it started over again on the twenty-four hour news channel.
Azi grinned as she set her plate in front of her on the coffee table. “I have an idea.”
“And that would be?” he asked.
“Reality television. It’ll give you a glimpse into the way people talk and behave today.” She thought about it, second guessing her own words. “Or better yet, how not to behave. But it will show you modern behavior, though it’s pushed a bit to try to get people to watch it. If nothing else, it’ll show you how to blend in if necessary.” She chose a program and set the remote on the coffee table, sitting back to watch the show.
“How does it know the pictures to show you?”
She picked up the remote again. “This is how you turn it off and on.” She demonstrated and he reached out to try the power button for himself. Satisfied that he knew how to turn the machine on, he gestured toward the remote to indicate she should continue her explanation. “These, with the arrowspointing left and right will change the program you’re watching. If you want to go back to where you started, for now, just keep going until it comes around again. These buttons with the arrows up and down are for volume.” Azi looked at him. When he gave her a nod of affirmation, she laid it back on the coffee table again.
Two episodes in, Azi fell asleep. She’d pulled her feet up onto the sofa and curled up on a throw pillow, and was soundly asleep when Ra finally turned to look at her.
He smiled as he watched her sleeping, then reached out to touch her foot peeking out from between the cushions where she’d tucked it. Finding it cold, he looked around the living room, finally finding what he was searching for folded right behind himself. A blanket. He stood up and unfolded the blanket, carefully laying it over Azi. He tucked the edges in around her feet, which were far too cold in his opinion, then sat back down to watch more of what Azi called TV. He picked up the remote and started searching for another show to hold his attention.
