A short story about some mummification. Except it’s written from the perspective of the bandages.
A Bandage’s Story
Ah yes! Where should I start? Being a linen strip bound around the waist of a royal corpse lying in the dark for a really, really long time. Of course we’ve found a new host now that we have come to like but the host doesn’t seem to want us around so much. The only obvious place to begin would be at the start.
A bandage isn’t born but made. Think of a long piece of finely, what they called finely then not now 18 micros did not even exist in the period that I was made in. Yes, think of a long piece of finely woven linen cloth. One piece of cloth that stretch as far as, well, as far as the room was long. I don’t remember how long the room was but let’s just stick with long. Then a madman approaches that single piece of long cloth and slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes and slashes it until all you have is a long thin linen strips. I remember that day I was emotionally scarred for life. The amount of times that dagger came down and that loud ripping sound as it torn so easily through the linen. Then we were individually picked up one by one and rolled up until we looked like a solid pipe. Just think of seeing yourself in little strips. Your head being placed next to your right hand to you left foot and such. It’s not a pretty site trust me.
The next time I saw that madman again was when he came back with his finger bleeding. Apparently he made it to the nearest one of us before taking out that dagger of his and with a quick movement swiped off a bit of me for his finger. He then grabbed a basket and began loading all of us wound up linen strips. The next time we stopped we were place overlooking someone who was lying on a table face up. He must have been injured badly as we saw him being attended by several people. Not only that each one of the people who were attending him also had a basket of linen strips close by. Every now and then one of them would remove one of the linen strips and get them selves wound around a body part of the man on the table. It wasn’t long before I was chosen too and wound tightly around his waist. I thought that this was it. I save the badly wounded man and then my life would be over. I have seen what happens to some linen strips they just get used and thrown on the fire. Seriously this was what I thought would happen to me but I soon found myself being covered over with. If I had eyes I would be link blinded and struggle to remove myself but with the sheer tightness of the wrap I found myself being crushed by new strips that were being used over me. Soon I could barely make out where the light was coming from.
The next bit was really scary from what I hear from the linen strips that were on the surface. Apparently it was something to be cheered and something to be feared. The good news was we weren’t going to be burnt or discarded after we complete out jobs. The bad news was that we were going to be buried alive! I seriously mean that we were buried alive. The linen strips on the surface described the whole thing to us. Masterful ceremony with lots of people crying for the person who had died. In case I didn’t mention it before this was the time that we figured out that the person we were treating was actually, well, dead. So I just passed this information down to the next layer or wrappings beneath us. We as a whole didn’t take it terribly well some of the bandages freaked out on the news. The surface strips as we now called them told us we were being place inside something made out of stone lying face up. The surface bandages were told by the face bandages that they were face up according to the orientation of the dead person. Then something happened that we lease expected to. The bastards blocked out our view completely. The surface bandages reported that something made out of stone had now covered them over and they couldn’t see a thing.
So we were now left in the dark not knowing what was going on outside. Even though we couldn’t see we did manage to feel. We felt the whole thing that we were in being lifted up and carried somewhere. The trouble was we didn’t know where. So of the bandages suggested to the surface bandages the top of whatever was covering them would be lifted off.
That didn’t happen instead by the time the swinging movement stopped. Whatever was covering them was still covering them and we felt ourselves hit the ground. Great we had just stopped moving. Whispering began coming up asking when we could start leaving? They seriously didn’t expect us to stick around did they? We started passing information around about which body part we were wrapped around or if we weren’t actually touching the body. It was probably diseased was what I suggested to the other strips but that was quickly disproved.
The most remarkable thing that I found out about us was that there were strips stuffed inside the body. It must be horrendous for them, the ones inside the body, it probably stinks but they kept saying that you get used to it. They also told us that it was permanently dark inside so it wouldn’t matter to them if whatever was covering us was take off as they still would be in the dark. Yeah I thought so too. It must really suck to be kept in the dark about everything.
The worst part of this was we had covered every single topic we knew about within six hours of use be left alone in the dark. Everyone by that time was not in the mood about anything and we were contemplating our own doom for eternity.
I did not know how much time had passed. Nobody ever talked about anything. Any attempt to talk was taken down quickly. We all kind of just lazed about not really giving a thought for anyone else but ourselves. We had given up hope of anyone ever actually finding us. Someone finding us somewhere in the middle of something and just so happens to find use. Well the probability is awfully low.
We were all really surprised when one of the surface strips said that they felt movement in the ground. We all dismissed him as delusional and would be removed from discussing topics. That was until suddenly whatever we were in bumped to a halt on the ground. It was amazing something had found us and we were going to be rescued. We all cheered.
It didn’t take long for the lid to be removed from whatever we were resting in. A huge strong man held up the lid and a rather oddly dressed woman peered inside. I don’t know what they were talking about but apparently after the woman had finished talking to the man he quickly shut the lid back over us again. Were they not our rescuers? Had we made a mistake?
We did feel ourselves moving again though. Most likely being carried out of wherever we were in the first place. I really couldn’t say a cheery goodbye to the awful place where we had been for so long.
The next time the lid was removed it was permanent. The surface stripe informed the rest of us that it was that woman again. This time the light that was shining on us was of a different colour. Not natural lighting they told us who were below.
We were lifted off out of the thing that had darkened our view for so many long years onto a shiny smooth reflective surface that we couldn’t identify. The next thing she did was weird. She kept turning us over expecting to find something on us maybe an identification of which we were supposedly wrapped over. This turning lasted for several minutes firstly she turned us clockwise, then she turned us counter clockwise until one of the surface bandages yelped as the end of him suddenly unraveled.
She then grabbed that poor stripe and unraveled him from us. We were getting quite dizzy from all the treatment of being turned over and over again. One by one she removed us from our bondage finding the loose end of one of the strips and pulling while the body continued to rotate unwinding us.
Every time the unwound five strips from the body she would take them off the supposedly table that the five strips were on and drop them off into a basket. It didn’t take long for me to be unwrapped from the corpse we were on. I was picked up with four of my chums and dropped off into the basket. Then from out of nowhere this hand came in from the hole in the wall and pulled us through it.
We were totally taken by surprise as we were then stuffed into something. A white powder was poured over us and then the lid was shut. I was shocked. We had been taken out of a box with a dead body and put into a box with no dead body. What were those people some sort of satanic depraved cult. I felt really let down that was until the strips that were below me told us that water was coming in.
We screamed our head off as the water kept rising until it filled the small enclosure we were in. We were going to drown. That was when the whole thing started spinning. First we were moved to the left then we were moved to the right then left again, right again, left again, right again and finally I didn’t know which way we were spinning just that we were spinning and that we were spinning really, really quickly.
By the time I was rescued from the dreaded spinning box I was as white as a ghost. But that wasn’t the end of their torture I was suddenly pegged by something awfully painful at on end and then literally hung up to dry. I could feel the droplets of water rushing to the end nearest to the floor. The floor resembled something of tiled square white marble.
No one knew how long we were supposed to hang here every now and then more of us were brought in supposedly from the watery enclave that I had just experienced. It was then that whispers were hear between us. Apparently some of the strips had spotted pristine white coiled up strips of linen in a box with a big red cross on it. Had we all finally died and passed onto linen heaven?
The two of them quickly confirmed to us that they were not angels here to lead us to our afterlife instead they told us that they were the modern version of us. We were quick to ask how modern and here was their answer.
“We are your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grand generation.”
Obviously that didn’t make us too happy. So the bunch of us bade farewell to the two of them and then ignored them fro the rest of the time that we were hanging around.
The hanging around didn’t take as long as we were trapped away for with that body we all manage to see the sun slowly set. It was beautiful to be out in the open again. The next time we saw the woman again was when she passed between us. She was literally letting her body brush against ours. We could feel her soft skin and warm body. I wasn’t quite sure what she was wrapped in. It was a thick large rectangular sheet of white. Her hair too was also wrapped in one. She discarded both of these and then stepped inside a small cubical before closing a frosted door on us. Allowing us only to see her shadow as we heard running water hit her.
It was an incessant ringing that caused her to leave the shower still naked and dripping wet. She stormed into the room where we were hanging with long powerful strides. Obviously angry with whatever was ringing. Brushing past us again we could feel the warmth of her body and that smell. I wasn’t sure what it was but it gave us the feeling we had several thousand years ago when we were wrapped up tight against that corpse.
Several minutes passed before she came back into the room where we were heading back into the shower again. She was barely halfway across the room when she slipped. She made a desperate grab at several of us as she fell and well we couldn’t do nothing and watch her hurt herself.
Several of the linen strips automatically wrapped tightly at her failing fingers as she fell wrapping them into neat white sausages. More of us followed slowly her descent as she kept falling watching her eyes widen as we wrapped her hands into white linen mitten forms, then into balled fists then moving slowly and methodically upwards until her elbows were also tightly embraced by us.
As we supported her fall we changed her center of gravity. Our catching had pivoted her enough so that her legs rose off the floor just enough for her toes to touch our ends. But that touch was more than enough to envelope her individual toes with us. Her toes were soon padded and kept separate from each other. Her foot followed suit dressed in the pattern of our weaving until we had her dressed up to her knees.
It was here at this point that she realized that she was no longer falling but had been cradled by us. Many of us had curled ourselves tightly around her four outstretched limbs and several of us were supporting her by letting her rest upon us. She lapsed into a dazed look for a minute before she realized what was happening. Then she fought us as she squirmed and wriggled in our holdings. She moved her head and bit down on one of us taking a huge chunk of linen with her.
As the one who was bitten screamed out at us with the pain we acted against the attack. Although bitten that linen strip was brave enough to force itself into her mouth as she opened to take another bite. Effectively stopping her by stuffing her mouth full and keeping her tongue down. More of us descended on her head swathing it until only her eyes remained we wanted her to see what was going to happen to her as we began to reel her towards the rest of us.
We stopped our reeling when one of the linen who had been on the inside of the corpse pointed out that we had to make sure that there were no other things hiding in other orifices that she had. It also pointed out that there were two such orifices when on the dead man’s body only one existed.
Those who had been on the outside and those who had been on the inside never really agreed got on. We on the outside had a quick get together on this topic while she attempted to thrash herself free. Our decision was quick let them do what they pleased as long as we could get on with ours. Still holding her wrapped up from her hands to her elbows, feet to her knees and her head, we told the group on the side to do what they want.
Watching them they quickly divided into two even groups and began to slither into the two orifices that their leader had identified earlier. She seemed to moan and fight this new invasion as she was stuffed. Her body however seemed to be able to accommodate them as we saw her stomach rise as they pile in. Soon they had finished telling us that it was rather wet in one orifice while the other stank both of them however were dark.
We who were watching didn’t want to hear from them much more so we quickly wrapped her crotch, her waist and stomach. Flattening down the rise that had been cause by her getting stuffed with those on the inside of her body. We could see from her eyes and slight sounds that she made that this was very uncomfortable. However we continued covering up her body in a criss-cross pattern until she was wearing what resembled a very form fitting white sleeveless leotard. It did not remain sleeveless for very long as we worked up her gloves to join her bodysuit at her shoulders. The boots that we had given her soon followed suit joining and finishing at her crotch. She was now completely and tightly wrapped apart from her eyes in flowing white linen strips. There were still many more of us hanging unused as we place her wrapped feet back onto the floor in an upright position.
She immediately collapses as the last few linen strips that held her up let go. Her eyes showed a mixture of fear and confusion. Her immediate action was to use her hands which were now balled fists to rub at her face. Then she stroked one of the linen strips that were still hanging and then her face again. We couldn’t understand her bizarre actions but the stripes wrapping her hands unraveled so that she could get what she wanted.
She reached for one of the pieces of hanging linen and took it in her hands. Slowly she lumbered it seemed that she was not used to moving with us yet back into the room where the ringing had come from. This was our first time seeing what we had been stored in for so many years.
It was a large stone sarcophagus except this time the lid was nowhere in sight. Our host headed straight for it and climbed into it. It seemed that she wanted to experience what being a dead body inside would be like. Once she was sitting up inside the sarcophagus did she apply the strip that she took over her eyes.
Obediently it wrapped around her head preventing her from seeing as she slowly lowered herself until she was lying flat in the sarcophagus. She then crossed her arms and tried to tie the ends of the loose linen strips around her hand without much luck. We helped her with that until she was again softly resting entirely covered tightly by us.
Several hours had passed as we felt the warmth of her body flow through to us. It was a different friendlier feel than the coldness from the dead body that we had been wrapped against previously. Our little enjoyment of her stopped when the incessant ringing we had heard her answer earlier again interrupted us.
In a jolt she was awake again scrabbling with her bound fisted hands at her face. Quickly her hands were revealed back to her but she continued to claw at her face. The piece covering her eyes unwound but it seemed not enough to satisfy her until all of her head was revealed. She then leapt out of the sarcophagus that she had fallen asleep in and answered the ringing object.
After answering it she began clawing with her hands at her body expecting us to also unravel but we held fast. We were going to go wherever this body was going regardless if she wanted us to or not. She seemed very insistent that we let her go but we refused. With us denying her, her body she grabbed some clothing that hid us from the neck down and the wrists up. Trousers that hid us from her ankles upwards until it joined with the clothing she had put on earlier. Some of us were still sticking out in places but it did not take her long to scrabble at her feet as we found out that whatever she was putting on over them was too small to fit with us on. Reluctantly we unwound her feet but that was the most we were going to give her for the rest of her life as she stuck her feet into the boots and headed towards the door. We were going to see the world!