You probably have already heard this story. It's a story that's as old as time its self. But what if I told you what knew was not what was true? Want to know what really happened? I will tell you. You probably know of my brother Moses, but history has seemed to forget all about me, not that I did much, Moses was the real hero.
I was just there to support, him as his brother anyways. Yet still I was forgotten which is why I'm here to speak the truth. But lets start at the beginning. This all happened a long, long time ago on the banks of the river Nile.
A bird flew over a clear sky thousands of men, women, and children worked in the hot sun. They were slaves. The Jews of Egypt, prisoners of the cruel pharaoh. They began to sing as they toiled in the sweltering heat.
"Mud!"
"Sand!"
"Water!"
"Straw!"
"Faster!"
"Mud, and lift!"
"Sand and pull!"
"Water and raise up!" Straw!"
"Faster!" One of the guards shouted cracking a whip.
"With the sting of the whip, on my shoulder!"
"With the salt of my sweat on my brow!"
" Elohim, God on high, can you hear your people cry?"
" Help us now!"
" This dark hour!"
" Deliver us!"
" Hear our call, deliver us!"
" Lord of all remember us here in this burning sand!"
" Deliver us, there's a land you promised us!"
" Deliver us to the promised land!"
The bird flew over what looked to be houses made of dried mud or clay. Guards ran through the houses, screams echoed through the streets of the homes of the slaves. The Pharaoh had ordered that every newborn Jew was to be killed and thrown in the river.
It was the Pharaohs way of stopping them from growing in number and revolting against him. One house however had not been searched yet. In this house stood a woman with her children. She peered around the corner watching as the shadow of the guards went by. She appeared to be hiding something in her shawl. She then began to sing.
"Yal-di ha-tov veh ha-rach,"( My good and tender sons)
"Al tira ve'al tifh'ad (Don't be frightened and don't be scared)
She unraveled the fabric to reveal a baby boy. The baby looked a lot like her same dark hair, and skin. She wrapped the baby in blankets to hide him and handed him to her daughter. "Miriam take your brother." The little girl held her baby brother in her arms as her mother bent down to lift a piece of fabric from another bundle. It was another baby. This one however looked nothing like his mother.
The baby had pale skin, red hair, the only similarity he shared with his mother was her green eyes. The child however was deformed and a hunchback, but she loved him with all her heart. The child was from a previous love not to long ago.
A foreigner from another country. They had fallen in love and they had tried to escape together but.... The pharaohs guards had caught him and killed him. Her son was the only thing left that reminded her of him. Her previous husband having died from illness along time ago. The baby smiled up at her as she began to sing again.
"My sons, I have nothing I can give."
She sang tenderly wrapping her youngest son in a blanket.
"But this chance that you may live."
"I pray we'll meet again."
"If You will... Deliver us!
As she sang this, she heard the screams of women outside as their babies were taken from them. her and her children rush from their home, narrowly avoiding guards as they make there way to the river.
"Deliver us, hear our prayer!"
" Deliver us from despair these years of slavery!"
"Grow too cruel to stand!"
" Deliver us, there's a land you promised us!"
" Deliver us out of bondage and...... Deliver us to the promised land!"
They finally make it to the river as the women sets two baskets on the ground. She took her son from her daughter's arms and placed him in the basket and placed him inside. Then she heard her other son who lay on the ground at her side, begin to cry. She gave a tender smile as she picked up the deformed babe in her arms. Holding him close to her chest she began to sing.
" Hush now, my baby, be still, love don't cry."
"Sleep as you're rocked by the stream." As she sang this, she lowered him into the basket. She brushed a hand against her sons face but before she could move her hand away the baby grabbed her finger.
"Sleep and remember, my last lullaby."
"So I'll be with you, when you dream."
She removed her finger from the baby's hand and lowered her head to kiss her innocent son on the head. Goodbye my little Asher. She smiled down at her son as he curled up inside the basket and fell asleep. She placed the lid on the basket and carried both baskets to the river as she walked into the water.
"River, oh, river, flow gently for me."
"Such precious cargo, you bear."
She said letting go of the baskets as they drifted away.
" Do you know somewhere ;they can live free?
"River....deliver them there."
As the baskets drifted across the river the little girl Miriam followed the baskets down the river. All is peaceful as the basket floats across the river. Suddenly a crocodile lunges up from the river about to snap up one of the baskets when a group of hippos burst from the river fighting with one another over the baskets as they slide by with ease.
Mirum follows the baskets gasping in fear as the baskets get caught in a fishing net. Luckily however the baskets slide out of the net and drift away and soon ends up passing through two boats as they pass through the boats paddles the baskets get hit by another boat and they float towards the palace of the Pharaoh.
The baskets flow through a curtain of fabric as group of cranes fly away startled by it appearance. A woman with dark skin and dark hair dressed in white stands . while her son squirms in her arms reaching for a white flower. The pharaohs wife reaches down for the flower and hands it to her son as one of the baskets bumps against her leg.
She gasps startled and sets her son down on the palace steps reaching down to open the first basket, Meanwhile while Miriam watches her from a nearby curtain. She smiles down at the baby in the first basket and reaches to open the second.
The women gasp in surprise at what she finds. Laying in the basket was a red haired baby with a disfigured face and twisted spine. The infant smiled up at her . She smiled down at the child feeling pity for the poor thing.
She gave the child a kiss on the forehead and closed the basket back up she took the normal looking child from the basket, Thinking the child with the deformed features would anger the cruel pharaoh if he saw it. Not because of its strange appearance but because it looked to much like his old friend. The man who had betrayed him and had tried to run away with one of his slaves.
"I'm so sorry little one." "I pray the gods protect you." She pushed the basket away from the steps as it flowed away. Miriam tried to chase after it but it flowed out to sea. She looked back at her little brother safe in the arms of the Pharaohs wife then looked at her brothers basket as it headed out to sea. She prayed to god to protect her other brother and as she did so a beam of sunlight shined down on the basket. She smiled and began to sing.
"Brothers, you're safe now and safe may you stay."
"For I have prayers just for you."
"Grow, baby brothers, come back someday."
"Come and deliver us too." She sang as she walked away.
Mommy cried the little boy reaching for his mother. Come, Rameses. We will show Pharaoh your new baby brother, Moses. Meanwhile the basket with the other baby flowed into a river in the French country side. The baby began to cry. "Copan dear brother quick I hear a baby" A dark skinned gypsy woman said as she rushed to the river. She opened the basket as the smiling face of the red haired baby smilled up at her.
He's not to normal looking is he said the man named Clopan. Oh please brother can I keep him! I don't know. The man looked at his sisters face. She'd already lost her only child. She needed something to make her happy again this child could be it. Oh alright come on lets go I want to get to Paris before nightfall. She nodded.
The pharaoh smiled at his newly adopted son. "You say there where two baskets, what happened to the other one. "The current dragged it away." Said the Queen. Hmm...That's two bad. She turned to her new son as her husband walked away. "I pray you find your brother one day." She said kissing her new son on the head.
Meanwhile the gypys woman lay dead in the arms of a priest. "Care for the child and raise it as your own." The priest said to the man who had killed the gypsy women. "What?" The man said shocked. "I am to be saddled with this Misshapen...." Very well but let him live with you in your church. "Live here!?" The priest said surprised. Where? Anywhere.
"Just as long as he's kept locked away so no one else can see. " Hmm....The belltower perhaps. Fine said the priest. "as you wish. And so both children where raised separately by two fathers one kind and strict the other cruel and dark.
"Deliver us send a shepherd to shepherd us and deliver us to the promised land! Deliver us.... to the promised land!" The slaves sang as birds flew over two different cities Paris and Egypt.
"Deliverrrrr Usss."
The two brothers would meet one day and it would eventually lead to the freedom of their people. The youngest brother was renamed Quasimodo Which meant half-formed.