Week 4 Storytelling: Never Smile at a Crocodile

Photo of a crocodile, AFP/GETTY

I sat in my villa, surrounded by lush furniture. Servants brought food and drink to the chaise on which I lounged on my patio. It was summer, and it was rather hot. One servant fanned me with a giant palm leaf. The house was bustling today, the Pharaoh was coming to visit.

I was the chief scribe, a rather important person, but still these visits were unusual. My wife should be here. She should be readying herself, helping to prepare the house, but she was no where to be found. I looked toward the large lake that I'd had put at the edge of my property and scowled. I knew where she'd been going all of these days.

She thought she was so clever, so secretive. Little did she know that I had been watching this whole time. I knew about her love for that peasant. I knew every gift, every secret meeting. I snarled in disgust thinking about how I'd watched them disappear into the cottage on our property. Watched as food had been brought from the villa to them, shook in anger while I watched them bath in the lake in the evening.

I glanced toward the magic box sitting on the end table beside me. Reaching out and opening it, I gazed upon the wax crocodile I had obtained. I grabbed it, calling for my butler. I turned it around in my hands muttering the quick spell I had learned, before handed it to the butler.

"Throw this trinket into the lake behind the man when he comes to bathe himself next."

The next day the Pharaoh arrived. I was doing some of my dealings with him, when the butler came and whispered in my ear.

"It is finished, sir."

I smiled to myself and continued on with the Pharaoh. Several days passed, the Pharaoh was still here and we were nearing the end of our work and his visit. My wife had spent the last days sulking and crying, acting out like a child.

Finally I confided in the Pharaoh. I told him of my wife, her unfaithfulness, her obvious and indiscreet abandonment of her vows. I told him of the wax crocodile, and how the butler had thrown it into the lake. I told him of how the young man had not returned since. I told him of the spell and my suspicions that it had worked. We went together to the lake, where I repeated the spell and called to the crocodile figure.

Up out of the water rose a giant crocodile! It came towards the shore, and the young man my wife had been consorting with was held in his jaw.

"He does everything I command," I said in wonder. The spell had worked. It had really truly worked.

The Pharaoh looked toward me, amazed at the sight. He turned back toward the water, where the crocodile sat. The young man he had had in his jaws stood shivering at the shore. His Majesty commanded to the crocodile, "Seize the wrongdoer."

The crocodile leaped out of the water, grabbing the man and disappearing back into the water. His Majesty asked if I wanted my wife punished similarly. A part of me did. A part of me was so angry I wanted her burned at the stake like many other women who abandoned their vows were, but I couldn't do it. I would punish her my own way. She would pay for what she had done.

Author's Note: So I am reading the Ancient Egyptian stories. I chose to write the story of the Wax Crocodile. The story is kind of dark, and I wanted to keep it that way, but I did change the ending some. It's all about a cheating wife and her lover and them getting the punishment deserved to them. In the original story the woman was burned alive at a stake, and her remains were tossed into the Nile. It was pretty gruesome, and while I don't mind violence in stories, it seemed a little bit melodramatic and kind of out of left field, so I altered it. Hope you enjoy!