The Game's Afoot In Archaeology

He was a retired archaeologist who lived on England's north east coast.

Retired?

Did archaeologists ever truly retire?

Archaeologist seemed to be one profession where its practitioners never truly do retire.

In fact, he was the volunteer curator of the small town museum where he lived.

So, no, archaeologists never truly do retire.

And in fact, he was reading an email from an old colleague of his who lived in Israel.

The man had emailed him photos of marble sandals.

They were sandals belonging to the statue of a woman that had been found in Ashkelon, Israel.

The woman had been found without arms and a head.

But the sandals of the woman were intricately carved.

His colleague pointed out, "I know you always had a foot fetish in your own personal life. So I thought maybe you had some archaeological interest in this matter as well."

The retired archaeologist laughed. He walked over to the museum bookshelf where he kept many of his own personal books.

He reached for one, checked the index, came to a page with a drawing of an ancient Roman statue of a woman, and eagerly sat down where he began to excitedly type a reply to the Israeli archaeologist.

The old man did not notice the medieval swords coming off the wall of the museum by themselves.

One of the swords came over and cut off the man's head just as he wrote, "I believe the statue is of..."

The other sword cut off the man's arms.

A medieval axe rose out of one of the glass cases in the museum and came over and cut off the man's feet and dropped them on the large printed copy photo of the marble sandals.

A young woman then entered the museum.

"Grandpa," she called out, "you're being late for dinner again."

She entered the room.

And screamed.

Grandpa wouldn't be having dinner on this night.

Or ever again.

To be continued.