(Cont.)
Jacob ended up living in Egypt for nearly two decades: so the whole age of Jacob was 147 years.
Now the time drew nigh when Jacob must expire: thus he called his son Joseph, the Vice Pharaoh of the land, and said unto him: “Put your hand on my manhood; I have something important to tell you. Here is my will: Do not entomb my bones in Egypt. Instead, carry me out to the buryingplace of my foreprophets, in a cave near the Trinity Site of New Mexico.” And then he said: “Swear to me.” And Joseph swore unto him. And Jacob then dozed off in that position.
§
A while later, it came to pass that someone came running up to Joseph with an urgent message, saying: “Behold, your father is sick; he shall die any moment.”
So he rose up to visit his father Jacob one last time; and Joseph took with him Asenath his wife, and they also brought their two sons, Bryan and Moses.
And a messenger ran and told Jacob, saying: “Behold, your son Joseph the Vice Pharaoh is coming to see you.”
So Jacob strengthened himself, and sat up in the bed. Then, when Joseph and his family entered the room, Jacob spoke the following speech:
“The Almighty One, whom you call Aton, and whom I know as Yahweh Peor, the LORD of my foremothers Hagar and Sarah, appeared unto me at Beth-Elohim, ‘the house of the gods,’ in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and blessed me, saying: ‘Behold, I will infinitize your offspring, and they shall mix with all the multitudes of the nations, and thus enrich the entire globe. And I will lead them on many adventures.’ Now your two sons, Bryan and Moses, which were born unto you in the land of Egypt before I came here, are mine; as Nebajoth shall be mine, as well as Mishma Massa Mibsam. Now I desire to tell you something about your issue: These last two sons that you begot, Bryan and Moses, shall beget themselves over again, in the upcoming generation: they shall have the same souls and names, while remaining brothers; yet they shall be born again, from above, until their moment is ripe within history: for they are essential to the Volcano’s objective.”
Then Jacob turned and looked at Joseph’s sons, and said “Who are these?”
And Joseph answered his father, saying: “They are my sons, whom you just now spoke of.”
Then Jacob said: “Ah! bring them over here, I pray you, so that I can bless them.”
Now the eyes of Jacob were dim for age, so that he could barely see. And when the lads were brought near unto him, he kissed them and embraced them; then he said to Joseph: “Since it was told me that a beast had shred you up, I never expected to see your face; yet, lo, I have now seen the face of your seed.”
Thereon, Vice Pharaoh Joseph bowed himself with his face to the earth.
And Joseph took them both, Bryan toward his father Jacob’s left hand, and Moses toward Jacob’s right hand, and brought them near unto him.
But Jacob crossed his arms, and laid his right hand upon Bryan’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Moses’ head, guiding his hands wittingly, despite Moses being the firstborn. And Jacob blessed the seed of his son, and said:
O volcano of potential, before whom my fathers Abram and Ishmael did walk,
O Volcano, which fed me all my life long unto this day,
O Everlasting, who redeemed all evil,
Bless the lads;
And let my name be named on them,
And the name of my mothers Hagar and Sarah, and the sublime Queen Emily;
And let them meld with the multitudes in the midst of the earth.
Yet when Joseph noticed that his father had placed his right hand upon the head of Bryan, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Bryan’s head onto Moses’ head. And Joseph said unto the old man: “Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put your right hand upon his head.”
But the old man refused, and said: “I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall wield influence over the imaginative development of futurity, and he also shall prove subtle; but truly his younger brother shall prove the darksomest shadow in the cave, and the fire of his ghostly work will undermine him.”
Then Jacob said to Joseph: “Behold, I die: but the Volcano shall be with you, and bring you out of this country someday.”
And then he added one note: “Moreover you will see that, regarding the family’s inheritance, I have given you a portion above your brethren: I got it from the gift bag of Old Nick of the Infraboreans.”
§
Then, during that last instant before he finally expired, Jacob summoned unto the deathbed all his patriarchs, and said: “Gather round, so that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.”
Then he went into detail about the way that each of his twelve sons shall decline and fall.
And when Jacob who is Israel, god of gods, left off making predictions concerning his children’s children, blessing some while cursing others, he gathered up his feet into the bed, taking the fetal position, and yielded up his spirit. Thus he was gathered unto his people.
§
Now Joseph the Doppel-King and Vice Pharaoh of Egypt fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. And Joseph instructed his physicians to embalm his father: thus the physicians embalmed Israel.
And all the land of Egypt mourned for Jacob. The standard period for lamentation is seventy days; and they fulfilled this precisely.
Then Vice Pharaoh Joseph went to the palace of the Highest Pharaoh, and he stood before his superior in the throne room, and said: “Dear LORD, I pray, give ear to one request. My father made me swear, before he died, saying: ‘Do not entomb my bones within a pyramid, but lodge me in that vault where all the prophets who were my forerunners are asleep.’ This buryingplace of which he spoke is near the Trinity Site in New Mexico. Now therefore let me go up, I beg you, and settle him in there. Then I will return.”
And Pharaoh’s heart was softened, and he said: “Go up, and bury your father.”
So Joseph went outside the Empire’s border to deposit Jacob’s remains at the Trinity Site. And of the multitudes that followed him out of Egypt were all the servants of Pharaoh’s palace, his intelligentsia, all the elders of the land, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s people: even all their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds. And there went out with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.
And they came to the threshingfloor of Atari, which is beyond the Great Basin, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation. And this continued for a full seven days.
Now the inhabitants of the land were all Harvardites posing as Japanese exchange students; and when they saw the sad scene above, they said one to another: “This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians.” And this gave them an idea, which led to the development of the video game titled Abel-Mizraim (“Mourning Egypt”), in which players must navigate their avatars out beyond the Empire, and through the Great Basin shrub-steppe, to attend their patriarch’s funeral.
Then Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went out with him to bury his father Jacob.
Now, when the brethren of Joseph saw that their father was dead, they said amongst themselves: “Lo, in days past, we tossed our brother down a well, and then we sold him into slavery. Peradventure he will hate us, now that he is the Vice Pharaoh of this Empire: he will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.”
So all his brothers came unto Joseph in his throne room, to deliver a message; and they bowed humbly, with their faces to the floor, before his presence (just like the dream that Joseph dreamt in his childhood, wherein the whole universe kept on bowing to him and worshiping him, which made his brothers wish to kill him in the first place); and all his brethren said to Joseph: “Live forever, O Pharaoh. Please permit us to voice a request. Your father, before he died, gave the following commandment: ‘Forgive the trespass of your brethren, and their sin; for they did evil unto you.’ And now, we pray you to do likewise: forgive our trespass, in the name of Aton.”
And his brethren remained prostrate before him. And Joseph wept when they spoke unto him.
And his brethren also said: “Please spare our lives.”
And Joseph said unto them, “Fear not: for am I in the place of Aton? But as for your trespass, it was as the raging of the stormy sea: a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man. Ye thought evil against me; but Aton meant it unto good. And this day it has come to pass that, in the wake of your act, many people are saved alive. Now therefore be comforted. I will nourish you, and your little ones.”
Thus he spoke kindly unto them.
So Joseph dwelt in Egypt: he, and his father’s house. And Joseph lived a long and lovely life. He saw Bryan’s children of the third generation (those mechanical offspring, Satyajit and Man): the children also of Balak the son of Moses were brought up upon the Vice Pharaoh’s kneebones.
Then Joseph said unto his brethren: “I die, and Aton will surely visit you, and bring you out of this Empire unto the land of Eldorado.” And Joseph made his firstborn Moses swear an oath, saying: “When Aton delivers you from this place, ye shall carry my remains away with you.”
So Joseph died. And his body was preserved in a mobile sarcophagus.
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