Of course, we didn’t have paper or quills, but nice likeness otherwise…

Weird guy, Moses. Reminds me of Lincoln. Brooders, both of ‘em. No, not brothers, brooders. Sat around brooding all night. Don’t let them get near the mead or you’ll pay for it.

Moses would sit around the campfire some nights and just whine like a little girl. It wasn’t befitting, if you ask me, for somebody God elected. One vote’s all you need if it’s the right one.

They don’t appreciate me, they don’t want to be free. Sure they want to be free, I said, they just don’t understand how hard it is, they’ve got a slave’s idea of freedom, all dancing and singing and running around with the other guy’s wife or sister or daughter or whatever. That’s sick, he said—not exactly in those words. We’ll put a stop to that pretty quick, he said and he did. You ask me, there were originally like maybe six commandments. Once he didn’t like something, he did something about it. And it always seemed to me the handwriting on the last few commandments wasn’t the same as the rest but it’s been a long time since I checked.

You had to be very careful with your campfires with him, too. I remember one time I was going to pick this bush for the campfire and he says, “Not that one!” And proceeds to talk to it like it’s an old friend. “Can I take this one?” I said and he just waved like sure, whatever. Very quirky guy. Not always easy to work with. This, they don’t tell you in history.

And then he comes down from the mountain with the commandments and after that, you’d think he was so special. Wouldn’t get a haircut, got like three or four of the same robes made so he always looked like Moses. Like we had anybody else to take fashion sense from—Abraham was no pillar of hot fashion, let me tell you. Jacob, maybe. Joseph got his coat from him, so he inherited, y’know? It’s not the same.

But Moses’ moods got worse toward the end. One night, he said to me, “I could have been Pharoah” and of course, I knew what was coming. “You led a whole nation; God talks to you,” I tried but no use. “I want a pyramid,” he said. It was getting late and we were both tired. This was just after God killed Aaron’s sons so things were tense. “I want a pyramid of my own.” And then, there’s a bolt of lightning strikes a tree right near by and he waves his hand and yells, “Okay, can’t a guy talk?” He didn’t have an easy time of it.

So I promised him a pyramid that night but I never came through on it. When God says “Cross the river,” you cross the river. You’ve got to know where your bread is buttered—or milk n’ honeyed, in this case.