The Man of Legends

by Kenneth C. Johnson

tagging like Will said there was. Later on I tol’ my little cousin Chico, “Fool I was, thinkin’ it’uz gonna be like paint or somethin’.” That fifteen-foot stone gateway sits out by itself in the front. I walked under it toward the larger pieces of Dendur. Passin’ ’tween the two thick columns on the front I seen that behind ’em there’uz a square room made o’stone. That’s where I found the graffiti: a few names of French soldier guys chiseled into the stone. And the date they’uz there: 1799. It wudn’t much, but give me a weird kinda feeling twice over. I thought, Here I am lookin’ at them names cut into stone a couple hundred years ago, and I’m standin’ in a place somebody else built a couple thousand years ago! I ’magined the workmen who builded Dendur, cuttin’ them stones out of some quarry, then haulin’ and stackin’ ’em up with no cranes or skip loaders. And then hand carvin’ them columns. I ran my hand up along ’em. Up and down. And up again. And ’cross the pitchers carved into the walls. I ran the tips o’my fingers over them French soldiers’ names, wonderin’ who they was. I