Benny and the Urn - A shaggy dog story with a moral.

Here's my embellished version of a joke I learned when I was a kid. I swear to god there's no loch ness monster.

**Benny and the Urn**

Once upon a time a man named Benny was living in ancient Mesopotamia. A miner by trade, one day he discovered a secret cavern filled with jewels, gold, and piled high with priceless artifacts.

The floor was covered with golden jars, urns that were formed from solid gold. They were each the size of a man's heart, carved with runic symbols and the air around which shimmered and pulsed as if alive. But the real prize was atop the pile of loot, nestled in a case lined with red velvet; a golden oil lamp, etched with markings and symbols older than time.

No sooner did Benny take it into his hand than a swirling tornado erupted from its spout. The light from his single torch seemed to falter, then blazed anew as the tornado calmed. When the dust had cleared, a strange man stood before him, clothed in gold with his arms folded across his bronze chest. He spoke with a rumbling voice that could not be ignored.

"You have released me from my ten-thousand-year imprisonment, and in gratitude I will grant you a single wish. Choose wisely."

Benny thought for a long while, and when he had weighed the options he asked for immortality, that single unobtainable goal that all men strive for.

"Everlasting life will I grant you," said the Genie, "But on one condition. You must swear by the life you will owe me that you will never again shave the hair of your face or head, never for all eternity. Do this, and eternal life shall be yours. Do not, and your soul is forfeit, and you will join the many that failed and in turn have been imprisoned here." He gestures around at the urns that cover the floor of the cavern. The air around each shimmered and pulsed silently.

Of course Benny agrees, and the Genie vanishes in a puff of gold dust, leaving all the wealth of the chamber behind for the taking.

Benny rushes into the city and buys the land containing the cavern of riches and overnight becomes the most famous and wealthy man in the realm. He gives up mining and buys a fleet of trading ships, not only to grow his wealth but to spread the tale of Benny and the Lamp across the seas and to distant lands, the better to see his own self last through the ages.

As time passes, and his beard grows longer, he notices the passage of time more distinctly. His parents die, his brothers and sisters, all fabulously rich and comfortable, but their passing is no less sorrowful to him.
When his wife and the last of his children are in their graves, he swears to continue his life for as long as the Genie's spell could prolong it, spreading his wealth amongst the people in honor of the family he'd outlived. And yet his solemn vow was tainted with sadness, because he knew no amount of good deeds could win back that which time had won from him.

And yet his business prospers, sails turn to oars, oars to steam, and always the sun and stars march on in their ceaseless wandering. All passes in the blink of an eye to him, his experiences and memories dull as glass in the dark of night. He becomes a myth, a legend whose tales are told and songs are sung but who never truly existed, or certainly not in this age. Wealth has lost all meaning to him, success long achieved and forgotten.
Tired of civilization and wanting solitude, de returns to his cavern of riches, and thinks. He thinks of time passed and love lost, of the crashing sea and its inexorable destruction of earth. He sits alone, and he thinks...

One day his reverie is broken by a shaft of light cast down into his cave. The eons had reformed the entrance around him, sealing off the man and his thoughts in a silent black tomb. A head pokes through the hole in the ceiling, a mane of fiery red hair follows, a round laughing face stained with sweat and rock dust. It is the first person Benny has seen in unknown thousands of years, and, eyes watering, he lifts his arm to touch the face of god, as it were. He finds he cannot. His arm is frozen, encased in a fibrous tomb, as well as his legs and head.

During his ages of inactivity, his arms and legs had withered from disuse but his beard grew on still. It grew and it grew, wrapping the man and then filling the cavern with its mass, until the weight of it pressed itself into stone. Benny was encased in a layer of rock of his own making, only a faint outline of a face in the rock wall to mark his existence.

The young treasure hunter drops lightly to the floor from a long rope, shouts up to her companions to come down. The first man down is bulky and graceless, encumbered by a bag of heavy equipment. The next man down is timid, inching slowly down the rope and pressing a sweaty finger to the bridge of his glasses every few seconds. The woman and the heavy man begin searching the cavern as the mousy man dusts off his vest and examines the stone floor of the cave. "Interesting..."

He draws a small leather pouch from his rucksack and produces a magnifying glass and set of tools. He kneels, examines the stone here, the stone there, and eventually finds a small protrusion in the center of the chamber.

"Kind of looks like a face", he thinks as he chooses a small hammer and chisel from the pouch. He opens a notebook and notes the date and location. He decides to chip it from the rock wall for a memento.

A single tap with the tool just below the chin, and the stone chip flies through the air and suddenly the man too is flying, falling, through dust and air and... gold? The cavern swirls away, sucked down to a point far below, the light above dwindles until it's no more than a pinprick high above.

He slams into the ground and rolls down an incline. His glass are broken, but after checking himself for fractures he digs through a pocket and strikes a match.

The flickering yellow light casts long shadows away, he thinks he might have triggered a cave-in but he couldn't be sure... He'll have to examine this yellow flowstone to see how far down he might be. the magnifying glass is safe in a pocket, and he's able to examine his surroundings.

The room is filled with smallish vases, jars, no, there's a better word. Urns! So many urns, they disappear from view into the gloom. He toes one with a boot; it’s firmly embedded in the rock below. As he turns, a glint catches his eye. He wanders off looking for the source.

As the glow from his light fades away, the shadows cast by the urns stretch until they cover the chamber floor, all covered with strange markings and coated with millennia of dust.

All but one, just a single one that sits in the center of the room, gleaming as if new.

>TL;DR: *A Benny shaved is a Benny urned.*