So far as I know, there’s only one proper mummy publicly displayed in New York City.

I am not surprised to find the front doors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art locked up tight. Got here quicker than anticipated; Yakiv’s thugs were hopelessly on the wrong track, I could hear the boys somewhere down that dark corridor, guttural echoes, bumping into shit, -ski’ing and –vich’ing each other, digging their profound failure.

I simply sailed out the Tenth Avenue exit, problem free. Into the black air.

Took the long gimp around the back of Met, somewhat uneasy as one has to walk into the park a bit to approach the museum from the rear, with its massive sloping glass wall. Glass being the key element here.

Of course, many have beaten me to it. Post–2/14 looting started almost as soon as the Occurrence(s) themselves. Sure: this was most definitely a hot spot, folks crawling on top of each other to snag priceless bits of swag.

Obviously Yakiv and his boys had paid a visit, came out with a few truckloads of booty. Judging by his collection at the Maritime. The problem is not getting a hold of such treasure. Snatch and grab, here’s a Byzantine triptych. Here’s a sixteenth-century Persian death mask. Rather, the problem is unloading them. Cause who among your neighbors is in the market for a Rembrandt, or a Bronze Age chalice?

What we all realized pretty quickly: the only material of value is that which keeps us alive. Food. Water. Shelter. Weapons. Les basics.

Regardless, the joint is wide open, my predecessors having already created multiple points of entry in the breakable façade. It is a simple thing to just step inside, into that expansive hall that houses the Temple of Dendur and its reflecting pool. Rusty nickels and dimes carpeting the underwater tiles, the water green with algae.

I find the mummy by memory, trusting my memory here, crossing my fingers that nobody has fucked with it already. The mummy, I mean, not my memory. Why would they have? But still. People fuck with everything.

Looks pretty much undisturbed. The pile that had once been Chief Treasurer Ukhhotep dates from as far back as 1991 B.C., which of course is over two thousand years older than Johnny the B.

But I figure it like this: a mummy is a mummy is a mummy. It’s old, dead, it’s dried out. Right? How different can they be?

I produce my box cutter, rubber gloves, a large ziplock freezer bag.

And I go to work.