Taking a trip to Egypt to take new photographs for a possible, upcoming exhibition, Julian Lennon son of the frontman of the Beatles, John Lennon finds himself amidst the majesty of the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Gods and Goddesses, the Temples, the...
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New York City
Just as they were heading out the front door, Sean's phone had begun to ring.
"Ignore it, Sean!" His longtime girlfriend whined. "We NEED to get to the studio! We've got a deadline to meet!"
"The studio can wait, Charlotte," he told her, trying to recognise the number.
"Well, do you even know who's calling?" She demanded huffily.
He had put the phone to his ear. "Hello, this is Sean Lennon, speaking. Who is calling?"
"Mr Lennon... do you have a brother named Mr John Charles Julian Lennon?" Came a male voice, with a middle eastern accent.
"Yes, yes I do, can I ask who is calling?" He answered, feeling a lump in his throat and an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that he just couldn't shake.
"I am Dr Silas Seidita of the Cleopatra Hospital here in Cairo. Mr Lennon, your brother was admitted a little while ago..."
"Well, fuck is he okay? Is he dead? Is he in a coma? What happened?" Sean demanded.
Julian had listed him as his next of kin after the death of his beautiful Mum, Cynthia who had passed just three years previously, so if anything happened to him he would be the first to be notified.
"Your brother was involved in an accident, on the banks of the Nile. It's understood that he was taking photos of a family of hippos when the male charged at him, knocked him into the river where he suffered injuries to his hip, ankle, head and his right side where the hippo managed to bite him...."
"But hippos can kill!" Sean cut him off, now feeling sick in the stomach. Charlotte noticed that he was looking deathly pale. "They have a bite of over 1300 psi!"
"Yes Sir, they can but your brother is still alive, he's in a critical condition in intensive care...until we can operate, which should be in the next five minutes..."
"Were any organs destroyed with the bite? Any bones smashed or broken?" Sean cut him off again.
"No Mr Lennon, the bite luckily wasn't very deep but a hippo bite is more dangerous than a snake bite, he did go into shock. When can you get to Cairo?"
"When I can board the first flight out of New York, what hospital was it again?"
"The Cleopatra Hospital just outside of Cairo," the doctor told him.
"I'll be there as soon as I can! Thank you for letting me know Doctor!" Sean thanked him, hanging up.
"What's happened to Jules? I heard Egypt and a hippo!" Charlotte asked concerned as Sean dashed back into the apartment.
"He's nearly been killed by one! Pack a bag we're taking the first flight out of here to Cairo!"
*
He didn't know if he was dead or alive.
He found himself having an out-of-body experience as he watched the surgeons operate on him.
"Take a walk with me Julian" came a soft, feminine voice. "You have a long journey to recovery and you cannot do it alone!"
"But who are you?" He asked the young looking woman.
She was a little shorter than him, only coming up to his shoulders, she looked about thirty years of age, had long black hair that was pulled back into a bun. Her head was adorned with a gold headdress and she was wearing a beautiful turquoise, long sleeveless dress.
Gold bangles adorned her wrists, a necklace of gold and lapis lazuli hung around her neck and earrings to match.
"They call me the Mistress of Pure Water, Taweret is my name,"she told him, "come Julian...let your restoration begin..."
*
"Mr Lennon? Julian?" Came a voice "Can you hear me?"
She gave him a warm, gentle smile "I must leave you now Julian...but I will always be with you..."
"No...Taweret! Wait! Will I be okay?? Will I be permanently disabled? What will my life be like after the attack??" He called desperately as she began to fade away. "Taweret, Please!"
"Julian? Can you hear me? If you can, open your eyes, please?" The voice came again, but it wasn't Taweret's.
He wanted Taweret, he wanted this nightmare to be over, he wished he had never tried to take photos of those bloody hippos. Hell... He even wanted Sean, he wanted his Mum, anyone to come in and tell him that none of this was real and that he was really just dreaming and totally fine.
"Taweret?" He said opening his eyes "Taweret? Where are you?"
A friendly looking nurse was looking down upon him as he lay in a hospital bed in the recovery ward of the hospital ward he was in.
"Good to have you back, Julian!" She said with a smile, "Who is Taweret? Your wife?"
"I am unmarried, I must have been imagining...I'm sorry..." he said, going red.
She said she would always be with him...where was she?
"Don't be embarrassed, Julian!" The nurse said, "you have just come out of surgery! Well, the surgery went well! The surgeon is extremely pleased! Do you remember much before you were brought in?"
"A hippo attacked me because I was too fucking stupid to listen to my tour guide and I got too close! He charged for me and knocked me into the river!" Julian snarled, so angry with himself.
She gave him a sympathetic look "believe me, Mr Lennon. You are certainly not the first! Hippos look slow and harmless, they can be deceiving!"
"I'm fifty-five! I should have more sense in my head! They had a calf with them, they were just trying to protect it!" He was so angry. "Will I be able to walk again? Is there any permanent damage?"
"Yes, you will Julian" she assured him. "However, you did do damage to your left ankle, spraining it quite badly, so you'll need to stay off it for a few weeks, you did obtain a nasty bump to your head and we can keep the painkillers up to you to relieve your pain and make you as comfortable as we can! Now... you were bitten by the male hippo and we had to perform surgery on the wound which is just above your right hip, we had to remove the dead tissue, clean the wound all out and pack it then stitch it back up. That will cause you the most pain, so we'll have to keep the morphine up to you which should alleviate all the pain for you. Now, we're going to take you up to the ward and settle you in. We have called your brother Sean, he said he was on his way as soon as he could get a flight out of New York!"
"How long overall will it take for me to recover fully?"
"A few months at least Mr Lennon," she said with her hand tenderly on his shoulder "but you are in good hands!"
