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"Life is good." Colin would say to his fellow Egyptians, but behind closed doors life was not good for Colin. He felt empty inside. Everything came easy, nothing challenged him, there was nothing he couldn't do or have. Everyone was his friend, but he always felt alone. He had a wife who loved him, three beautiful daughters and two strong sons, but they couldn't help fill the hole inside his heart.
On Colin's 30th birthday his family threw a surprise party for him in the royal palace, but he never turned up. The failed birthday party became a search party which was an even bigger failure. When Colin arrived home two days later all he could say was "I went for a walk."
These walks continued for many months without explanation. Colin's wife spent most evenings alone, never recieving an explanation or invitation to her husband's mysterious walks. He was becoming more distant and lost inside himself than ever.
Seven months after the walks began, Colin was fast asleep in bed with his wife, although she was still wide awake, filled with anxiety over her husband's behaviour. Suddenly he spoke whilst still in a deep sleep. "Could I be wearing any more clothes?" he said. This startled his wife, firstly because Colin had never spoken in his sleep before and secondly because she had no idea what he was saying. He wasn't talking in Egyptian.
The next day she asked him what the words meant. He seemed confused and denied having any knowledge. When she continued to question him he became angry, but she wouldn't let it drop. Eventually he snapped and screamed "Oh my God, you're such a Monica" and stormed out. Colin's wife didn't know what a monica was, but by the way he'd said it she was sure it was something bad. This was the final straw. Instead of going straight to bed to cry like she always did, she decided to follow her husband.
For two hours she tracked Colin through the desert, following his footprints in the sand. Finally she came to a cave of laughter. Bouncing and echoing off the rocky walls she was hearing a sound for the very first time - the sound of her husband's laughter.
Creeping into the cave she saw flickering colours fill the walls as if by magic. The laughter became louder until eventually she came face to face with her husband who was laying on the floor wiping tears of joy from his eyes. On the wall in front of him were pictures of the like Colin's wife had never seen before - pale men and women in the strangest clothing. And they were moving! Great Horus, they were talking too!
"What cursed sorcery is this?" cried Colin's wife. And so, Colin began to tell the tell of the magic wall. Many months ago, on his birthday, when he was feeling particularly depressed, Colin set out on a long walk with the intention of taking his own life. As if guided by an invisible divine hand he was led to this cave where he discovered the Wall of Wonder. At first he could not understand the words coming from the mouths of these alien looking people. He didn't need language to understand that the tall man with the black hair had lost his wife to another woman. He didn't need language to understand that the fat man with the blank eyes had just said something stupid. He didn't need language to understand that when a man and woman temporarily cease relations both are perfectly entitled to court another. After a month of watching he began to pick up the odd phrase and now seven months later he was nearly fluent in their strange tongue.
Colin had found a reason to live, something to fill the hole inside his heart. These six people with their coffee and funny lives had become his friends like no others in real life. Colin's wife was grateful to finally learn the truth of her husband's mysterious disappearances and relieved that he had not been seeking comfort with another woman. "If this is what makes you happy" she said "Then we shall watch it together."
The two of them sat side by side and watched episode after episode, with Colin explaining the back stories of the characters and translating his favourite lines. When the funny one and the nagging one became man and wife both Colin and his wife questioned whether the Wall of Wonder had jumped the crocodile. Maybe it had. Luckily the wall did not always move in the correct chronological order. One day the quirky one would be pregnant with her brother's baby, the next she wouldn't have even met her brother yet. The wall never ceased to show the lives of these six friends. Transfixed by the development of storylines, the noticing of jokes they'd missed the first time around, the increasing funniness of the the tall one with black hair, Colin and his wife eventually starved to death in the cave.
4,800 years later mankind had grown, grown tired of re-runs of the hit TV show Friends. "Enough is enough." declared the head of television. He gathered up every last episode of the sitcom and placed them inside a rocketship filled with nuclear waste. The ship was fired into the heart of the sun, causing a miniature wormhole through space and time. The molecules of the episodes were broken down into the tiniest of particles, merging with the nuclear material and being flung back to ancient times. Finally they arrived in 23rd Dynasty Egypt, trapped within a wall of wonder, soon to be discovered by a suicidal man.
Jack, Brooklyn.
