My name is Dan Moser and I’ve uncovered an artifact of significant importance at an antique mall in Canada.
While I was shopping for vintage video games, I happened across this framed tapestry depicting a scene in the life of King Tutankhamon.
Upon first gazing upon this image, my demeanor instantly changed. What had been described by my associates as “One of Dan’s good days,” instantly warped into “A wild fracas. Total pandemonium.”
In my defence (the same defence I intend to employ during the upcoming hearings that resulted from my discovery of this tapestry) the facts highlighted by this image are stunning.
As we can see with a cursory glance, King Tut has already shot one bird, has reloaded his bow and is ready to shoot another bird before the flock of birds he’s shooting at have even had a chance to fly away. Plus he’s doing it from a sitting position.
Does this look like a person who would succumb to malaria or Marfan syndrome? Could YOU shoot even ONE bird with a bow and arrow? At the age of TEN? King Tut appears to be a worthy hunter.
So would his assistant REALLY need to be pointing at where the birds King Tut is already shooting at are if he was such a formidable bird killer? If anything, she should be pointing at the bird that’s sneaking up behind her monarch. She’s looking right at it.
I know it seems crazy. Everyone in the antique mall certainly thought it was when I loudly explained all this to no one in particular.
But look more closely, as I desperately insisted they all should.
Even if you reject the implied animation the artist clearly intends, King Tut’s assistant seems to have an air of suspiciousness about her.
Is she in cahoots with the birds?
Is this how King Tut actually died?
What is that bird holding in it’s talons?
After staring at the image mesmerized, as though I was in a hypnotic trance for what seemed like hours, I’ve determined it to be the murder weapon and I’m prepared to defend that assertion. Violently, if necessary.
At first I calmed my rapidly panicking brain with the soothing idea that the bird was hailing a cab or perhaps calling his shot before hitting a homerun. Or maybe the bird was planning to don a trench coat and sell items out of it and this was a dry run at the motion he’d use to see if he’d like it before he actually invested all that money in a trench coat.
But I was forced to accept reality when I realized the idea of a bird doing any of those things was ridiculous. Ancient Egypt didn’t have cabs, baseball or trench coats.
I finally came to grips with the fact that the bird is doing a “Hey, look over there!” motion just in case King Tut caught on to what was happening behind him. This gave the bird the perfect opportunity to assassinate the boy king.
If the evidence stopped there, I’d happily do what everyone in my life is begging me to do and give myself up to the authorities who are so eager to find me.
Look more closely at the group of birds who are “under attack”.
Except for the one bird that’s flying away who clearly has no friends to clue him in to the conspiracy, these birds know they have nothing to fear.
They haven’t even thought of the possibility that they’ll be hit with an arrow.
There are two birds having sex during an onslaught that has already “killed” two of their flock. But they’re completely confident that they can bang a quick one out without a bit of worry. They haven’t even left their nest
By now, you’ve noticed the “dying” birds and are most likely thinking, “See, Dan? You’re just being paranoid,” in smug, unearned triumph, secure in the belief that your knowledge of ancient Egypt isn’t about to be shattered beyond recognition. The other patrons of the antique mall would certainly agree with your assessment. But just like them, you are disregarding things that I have physically shoved right in front of your face.
There are TWO birds that have been “shot” with “arrows”. One is “dying”.
One is flying without a care.
What explains this discrepancy? It’s clear that the birds who have been hit are supposed to be executing a ruse designed to mollify the soon-to-be killed King Tut causing him to lower his guard.
If you gaze into the eyes of the falling bird while mesmerized in a catatonic state as I have, you can clearly see yet another damning piece of evidence.
“Stick to the plan! Then we can step in and rule as we rightly should. We’ve been too careful with this to have it fucked up now because you want to be a comedian,” his eyes say to the other bird.
The other bird is so brazen that he doesn’t even try to pretend he’s hurt by the arrow that’s punctured his body.
He’s SMIRKING.
This solidified my already all encompassing belief that I had made an important discovery. At this point, I attempted to eat the tapestry to absorb it’s knowledge so I could more accurately understand the secrets that it held.
“Coincidentally”, this is also when I was asked politely to leave the store of my own volition.
I’m told that as I became more resolute in my objective, the commands to leave the store became more stern and that I was only able to ingest around 45% of the artifact before I was forcibly removed from the premises.
It’s obvious by the general sense of unease amongst the patrons and employees of the antique mall and the quick response of store security that they knew I was onto something huge.
Since I am now barred from ever returning to the antique mall, I have been frantically tearing into whatever books on ancient Egypt I can find at my local libraries and bookstores. During one of these often multi-day sojourns, I found the following painting which all but confirms my many suspicions.
The bird is idealized as having the best parts of a bird (head and neck) and man (everything but head and neck) combined to form an undefeatable super-creature.
Remember, during the “Black Death” that swept across Europe a few years after the fall of ancient Egypt the physicians were also half bird and “common knowledge” is that Tut died of disease.
The system is heavily invested in this narrative.
In fact, when I showed this to my latest doctor, what had been called “intense paranoid delusion” by more than one medical professional is now permanently marked on my chart as “a total break with reality”.
I’ll be honest, this made me take pause.
I was nearly convinced that this was just like the last time I’d “had an episode” in a public venue. But when I injected the powerful sedative I use to silence the unceasing sounds of unseen figures so I could sleep, I dreamed of the image and noticed one more detail.
The assistant (promoted to queen after the insurrection) has changed the ornamental snake headband that she had previously worn into a perch for a live bird.
The perch is just a stick tucked into her headband, suggesting that it was haphazardly slapped together to appease an angry bird. I suspect that even she didn’t anticipate the level of control the birds would demand and that this happened very quickly. However, I have no concrete evidence for this.
Many birds can attain extremely high rates of speed during a dive so this is the most commonly agreed upon interpretation of the data between myself and the invisible ghosts that only I can see.
Lest I present a less than complete picture of this discovery, I will concede that there ARE questions surrounding the gesture that the assistant is making in this picture.
She’s raising her hand. A gesture which I’ve been absolutely convinced means “Stop! No more bird stuff!” only to about-face and decide that she is obviously waving to another bird just out of frame, having embraced the bird society that she had helped engineer.
For now, that mystery will have to remain unsolved.