Chapter Text
As the scarab rolls dung into a ball, rearing it, the sun rears - golden upon the ruddy hues of mud-brick.
A shaft of light falls through the narrow window and upon the face of the boy sleeping upon the floor. He is naked as he has been the day before and before and before in these summer months, his head resting on the woven mat, shaven save the sidelock…
His eyes flutter open and he rises. A boy now would have pajamas, and either remain lazily in those or change from them to the clothes he wears throughout the day. He does not have to change. He has pajamas of a sort, a cloak he wears when nights are cold, but nights are warm this time of year, and so he remains as naked when he goes to bed as he does throughout the day. He has no daily ritual that involves the pulling on of underwear, of pants, of the shirt over his head. He is under no obligation to put on socks that constrict even the movement of his toes, before putting on heavy shoes. His only shoes are sandals that he slips on to protect the soles of his feet from the burning heat of the sands.
(Sands that will sweep over the potsherds of history, these moments mere fragments, lost to the sands of time…)
The warm air tingles on his buttocks. He does not think anything of it. To him, it is as natural as the sun rolling across the sky.
His buttocks knows many sensations - like the feel of the warm earthen floor as he sits and breaks bread with his parents and sister, she naked as he, with the same braid of youth.
He takes for granted the specific feeling of his private parts touching the earth, taking it as mundane, not knowing the children generations in the future whose only recourse is to dream, to look at tomb paintings from his time in picture books and think, “What must that have been like?” and then, perhaps, in some secret part of their hearts, “Why can’t that be me?”
Some will become nudists or naturists. Some already may be born into nudist families and know the feelings this Egyptian boy feels in his daily life. But the ones who will become nudists will have to unlearn shame - and the ones that already are will run free, but run free within confines… within the walls of homes, within the designated areas of nudist resorts or campgrounds…
He runs free upon the banks of the Nile - and he is nude indeed. Even his sandals he kicks away, for the dark earth of the riverbank is cool and wet. His sister is with him, and other boys and girls - his friends - their brown bodies gleaming as they run, scatter waterfowl, splash…
As he runs, his penis and testicles flop airily. He loves the feeling of the air rushing over them, the wind whipping around them, the same way a little boy now loves the freedom as he runs through the house before or after a bath. But only one of the two boys can run for hours. Only one can live like this for years, something not even the eagerest nudist can dream…
He is accustomed to his nudity. It is ordinary to him - but even in its ordinariness, this experience of running along the riverbank feels incredible to him. Running into the wind and feeling it on every inch of his skin. Feeling it whistle over his butt. Air and sunlight washing over his body. And he knows the nudity makes it better. Knows it would not be the same with linen encumbering him. And he knows that this is fleeting, that childhood is not forever, and in his heart, he savors it.
Yet, even now, there is another difference between the Egyptian boy and the boy now who loves his freedom at bathtime.
The boy now says in his heart, “I only have a minute and a half of this. I must relish it.”
The Egyptian boy says, feeling his penis and testicles bounce and jiggle in the open air with every leap and bound he makes through this fertile valley, “I only have twelve years of this. I must relish it.”
The boy now would cry with joy if he could have that, but it is decades before he will be able to join a nudist resort. He does not even know what "nudism" is...
The world is lush around him - sun-dappled green mingled with azure and bursts of pink and scarlet as ibises soar from the waters. Rainbows bloom as watermen spear great fishes of blue silver and hoist them up with nets. The pharaoh’s barge passes, its many hues reflected in the surface of the Nile. The boy sees one of the pharaoh’s sons upon the deck. The young prince wears an ornate collar around his neck and a chain of gold around his waist, but beyond that, the pharaoh's son is as nude as he is.
His friends’ laughter resounds in their exuberant game of tag, their joyous horseplay, until the sun returns to darkness. As the sun sinks down, he and his sister join hands and return home, where their mother has grilled them fish of their own. They amble to the rooftop, light’s last rays dying down like the brazier’s flame on which the fish was cooked. The air cools, but remains balmy. The evening air tingles over his body as the morning air does. While his mother lays down a mat of reeds, the boy leans casually against the roof’s edge. His butt knows many sensations, like the texture of the brick upon which he rests…
They dine while lounging on the roof, eating the fish with their hands over the reed mat, and wash it down with beer - thick and sweet and richly brown - that helps the drowsiness of a full day to settle upon them. They will sleep up here, for the nights are warm now, and as the boy lies back upon his sleeping mat, he gazes upon the sprawl of the velvet sky. The goddess of the night sky is Nut, a nude goddess stretched over the world, and adorning the radiance of her body are a thousand shining stars…