Dinner
out in the Yucatán
Rowena
blew dust from the stone tablet.
"Look
here." She pointed at some blurred characters.
"I
can't read them," I replied, "these are pre-Mayan. No one
can read this script."
"I
know," she replied, brushing a lock of hair away from her face.
"But last night I dreamed about a stone city. I read this
inscription on a temple gate. Listen."
As
she recited the alien syllables I felt that I almost understood them,
that I knew the dread city of which she spoke.
I
clapped my hands over my ears. "Stop!"
"People
stood around an altar. A priest cut out your heart with a gold
knife. The heart was given to me." I looked at her, but she
turned away. "I ate it. You were dead."
"We
should leave,” I said. “Now."
I
seized her arm, but she slipped out of my grasp, darting through a
door that gaped nearby. I ran after her. She eluded me among the
shafts of light and darkness. When I came to a courtyard I was
surprised to see her standing there beside a stone table the height
of her chest.
"This
is the place," she whispered, "this is where I saw you
slaughtered."
"That
was a dream."
Even
as I said this I thought I remembered the scene she had described,
and I felt something stir within me. Her sorrowful expression
changed to one I could not interpret.
I
was on my back. I tried to tell her that I needed food, that I felt
hungrier than I ever had, but no words came. I sat up. I caught her
hands and tried to explain, but she would not listen, trying to pull
free, and shouting. I gave up on talk. There was no time for that
now. Hunger was all I had, my vision shrank to a blurry point, and I
could do nothing but fill my belly.
I
came to my senses on the open hillside. My shirt was wet. The sun
set in a welter of crimson and ragged shreds of cloud. A couple of
Mayan youths in shorts and dirty shirts stood near. I called to
them, but when they approached me their faces changed and they fled.
I struggled to my feet, felt the awful hunger returning. Maybe the
young men would give me food. I stumbled after them in the gathering
dusk.
Publ. Daily Cabal
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