Golden

The cat walked, hunched, bony shoulders showing at she hung her head and crept quietly across the dusty street of the town. This animal is a person; however, she shapeshifts into a cat to protect herself from her abusive husband. Her husband can’t be around her. He was constantly using his fists against her arms and stomach, her body bruised. Power was his best friend, and he used it mightily. She suffered a massive deal, glad she didn’t have friends close by to witness such horrors. He was close to becoming the most feared man in all Egypt—something he reminded her of every single day.  

She dreaded coming home from the market every other day. She knew the first thing his fist would meet at the door. Her face. One day, she couldn’t handle it after he pulled back, striking her across the face with a hand. Power meant everything to him. But she wouldn’t take one more pomegranate-sized circle of wrath stained onto her tender flesh.           

Anymore.

However, this evil has been stopped by her brothers, who are of noble birth. She is rich, but she is down today. As in sad. So the woman turned into a cat to be alone. Loneliness was her form of comfort. Loneliness is the very juicy apple she bit into and not sucked the greasy, bitter, dirty worm that is abuse from Darya. This name meant sea or wealthy.

Darya was all but wealthy—wealthy in love. He wanted it for himself, trashing the house, lying to his boss about work, dashing home to grab fistfuls of the round bronze and silver circular currency known to man to give back to the buyer. He’d take off, her money in his greedy hands. Buying excess makeup and clothes for himself, he wasted it. Nearly all of it.

Until her brothers, disguised as sellers, threw off their clothing and accused him of stealing. He, terrified before them as their narrowed eyes and fists with clutched knives stood before him, bolted away but straight into the arms of police officers, who told him to relax. Struggling against them in vain, the powerful man had begged for his life.

But Darya is under house arrest.

It is a living hell for Nailah. This name means successful. However, today, she is down on her luck.

The cat continues, traveling to the terrifying majestic pyramids of the gods. No, not gods of today. The ones thousands of years ago. The ones in the mummified tombs. The cats scampered as if her husband were on her tail—literally. But as he was not, the cat, decorated grey and blue with spots as an Egyptian Mau, sped quickly towards one of the pyramids. Safe alone without Darya tracking her down, Nailah looked up at the towering Sphinx. Oh! She landed in this tomb.

Better luck next time, if she is going to investigate in the tombs and mummies of the gods.

But Nailah stared in awe at it. She wished it spoke. The Sphinx looked so serious, with its mouth in a straight line, and its unblinking eyes staring fixatedly at the wall in front of it. It looked into the horizon. It looked beyond time and deeper than space. It saw further than everyone.

Nailah straightened her smiling mouth, feeling so bold as to smile up at a god! But it was fixed, the sandy monster still forever. Still, Nailah shuddered.

She looked around, but nothing interested her. She looked around its body, hopping up onto the feet and climbing up onto the back. She looked around and then noticed something on its tail. A gold ring of…money.

Hm! She lunged for it, and then it swung way out of its reach. The tail, swinging playfully, kept out of the cat’s paws until the cat finally caught it. Hanging off of the gold ring of money, the cat let herself go. She shouldn’t be—

No! Darya couldn’t control her anymore. She had to make a decision. Would she take the money, or would she return to Darya, telling him she had an inexpressible amount of money to glorify themselves with, as Darya, truth be told, had changed a little? Enough for Nailah to live near as a neighbor with him, as hard it was. She didn’t want to return, but she knew she had to mend her relationship with him. He had changed. She would change his mind, right?

She would be with her brothers, right?  

They’d look out for her—

No. She was in control. Of all the beautiful turquoise, lavender, peach, sequoia, bronze, burnt umber and vermillion cloaks she has worn, none was so gorgeous as this gold ring of money. Nailah lunged for it, no longer fearing her husband’s wrath. Taking it for herself, she greedily gathered up all the money. The Sphinx spoke.

The money’s for the successful.

“Money’s for whoever finds it!” She dashed out of there, taking the money with her, it in her mouth. She thought of turning the gold into a necklace or a purse or buying a palace for herself. Soon, she reached a small village. Looking for mice, the cat told its growling stomach it’d be satisfied. Just like Nailah herself once she used the gold.

When word spread that the Sphinx’s gold ring was stolen, Nailah dashed off to forge weapons for herself. The words the money’s for the successful came to her, but she ignored its instruction. Soon, the gold turned into red hot molten lava. Such precious gold was wasted!

Nailah, outraged, was caught but acted out in such a way unacceptable even for a pharaoh to display. Ousted by her tribe, the cat tried escaping (as her name meant successful), and she slipped into waste piles, looking for the bare bones of fish to munch on. Her stomach growled.

“I know, I know!” She pitied her poor stomach. It growled back.

She heard the words the money’s for the successful but ignored it, as she knew she didn’t have it anymore. She fed her stomach, but she wanted to feed her lust for riches and respect and power. She returned to the Sphinx. It stared into the distance.

Stared into her future, probably, as a wandering peasant begging for crumbs or chunks of meat.

The Sphinx seemed to be pitying her. Its mouth curled upwards just a little.

“What?” Nailah snapped in exasperation one day as she had talked with her now kind husband. At least he was kind to her at home. Outwards, he reminded her not to touch anything, or would swat at her. She didn’t want him around.

She didn’t need Darya in her life.

“I’m a cat, too. I’m not always there to curl up with him!” She knew in her heart she had no one to curl up with. Money was her husband. But it didn’t love her back. The unrequited love hurt her heart more than her husband’s hand had hurt her.

“The money’s for the successful.”

“What money? No—”

“The money’s for the successful!”

This time, the words seemed to slowly leak into the brain of Nailah. But she wanted to make more money. Her greed was like a sinister snake right beside her, its leering eyes staring right at her, waiting for her to turn to it. It spoke, telling her she could melt that ring of gold into a golden cat god, and that cat would love her. She’d be making her own choices now. No more nightmarish life from Darya.  

“I…” Nailah was drenched in thought. She blinked, and swallowed. The hot lava—

“Darya is starving. He needs money. He—”

“Beats me!” Nailah glowered at the Sphinx. “Should I just go back to the man who treats me like a piece of cloth all ripped up and torn and thrown away?”

Once she had joined a clan of cats—all soot-black and gold eared with silver earrings hanging off of them—she had amassed such money they had given her for joining them. As she lived in their palace, the money had gone to their thrones and palaces. The beds of satin and silk were given to these cats—not Nailah. Nailah served these cats reverently. They lived in luxury, Nailah seeing herself soon using this money for—

Rags dressed Nailah. Nailah stole that money of the cats. Cast them out—at least she tried. They fought back, and gashed her face with their claws, leaving deep wounds. Nowhere to go, the cat Nailah lived among the mountains. Nailah had visions of her husband welcoming her home. At least she, deep down, sighed happily about that. No one has treated her more than her brothers.

The money’s for the successful.

She took a moment to think of that. The money—the gold ring of money—was for the successful. The cat Nailah went back to her brothers, but they shut her out of their house. They threatened to hold her hostage in her own home. Under house arrest. She was too unaccepting.

Begging, Nailah pleaded with them to release her—

“Where will you go?” They snarled.

“Please—I have nothing. I don’t see what’s so wrong…” Her eyes saw a crust of bread fall from a platter somewhere in a window. She averted her eyes. They turned, slamming the stone door. She was alone.

“Nailah.”

She scrambled up, hating her very life for being on the dust of this earth.

“Nailah, the money’s for the successful.”

Nailah stared, confused. Her husband was that Sphinx? No. How’d he know?

Nailah looked down. Your name means ‘successful’. Her parents would always remind her. She looked back up at her husband. He looked at her in the eyes, and then walked away. She forsook her husband, separating from him. She fashioned a cat god in gold, claiming she loved it. It was loving to her. She didn’t want to part with it, and it served her, she feeling like an Egyptian goddess.  

Her husband, she felt, neglected her. When she returned to this part of her tribe, she saw that her husband had been still, sitting there. His eyes were dull, lifeless and then he had gotten up. He walked into the kitchen, where a fig tree basket of pomegranates and figs were sitting. He ate something, the juice running down his lips and chin. The squelching of the pomegranate was heard in his mouth. He had spit out the seeds—the cat saw the seedless pomegranate—and then the pomegranate dropped out of the man’s hand.

The cat dashed away. Bowing to her cat god, she begged it to come alive again. It did.  

“The money’s for the successful.”

Her eyes widened. It knows, too? She dashed away. I cannot be successful now. It must keep serving me. It must love me. It must—

“The money’s for the successful!”

A man’s voice called to her. The cat turned into a woman. A woman in turquoise and every color of her robes. She approached her husband, and he looked at her, his eyes dull and colorless. She looked back, her cat god seeming to melt in the heat.

The money’s for the successful.

She dashed back, grabbed the cat god, melted into a ring of gold—

Dashed back, saw the hot lava, grabbed it (for she felt she could) and poured it into a cloth pouch. It became gold. She dashed back to her husband, and told him to look at what she had in her hands, having grabbed some fistfuls of gold coins.

“Money!”

“For us.” She lied.

The husband respected his wife, the wife letting the path of the hot lava alone. 

The wife obligatorily respected her husband, submissively returning to him. He led their household. She saw the gold ring of money lying on their bed. She wondered whether this ring—

“Was the ring from the Sphinx!”

He told her to return it. She did begrudgingly.

Only the gold they amassed from their living wages.

Pounds upon tons of it.

Money was for the successful.

The woman returned. It came alive, and she became all over as the Woman on Sphinx. She had rode it. Her husband bought the Sphinx and then sold it, along with other pyramids of mummies and tombs. The money was kept by the husband and wife. The wife didn’t touch the money; only the husband used it.

Abandoning her husband, she was a cat, roaming Egypt. Insane amounts of money poured forth from Darya’s household. She wanted it all. Money could make a palace. Nailah returned, convincing her husband to live in one. But Darya wanted to live with her alone. He didn’t want any attention.

She was sullen, barely eating or sleeping. He didn’t trust it around her. He didn’t want her to be around it. He was suspicious she would steal it. He would constantly watch over it, ensuring no one would take it. Hoarded it, giving only a small handful to her to buy from the market. Watching it like a hawk, he possessed it. The money was his.

Darya constantly asked her whether she had had the money. She constantly lied to him about taking it. She went to her brothers. They said she needed to contend with her husband on this issue. If she runs away, she’ll face the consequence of stealing. Nailah lay in bed that night, facing the window—opposite of her husband. He lay with his back to her.

The husband constantly said that the money was his, but then told her he wanted to take the money and mold it into jewelry for them two. The cats in Egypt, roaming. Nailah agreed, years later, saying she’d help him wear the jewelry—as if she were queen of Egypt. They melted the money, working as a team. Then they escaped. The two were the envy of the cats in their palaces. The woman said they had all the gold. They said they had the gold ring of the Sphinx!

“No, this is gold from our successes.”

“Not yours. Mine!”

The couple dashed off together, enjoying their luxurious golden selves. Materialism and greed and selfishness manifested as snakes right beside the wife, telling her that her gold was hers to do as she pleased. If she had gold, why not get more?

The wife thought about it. The words the money’s for the successful slid through her mind. She looked over at her husband, who had turned back into a human and lounged against his beach chair at a nearby spring with luscious palm trees surrounding such a peaceful place.

She looked back at the gold.

“If you don’t do something, the gold will. I mean, it’ll shine so bright someone will want it. But it’s yours. So if you show it off, others will grow reverent of it, worshipping you. If others love you so much as to revere a gold-wearing woman, don’t you think you’re going to—”

“Be as greedy as those who have tasted more than just success?” The woman turned right to the tongue-flickering snakes. “The money’s meant for success!” And she dashed off, the snakes staying behind.

The snakes stayed there, but the woman didn’t look back. Her smiling husband invited her to enjoy the spring. The snakes hissed, looking attractive with their black and red bodies, weaving in and out from each other. When she was resting beside her husband, the woman saw the snakes in her head but then shook it, leaving the snakes behind. They poofed away. They could vanish. Forever.  

The man at the spring enjoyed his wife’s arms around him. She put her head on his shoulder.

Sooner or later, the snakes appeared to the man, darkness all around him. A twisted and confused mess of words and flashbacks to the past surrounded him.

“A man of wealth, such money elevating him to some fame throughout Egypt. The wealthiest man in the country!” One snake brought about joyfully.

“Paired with your wife, you’d make enough money to smite that gold into all those palaces and things of gold for yourself. You have all that gold. Riches build!”

“Just think—all for you. Don’t you want a place like the spring? How would it be any different? What if this place is torn from you? You’d still have your palaces, right?”

“And think of all the power amassed with that wealth. Aren’t you head of the money? Use the money, for goodness’ sake!”

“If you have all you need, what’s the point of hard work? The spring relaxes you. Power grabbed you into a hug and never let you go. Come to think of it, your wife—”

“Is with me!”  

The man returned to reality, the snakes disappearing. Then he returned to the spring. The woman was with him. His wife wrapped his arms around her. He did the same. The snakes returned as soon as the man was alone in the house. The temptation to turn gold into a weapon of power and destruction almost made his heart ache. The snakes reminded him of the fact that he was almost the wealthiest, most powerful man in the world. In Egypt. So without a palace or a throne or even some gold to call his own, he literally didn’t have a penny to his name. The man thought about the snakes’ offer to believe them. If he did, they would guide him to the ring of gold and magically make all his desires come true.

He desperately wanted to climb out of the snake pit of deception.

“The money’s for the successful.”

His wife’s words entered his ears. He tore away from that evil, going to his wife. He saw the truth in that message. His money saved famines and droughts.

They saved their country.

Their country gave them a palace.

They lived in it, and then sold it to the poorest of the poor in Egypt.

Living as wild cats in Egypt, they were happy.