The End of Civilisation

In an unusual pocket of solitude in the British Museum, I found myself in a people-free room in the Egyptian halls. I was looking down at a tiny, carved wooden coffin containing a five-year-old boy. His image had been lovingly, and quite naively painted on the outer cover. His name was Poraiis, if I remember correctly. The information stated that the little boy inside the coffin was dressed in a red and blue gown, and he had red and blue ribbons plaited in his hair; his head was resting on a red pillow. I found it suddenly very moving and my eyes were welling with tears when into the quiet, darkened room stomped three big American girls. For some reason, although the room was otherwise empty, they made a beeline for where I was standing and stood right next to me at the big glass case. One girl was laughing at a text message she was typing on her iPhone. Another was loudly braying at the third, "Oh my fricken Gahd! Taylor said all along that she was going to come to Brandon's party. And then at the last minute the hoe didn't turn up! I mean, she's meant to be my frickin' friend, ok? Am I right?" The non-texting girl said, "I know, right?!" Then the texting-girl finished her important business, glanced disgustedly around the room and said, "Could we, like, get the hell out of this place? Everything's, like, a hundred years old or something, it's so creepy!" One of the others agreed, "I know! It's, like, grandma-central, right?" And with that, they stomped out, leaving me in the empty room with little Poraiis. I felt the need to profoundly apologise to him before I also left him in there, in the dark.

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