More from the closet: "My life in ancient Egypt"

Remember the previous post where I said I would include more crappy writings from my youth? Well, this one isn't really a crappy writing from my youth--though it is still very crappy, I assure you. No, this is evidently a bonus project from sixth grade when my class studied ancient Egypt. My best friend and I, who teamed together for the Egypt stuff, were overachievers, so much so that we would have given Lisa Simpson premature ulcers if she had been (a) a sixth grader, (b) in our class, and (c) real.

So my friend and I, overachievers that we were, made several bonus assignments to get extra credit. From what I remember, we did this without even asking our teachers if we would get extra credit. Yes, Lisa would have wept.

Anyway, one of the bonuses was a "story" written in fake hieroglyphics and then translated. It's in my handwriting, so I know I did it, but I don't have a specific memory of creating it. Here's the translation:

My Life In Ancient Egypt

I was riding away from a dog who seemed determined to have my bike tires for lunch. Suddenly, I fell into a hole. Where am I? I wondered. I stood up and saw . . . the Sphinx. "Whoa. I'm in Egypt."

It was pretty cool. I guess I'll never know what it's like till I stop dreaming.

See, that looks pretty short, but with all my little hand-drawn feathers and things that were presumably birds, it took up over two pages. And as I reread it for the first time in several years, I thought, "Funny. I never took crack, yet who would know?" but then the last line struck me as sort of poignant. "I guess I'll never know what it's like till I stop dreaming." Whoa, man. That's deep. And I'm sure it'd seem even deeper in a smoke-filled basement illuminated by the glow of lava lamps. Nevertheless, that phrase yawned before me, an open gate to metaphysical contemplation. Do any of use really know what the undefined "it" is like before we stop dreaming? Are we dreaming even now? Can we find the truth in the seemingly idle lyrics of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"--life is but a dream? Because it really makes you think, doesn't it, "Till I stop--"

Then I thought, "Screw it, it's blog-fodder" and went back to purging the closet.