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The Stories of Thoth and
Ma'at: |
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The Game of Chance:
How Thoth got Ra to add
Five Days to the Year |
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For Background, see the
Previous
Story |
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MA'AT: |
Why didn't Ra want those five new
days to be added to the year? Because somehow he suspected
that Thoth would wrap inside each one of them a new
Neter that was needed on Earth, and maybe every one
of them would be better at love than Ra was, so he'd
be only God Six, with five other Neters more powerful
than he was. He wasn't going to be persuaded easily.
Thoth had to trick him. |
As MA'AT moves to the side, lights
come up on RA and THOTH, playing dice with a large crystal
cube. |
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THOTH: I have
won another day. |
RA: Unbelievable!
How many is that? |
THOTH: Only four. |
RA: Four!? What!? |
THOTH: Double or
nothing? |
RA: Not so
fast. Somehow you are loading the dice.
(He throws.) |
THOTH: I honestly am not. |
RA: You're doing something invisible. |
THOTH: How can that be? How can anything under the light of Ra be invisible? I'm not doing anything. |
| RA: Then you're thinking something. (THOTH throws, wins again.) Five! How can this be happening to me? |
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THOTH: |
How can it not happen? Not even you get to prolong your mother's agony. She is ready to give birth. |
RA: |
Not
yet! |
THOTH: |
It
is time. The world has to get into the game. |
NUT screams faintly (Off). RA gets up from the board, paces
the floor as LIGHTS come up on MA'AT, who exchanges
a knowing glance with THOTH while RA is not looking. |
MA'AT: |
Ra wasn't merely jealous. He was responsible. He knew that dangerous things were waiting in the vortex between the light realm and the Earth. One of them was a bully who would bring fear and bloodshed into the world. Two others were beautiful, desirable Neters who could prove very distracting. And one was even a possible rival, a new Neter of the Sun.
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RA: |
Too much change!
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MA'AT: |
And so they came. (NUT screams again, louder.)
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RA: |
This
force you call thought. I still don't understand it.
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THOTH: |
You will. It takes time.
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RA: |
Only for those who are obtuse.
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THOTH: |
I
did not say that.
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RA: |
You thought it. (Pause.) I know. It is time to make ready. (Exits.)
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THOTH: |
(Rising to join MA'AT.) I'm glad that's over. Ohhh. The loveliness of your neck.
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MA'AT: |
Please,
not now. We must not keep the people waiting.
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THOTH: |
Not
even to tell them that the thing I envy most in your
human bodies is that you have no feathers, and you get
to live skin to skin?
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MA'AT: |
Not
even that.
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THOTH: |
All right. By the time
the new Neters appeared, and they circled downward into
birth, the Sky was heaving in pain. The Serpent was
rising, his black tail sweeping over the horizon. The
sea was boiling.
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LIGHT and VIDEO images of a dark, rolling ocean and above it, the stars. The early spring Sky appears, with Sirius, Taurus and Orion in the west, Leo and Virgo in the East. The black body of a serpent can be seen moving in the Sea. MUSIC: primordial, discordant percussion in C and C#, light in red and pink. |
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