The Difference of the Future

Chapter 8

Ah, another anniversary of her death. Well, here's to you, he thought as he sipped his glass of whiskey.

"Man, I'll never get used to this sharp taste. How do people enjoy this?" he wondered while sitting on the brown leather couch, leaving his glass on the round glass table placed on the shaggy white carpet.

"Once again, you're drinking!" Aunt Elayza scolded him. "How many times have I told you that alcohol will melt away what's left of your brain cells?"

With a lump in her throat, she realized that she had gone too far and once again projected her accumulated negative emotions onto the vulnerable young man.

"I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to say that. You know how difficult it is for me to see you like this."

"I know, aunt. I know life goes on and I shouldn't drown in sorrow, but I just can't. I simply can't!" he blurted out, on the brink of tears.

"Oh, I know, child. You've grown up and matured too quickly. You were never allowed to have a normal, carefree childhood with mischievous pranks and nonsense."

After saying this, she went to the couch and offered him a comforting hug. With tears in his eyes and the intensity in his throat that had already passed, he said, "Thank you, aunt. Thank you!"

"Oh, boy, you don't have to thank me."

"How can I not? You've always been there for me," he added tearfully. "You've always cared and made sure I'm okay. You've been like a second mother to me all these years. I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am, even though I don't show it often."

"I wanted to watch my favorite mother's movie. Do you want to watch it with me?"

"God, how many times have you watched that movie? Okay, we'll watch it again," she said with a smile and compassionate indulgence.

And Konny had always loved the movie "The Golden Eye of the Ancient Pharaoh." The pleasure of the blend of mystery and hope that this movie provided had always seemed perfect to her. She could watch it every year, and this mother's tradition was diligently continued by the boy.

The movie

The wind that blows dry sand into his eyes had gotten on his nerves. The scorching sun that burned his hat and baked his scalp was tiresome. The wavy mirages of oases and water all around him. The sweat that bathed him and made him all sticky. He had grown weary of searching for something he was slowly starting to doubt even existed. 

He was fed up with waiting for a major discovery that could propel him to the top of the list of esteemed archaeologists and Egyptologists. He wanted to be on the cover of "Egyptoday," but this was just too much. For the past two months, he had been touring the pyramids and snooping around to find something new and groundbreaking every day.

And now he was circling around a smaller pyramid. He did so in the early morning, when the icy transition from night to day was still palpable and called for a thicker jacket. His glasses would often fog up from sweat and blur his vision, and he had to keep wiping them. It was only in the morning that it felt nice and comfortable. For a brief moment, you might think this was not a desert but a fortunate, cool place with too much sand. 

He walked and kept his caffeine-energized eyelids open, searching for something unusual. However, take a thousand walks down one path, and by the tenth, the whole area would melt into a monotonous, homogeneous, tedious mass of roads, and the landscape would seem like a nightmare rather than a rest for the eyes.

He walked and thought about his job when he stepped on something that made a creaking, barely audible sound. He bent down to see what he had stepped on, and upon moving the sand, he saw it was a faded greenish leaf of the velvichia plant.