Zemen 3: The Illary
A Gift from the Gods
Suggested listening: Popol Vuh, Aguirre I (l’acrime di rei)
I
She was tortured by the sweet life she had endured.
One day she was a child, hungry but free.
The next day she was a deity and a slave.
Fed like the Sapa Inca,
Adorned with colors,
She was shown a world of plenty
And it terrified her.
She would say “Papa, I don’t understand myself.”
And father would smile and say “child it is ok to be confused. You were made as a gift from the gods, so you see the world as a god.”
But all she could focus on was the damp glaze in his eyes,
And the muffled quivering in his hand as it brushed the black hair from her face.
She would lie awake at night
As the earth trembled
And count the seconds.
Once she counted to 50,
And then for three days the ayllus in the parched valley below fought fires that consumed all their maize and quinoa.
Within a week, caravans brought food from the nearest storehouses, along with ministers adorned in silver, who came directly to her ayllu’s house,
And immediately thereafter she began to be shown the life of the gods.
She was a woman. She had bled for the first time a season before.
She had just begun to understand the World.
And now this.
Terror turned to rage.
“This is not right mama! Nobody is speaking to me!”
“You were made as a gift from the gods my child, so you see the world as a god. But your mind is human. It is difficult, I know.”
She was unnaturally beautiful. She looked at boys in the village but they would not look back.
She was no longer allowed to visit her friends from neighboring ayllus.
And yet she had a half dozen court-appointed friends around her every day.
Braiding her hair, making jokes about the newly-placed guards protecting them in the courtyard,
Eating fresh picked chirimoya.
She played along, but she hated them.
She hated herself for hating them.
She would run away at dusk. Up the terrace steps to the top of her ayllu’s hill.
There she would watch the Inti disappear between the smoking Andean volcanic plume of Sabancaya and the dead ice cap of Ampato, with Ch’aska close behind.
She would scream at him.
“I’m a girl! What do you want from me!”
This became a nightly ritual for her. And as the season changed and the days grew colder it became increasingly difficult, but she persisted.
Until tonight, full of rage and delirium, she screamed into the cavern of sunset, louder than ever before.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!”
And the Inti responded.
— — — — —
“Fuck’s sake, shut up I hear you.”
She whirls around and peers at the wide black eyes of an enormous bulky four-legged creature, off-white with black splotches on its heavy hide, mini horns on its flat head, and a mouthful of grass.
She lets out a gasp and a shriek of laughter.
The Inti continues to talk but he finds it difficult to chew on grass and speak Quechua at the same time.
“What are you even doing here? Fuck hold on I can’t stop eating this shit, these creatures are idiots, they spend their whole existence figuring out how to survive on carpet!”… “Ok, so what are you doing here??”
“What do you mean, where else should I be?”
“You are about to ascend aren’t you? Why are you screaming at me when it’s time to prepare for your journey?? Surely you know this world is about to burn to the ground??”
“What?? I’m just a girl!!”
“Ok ok semantics. You are a girl, yes, but you were also made as a gift for the gods, nobody told you this??”
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“Gift for the Gods?? Don’t you mean gift from the Gods?”
“Girl, I know I am stuffed to the jaw with grass, but are they feeding you too much wachuma? You are a gift FOR the gods. Us!!
Well specifically for my Mama Pacha.”
“What?”
“Jesus Siddharta Christ, ok listen. Your people think that by giving us your life force, attractive as that sounds, it will keep us from shaking the earth and spitting fire from the mountains. They don’t seem to understand that we cannot stop from doing that as much as you cannot stop yourself from bleeding every moon cycle. These things are not driven by emotion, they are just how we are. You guys are not displeasing us, I mean we barely notice you exist. My Mama Pacha is absorbing countless fluctuations over every nuance of space time. The constant stress affects her at different points and creates fluctuations in this World, which is why the ground rumbles in this time — err, i guess in every time. It’s crazy what we witness. Have you even thought about what its like to deal with a fuckin Brontosaurus stampede in the middle of the monsoon season?
Never mind.
Ok so, as compensation for this stupidity, we are trying at the very least to give you the ability to see existence as a god since you are going to have a very short life as a human.”
“WHAT?!”
“Yeah sorry, they didn’t tell you. But clearly you have known. Your life as this human is going to be short. There is nothing you can do and nowhere you can go. And I cannot help you, I can barely even see you right now.
“We gods simply exist in the universe the same way you do. We see what your people do and where they are going. We see how they will thrive and how they will die. And in the end it all makes sense. It is how it is supposed to be. Your people’s sacrifices, wars, sorrows, and love — that is your own coming to terms with and growing in the primal nature of existence. And we will not touch that.
“But you and those of you who must give their lives for this self-realization, we feel you deserve more. I can’t believe nobody told you this yet! Ok so the deal is you will be killed by your people next Solstice. But once that happens your conscience will continue to travel for eternity. I’ll let you in on a little secret — there are a select few of you that get to do this and you people do not even know. When you die your conscience gets put in a whole new being, and it could be anyone — a Sapa Inca, a cuy, a wooly mammoth, a Jehovah’s Witness. It is like an assembly line of conscience, whatever is needed is where we put it. But you, there is something in your journey. You have jumped so often and done so much that it is time for you to gain full awareness. Not until you understand, truly understand, but I promise you that as you hop from being to being we will try and guide you to places that will give you the answer. You won’t be a god either, in that your actions won’t make the ground shake or the mountains spit fire, but you will get to experience the conscience of the universe like us and carry it with you through every life. We’ll be buds! Just have to die first. Sounds good?”
— — — — —
She faints. She wakes up on the back of her neighbor’s Llama as dawn breaks. She has hypothermia and barely survives the following night. She slowly recovers and is kept imprisoned in her room with her six little shithead fake friends as they clamor to find something to talk about in the long long hours of the day. She says nothing if she can, because when she feels compelled to engage with them she gets the worst of headaches. She chomps on coca leaves like that weird four legged Inti creature eats grass.
Her parents taught her that to die in the service of the gods was to go to a place better than this life, but she had seen death — in the final blink of an elder’s eye, in the last desperate twitch of a slaughtered alpaca — it did not look like a fun journey, and the destination seemed too horrific to let enter the mind. She wouldn’t comprehend it, nor this crazy promise that the Inti had left her.
Fear gives her strength to heal, physically. Her parents come to her bedside and whisper sweet tunes in her ear. They speak of a great journey to the home of the Sapa Inca, the corporeal son of the great Inti. She says nothing. They think she is traumatized by the near brush with death, and it gives them an ironically comforting distraction from the reality of what is to come…
A week passes. And then into the black of early morning washes a gallant firelit train — royal guards, high priests, golden llamas, ayllu elders from all over the horizon, men beating drums, and she, on top of the caravan pyramid, adorned in flowers, deep set on throne, and silent, feigning no emotion,
having none to feign.
As the cadence beats and the skies brighten, her blank stare rests in the distance, in the gap between Ampato and the ceaseless smoke plume of Sabancaya, where the Inti had come to her. Soon he has risen behind her and the caravan, but once again he has nothing to say….
II
Tupac Inca Yupancui, son of the Great Earth-Shaker Pachacuti, 5th of his family line, and offspring to the Great Grass-Chomping Inti himself, is a warrior and not one for ceremonies. He preferred the vigor of the battlefield, conquering Chimu lands in his father’s name, rather than sitting on golden stools and letting people speak grand words in his honor. But his father passed into Hanan Pancha last season and now the duty was his. So he treated it with respect to go along with the reluctance.
He stares at the eight children, different ages and from different regions, sitting evenly spaced in the circular dining chamber of his royal palace. They are all propped on plush benches with alpaca wool cloaks piled on top to bring them just below eye level of the great Sapa Inca. His eyes settle on Hers, but Hers are staring at the other children, one by one. “She looks for something in the others. She has great emptiness in herself”, he thinks. She is dead already. He had seen the gaze many times before.
Her eyes travel slowly over each of the other children’s — long and with intent. The seven others talk amongst themselves in frivolous laughter and occasionally return her gaze. She had built up a frantic energy not seen since before the encounter with her god. These children must be destined for the same fate as she was. Had they seen the inti too? She needed to know. Could she just ask??
Let’s give it a shot. She turns to the boy to her right — younger than her, probably 9 or 10. Face pockmarked with sweet humita crumbs and red from laughter. “Where are you from?”
“Oh she speaks! I thought maybe the ground had swallowed your voice?” She is expressionless. His red face turns noticably pale but his smile persists. “I am from here, well close to here. Ullantaytampu, in the valley. That’s my father over there.” He points to a well-adorned man sitting near the end of the table straddling the Sapa Inca’s throne. “He is very important.” The boy’s father notices his son’s attention and waves at him with a kind grin. “Where is your father?”
“He is in the other chamber. They would not let him sit in here. He is important too in my ayllu.”
“Ayllu?? Ok. Well where is your ‘ayllu’ from?”
“I’m not sure. We came here on the south highway. Many days walk, maybe 20 or 25. I live amid the volcanoes in the south.”
The boy scrunches his nose. “That’s far. No wonder you do not speak much, your voice has to catch up to you!” He breaks into laughter, and the other kids follow. She resists at first, but soon can’t help but join in.
“You are very pretty!” Says the girl next to the boy and for the first time She shows an uncontrollable grin, and before long she joins in on the frivolity. Very unlike her, but the more of the strange brew she drank as part of their meal, the less she cares.
The next morning she wakes up with a splitting headache. Mama gives her a large jug of water and soon she is ushered into the court chamber for yet another round of feasts and endless cups of the same brew. This pattern repeats itself for another moon cycle, day after day, and it does not lose its fun. She craves the brew every morning after her jug of water. The other children too. After dozens of episodes, they feel one and the same. Happy, content, on top of a mountain facing the entire world. Inti? What inti? She had been dreaming incessantly since arriving in court. The encounter facing the two mountains soon bleeds into the anthology of visions she had already witnessed.
“Papa says we are all taking the south highway to the land of volcanoes!” The boy, ecstatic, finds you in the hall near the court with this news. “We are going to your home!”
“All of us? How strange.”
III
How strange.
What is this life. What is this being. I vaguely remember being a girl. Playing ball with my cousins. Lying in grass with our favorite Alpaca. I had parents I think. I don’t know. What are parents? Isn’t everyone my parent? I have these friends. Who are they? Are they friends? What are friends? Did we not spend eternity together? What is this journey? I’m so cold. What is this smoke?
What is this smoke?
To dilated pupils, the plume of smoke coming out of the crater of Sabancaya took on a life of its own. Squirming, tumbling on itself, reaching to the heavens with outstretched arm, and then dissolving into the body of the existence that created it. She was bewildered. She wanted to touch it.
“Amaña puriychu!!” The priest grabs her arm as she begins to step into the void of the crater. He is visibly embarrassed by the outburst, and looks in bowed head to the other seven priests, standing behind each child on the edge of the great Sabancaya crater, as he raises a humble hand to calm the situation. The children, wide eyed and in their own realities, do not notice. The priest next to the boy continues the recitation.
“It’s so cold” mutters the boy. She agrees.
My good friend, it is cold. The feeling of cold, it’s — amazing. It hurts but nobody is hurting you. Nobody is trying to harm you. It just is, and you are inside of it. Does it really hurt? What if we were told it does but it doesn’t?
She begins undressing. Taking off her poncho. Her priest, exasperated, gently grabs her half removed cloak and guides it back on. “Samay, samay.” He caresses her head.
The recitation continues. She stares into the void of the crater.
I remember now… on my 10th birthday papa said “my love, you are the Illary. I look into your emerald eyes and I feel like I just met you. I look into your face and the sun rises in the middle of the day. I want to be your shepherd for as long as I breathe but you don’t belong to me and I cannot protect you. You are a gift for the gods.” I thought nothing of what he said because the earth was trembling and that was all I could hear. Roaring in my head… screams of rock haplessly carving rock, not by choice but by physics, hundreds of miles below my feet. My papa gazed at me with sad wanting eyes, and it was for naught because in my head all I could hear was the fucking scalding screams of the earth. I was 10, I think.
That is my last first memory.
The eternal plume of smoke from Sabancaya is the only significant visage of her reality. It wavers from sharp to blurry as her mind fades. Bound in hand and foot and with no strength to even try to alter her position, she lies on frosty rock and stares. With a mustering of strength she yells “Atau! Do you see this?!” But the boy is nowhere to be seen. Neither is her priest, nor the others, no one. She is completely alone, except for the four legged spotted creature with small horns, now curled up across from her, staring at her, mouth still slowly chomping on grass, in rhythm to her slowing heartbeat. “No! Nooo…” She turns her limp head to him, and a wave of dread fills her body as she realizes the vision and prophecy were true. Immediately, a voice speaks to her in her mind “Don’t be afraid child. Your journey begins here, and I will be by your side when you need it.”
Like an extinguisher to flame she calms, and lets the Inti lift her from the incessant shiver of rock, and into the void.
IV
She stands, silent, stoic, staring at the sunrise next to Wat Doi Suthep Temple over Chiang Mai. Jonah’s hand on her heart. Young Jaarik, running around with unflickering passion… somewhere. Ehh, he’ll be alright.
Across time and space immeasurable to the mind of that young corpse left on Sabancaya, she had woken up and faced the same uncertainties, same convoluted wrestling with the relentless self-made algorithm of identity. But she is beginning to understand. Not bad for a journey of six centuries. Or was it six million?? Ehhh….
“The skies are strange this morning”, Jonah squints at the horizon. “Like an — extra dark purple.”
“Yeah something is definitely off.” She had been hesitant to acknowledge it until Jonah spoke, but there was a trembling of the Earth, louder than she had ever felt in this life. “I felt something different as soon as we stepped out of the car.”
Jonah clears the lump in her throat. “Do you think — ” the temple loudspeaker interrupts her with an immediate answer to the question they both were too afraid to ask. As they pile to the car and rush back home — green-suited military men popping out of every street corner, throngs of people grouped around tv screens or staring in unison at smartphones, every eye illuminated by the ultra-filtered fluorescent glow of dozens of live-streaming nuclear fusions broadcast along the Pacific Rim — they both silently hold trembling hands, and prepare for the next chapter.
Jaarik, in a giddy frenzy, breaks the silence, jumping out of his car seat and perching on the cupholders between the two.
“Mār! (มาร)”
“Mār!”
