Set Sees An Optometrist

Set Sees An Optometrist


The billionaire ancient Egyptian vampire Set entered through the front door of his colossal London mansion.


His valet Athelstan stood there to put away his black top hat, his black cape and black jackal headed walking stick.


Set growled when, on the dresser at the entrance, he noticed the evening headline of The Times of London-Pope Francis Enjoys Eating Lebanese Donairs With Egyptian God Osiris At High Altar of Saint Peter's Basilica.


"What's that in your hand, Boss?" a donair eating Amadeus Emanon asked the billionaire Egyptian vampire as he entered the sitting room.


"It's a prescription," Set replied as he put the piece of paper down on a desk.


"Prescription?" Renfield R. Renfield looked up from the cup of Bavarian Magic Mushroom laced tea that he was drinking, "You doing drugs again, Boss?".


"No, it's an optical prescription," Set answered, "from an optometrist. It's a prescription for a new pair of glasses."


"You need glasses, Boss?" Amadeus wondered where his dropped crumb of donair had got to against the background of the floor's Persian carpet.



"Yes, I do," Set snorted through his nostrils.

"Admittedly, sir," Athelstan stated sympathetically, "the size of writing they use in Egyptian hieroglyphs these days leaves a lot to be desired."


"You shouldn't have got a prescription for glasses, Boss," Renfield inhaled his tea the way an 18th Century English gentleman would have inhaled snuff, "you'd look much better with contact lenses."


"And how am I suppose to put contact lenses in my eyes every night without looking like a post-paternity discovering and post-maternity discovering Oedipus Rex?" Set held up his 66 inch fingernails.


"Good point," Renfield answered.


"Actually it would be a bad point," Amadeus quipped, "if he tried putting a contact lens in his eye."


Renfield blamed the magic mushroom laced tea for suddenly analyzing situations with the mental capacity of your average voter in rural British Columbia.


Amadeus sang Handel's Hallelujah Chorus when he successfully found the crumb of donair on the Persian carpet.


"So Renfield, did you get that text message I sent you earlier this evening?" Set asked as he helped himself to a bowl of human fingers.


"I did, Boss," Renfield acknowledged.


"What message was this, Boss?" Amadeus started filing his finger nails with his nail file.


"I ran into Sherrielock Holmes earlier this evening," Set explained, "which reminds me, Athelstan, would you mind leaving a tube of medicinal ointment by my sarcophagus this morning and also ask my lovely Filipino nurse to be on standby to apply the said ointment to my said buttocks?".


"Of course, sir," Athelstan bowed.


"Getting back to the message," Set proceeded to answer Amadeus' question, "Sherrielock Holmes informed me that my nephew Horus was actually depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphs with the head of a hawk not a falcon. When I heard this, the thought hit me that I may have unjustly decapitated a back alley urinator the other night when I noticed a falcon headed spirit with an ancient Egyptian accent possessing his body. Sherrielock told me that it was actually the Egyptian moon god Khonsu who had the head of a falcon and so I thought maybe I had decapitated Khonsu's earthly human vessel instead. I don't want to alienate any other members in good standing of the Egyptian pantheon as I need all the allies I can get for my coming global war against Osiris and Isis and Horus. So I asked Renfield via text message who it was that had a falcon head among Egypt's ancient deities and who had a hawk head? I asked him to do some research on the topic for me to illuminate me when I got home."


"I went to the library and did some research on that very topic, Boss," Renfield helped himself to a drumstick from a bucket of KFC, "but your illumination won't come in the form of a membership application from the Illuminati as 99% of those members support the goals of Osiris and Isis and Horus in the coming global war."


"That means I'm allied with Jesus of Nazareth of all people. How's that for bloody irony?" Set spit a bloodied human hand (still holding on to a clothing iron) out of his mouth.


"Say, Boss," Amadeus helped himself to the plate of crackers with caviar that Athelstan offered him, "surely you yourself should remember which deity had which head. Hawk or falcon? Horus or Khonsu? After all you're taking the word of an admittedly extremely young looking and very attractive 162-year-old leather skirted dominatrix when you yourself are a vampire and Egyptian deity well over 3 millennia old and you knew these entities from the very beginning. Why text message Renfield to do research on the topic? Why not use your own memory?".



"Because,"  Set raged and foamed as he spit a mortal human tongue out of his mouth, "like I've always told you whenever you constantly ask me why I'm using 2 totally different colours of nail polish on each hand, I've been suffering from extreme dementia ever since I watched that A & E documentary on the lives of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian last year."


"And that," Renfield smiled, "is why the Boss no longer trusts his memory. That's why he asked me to research the matter of Horus and Khonsu and who was hawk and who was falcon. That's also why he's asked me to manage his banking and chequing accounts as he goes through this difficult period."


Amadeus looked out the window at the new BMW that Renfield had bought himself earlier this week and was now parked on the driveway.


"So," Renfield put on his reading glasses and flipped through his notebook to read Set what he had discovered on this subject, "Apparently whether Horus was falcon headed or hawk headed depended on which hieroglyphs were being used in which district of Egypt. Horus was often depicted with the head of a falcon and in other places he was depicted with the head of a hawk.  Even Khonsu (that Miss Sherrielock Holmes mentioned as being falcon headed) was depicted in many districts of Egypt as having the head of a hawk. So it all depended on which district of Egypt you were living in and what particular hieroglyphic image was being used."


"I wonder what boiled tana leaves taste like," Amadeus mused aloud about the variety of ancient Egyptian leaves that were used to keep the mummy Kharis alive in the Universal Pictures Mummy horror films of the early 1940s.


"So in your opinion, Renfield," Set ignored the question posed by Amadeus' filmographical botanical culinary musings, "which of those two deities was most likely to have a falcon head and which was most likely to have a hawk head?".


"Well in my humble opinion," Renfield adjusted his I'm The World's Greatest Lover t- shirt, "it was usually Horus who was depicted as falcon headed most of the time and Khonsu who was depicted as hawk headed."

 "So then Sherrielock Holmes was wrong?" Set queried.


"Yes," Renfield nodded, "but I wouldn't say that aloud to her unless you wanted to have trouble sitting down for the next century."


-A vampire novel chapter
  written by Christopher
  Friday March 4th
  2016.