ACT 4 _____

Scene 1. Beautiful almost otherworldly lights come up dimly on a large exquisite EGYPTIAN TOMB downstage center, in the very ancient style. Half-seen in profile lying in it is the stone Mummy of MUHAMMAD as OSIRIS, in green jade and laips lazuli and gold artwork. Enter slowly BROTHER GAIUS, much older than before, in his black robes but with a modest trim of red of higher rank. Nervously he looks at the tomb, and then the face, seeing what we cannot fully see. GAIUS (kneeling, crossing himself) Good Heavens! Muhammad. Enter MICHAEL from the other side, with large black head-mask of ANUBIS over his head in disguise, and wearing ancient Egyptian dress. MICHAEL Osiris. GAIUS (terrified, cringing on the floor) Oh! Ah! Anubis, I am dead! MICHAEL Get off the floor Brother Superior. Stop cringing. Youre not dead. GAIUS Dreaming? MICHAEL MichaEl, the right hand. GAIUS Michael? The last Judgement? MICHAEL No. Its not Armageddon either. For a Brother Superior of the F.S.C. and adviser to Popes, you dont know much, Gaius. GAIUS I know youre Anubis, god of the dead.

MICHAEL But you dont believe in me, so how can you know that? GAIUS I believe in Michael. I guess. Is that . . . is this . . . a Mummy . . or statue of Muhammad I see here? MICHAEL Yes. GAIUS So hes dead, all these years? MICHAEL Not exactly. MICHAEL points to both edges of the stage, right and left, and the TWO U.S. MARINE GUARDS we saw in the first scene crisply step out at attention, in full dress uniforms and shining rifles, staring straight ahead. Theyre sort of guarding or over-watching the Tomb. GAIUS What? MICHAEL Your Christian Soldiers, I believe, playing both sides as always, as usual. Forked tongue. But never mind the politics for now, or current geopolitical paradigms. You want to know how it came to this, in the year of Our Lord Anno Domini two-thousand-eleven. Back in 1973 Muhammad and his father Zeid led the combined, allied armies of the Arabs against the Jews, for the usual bullshit reasons on both sides, and armies, like historians, confused them into one Man, one all-conquering semi-divine hero like Alexander the Great, and his father Philip of Macedon who was the real military leader. But never mind that. GAIUS Alexander and . . . Alexander was the spiritual, non-violent, inspiring General? Priest? MICHAEL (taking off his Anubis mask) Like Caesar Herod Philip, the son, was the peaceful Jesus figure, accompanying his ruthless military father Antipater Malichus -GAIUS Or really hes Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra! I knew it! I knew it!

MICHAEL - - mistaken as Herod the Great, Messiah, re-builder of Solomons Temple and all that. GAIUS So he is a Roman? MICHAEL Its all in Josephus. Oh, Ive got to take this off, Im suffocating. GAIUS What the - - ? Why are you telling me all this. MICHAEL Because youre here. Because I need someone to talk to, if you want to know the truth. GAIUS It gets lonely? MICHAEL Dont patronize me. GAIUS I wouldnt dream of it. MICHAEL Yes you would. Anyway, thats what happened, Muhammad had a fainting spell during the battle on the Golan Heights, one of his Caeserean epileptic fits, and the Americans, er, I mean Israeli Special Forces captured him. They almost won the war too, if it hadnt been for that. GAIUS And everyone credited him for the military phase of it too, when it was really his father who was the guy who slaughtered thousands of troops? MICHAEL The point is, how did it come to that? And whats that got to do with the Civil War in Libya today? GAIUS Youre going too fast for me. MICHAEL Would you rather I speak in Scripture? I certainly would. Slower, boring poetry.

We hear MUHHAMAD speak, off, somewhere, as in Act One, but also as if he is within the Tomb, somehow. MUHAMMAD (voiceover) I, Dionysos, son of goddesses Rheia and Branwen, and father to me Heaven the healer, enemy of Earth. GAIUS Wow. MICHAEL Thats all you have to say - Wow? A resurrected soul speaks from beyond the grave and thats all you you - GAIUS Well, no, uh . . . I dont know what to say. It sounds like Muhammads voice. I dont mean to be flippant. Im sorry. I apologize, if - - but you say he wasnt dead, just a fainting spell or . . . and youre Michael, or, an actor playing Anubis, and this is . . . uh . . . MICHAEL Try not to speak. It goes back to Isis. GAIUS His girlfriend? MICHAEL GOD! GAIUS Im sorry, sorry . . . MICHAEL Isis of penultimate Woman confused, wandered in the wilderness of armistice, lost without her husband imprisoned Set - GAIUS She married Qathafi? MICHAEL - - triumph unsymbolic and maddening to her - -

GAIUS But that was then, and this is now, or is it? MICHAEL - - lonely, habitual abuse her mind affectation thinned, dissipated ungodly the weakening soul. GAIUS And there isnt really an armistice yet, is there? MICHAEL Alcohol like her father Dionysian inebriation relapsed unclearly against her great son until embarrassment beside Zeos Horus she couldnt describe, and wouldnt admit the terrible deeds shed done with Set that almostd destroyed the world of love. GAIUS Yeah, the neurotic madness of the world. I remember once Muhammad asking me if Horus was Michael, and he was, you were, are, Thoth from Egypt. But what does that have to do with - MICHAEL Unspeakably aged Isis was Rheia and Hera of all goddesses Summary vulnerable, two-faced, self-sacrificing to a fault She. GAIUS Youre saying . . uh . . . shes important too? But I dont get the Rheia and Branwen reference, from . . . uh . . . what, the Welsh Mabinogion, now? hows that - MICHAEL Her son only grown now and then crowned God-King again in tumultuous restoration; uneasy Peace abandoned her peace of mind. GAIUS Oh thats just sad.

MICHAEL Horus had gone on, as soon as he could, to Nephthys as Athene-Neith admirable to marry; gone, busy, a father of sons and a daughter, family, barely keeping Grandmama company. GAIUS So you have a family? Thats great. Do you have pictures? Oh, hey now, I get it, Im starting to get it. I felt bad when Muhammad and Zeid tried to explain it to me, lo, those many years ago. I was a young guy, I thought I knew it all. I got offended. Nationalism, ya know? But he knew then, it was the kernel of an idea. He was turning Jehovah and Allah against each other, in all the stupid-ass wars. The same old stupid-ass . . . and replacing them with Osiris. Replacing them with Osiris. But of course nobody today wants that. Nobody. But nobody. Except of course you guys. Gods. Voyageurs he called you. I dont know why he used the French. Yeah, yeah, thats it. This holy tomb is inspiring. I can feel something now. MICHAEL Maybe youre learning something. GAIUS I can feel it for sure. But, so, in the Myth by Plutarch, you go on to defeat Set, and put all the pieces of Osiris back together again, and behead Isis. MICHAEL No beheading. Replace her crown, as Hathor, the White Buffalo Woman. GAIUS Wow. But, thats still a little hard to follow, dont you think? MICHAEL Maybe. Do you want more scripture, or is that enough? Can you handle it? GAIUS Hey, if it helps clear up the Jesus thing too, Im with you. Where do we start? How does it go? MICHAEL C,mon.

They exit together, leaving the TOMB on stage. The 2 GUARDS exit in different directions. Lights down.