by Rhys Hughes
“As the first one struck us, we were smashed to pieces. I fell down among the sacks of flour and seeds. For an instant, my eyes made contact with those of one of the creatures, as they left us behind. But he was not focusing on me. He turned his head, listening, and then he shrugged and withdrew from the side. As we sank, I cried out in prayer. I begged all the gods, one at a time, to save us. But we were too far from our own domain for them to hear. Not even Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of water, was in control here. We had ventured further than destiny permitted. That is all.
“But I continued with my desperate pleadings. I even petitioned Miclantecuhtli, ruler of the underworld, for a painless death, if that was the best we could hope for. He also was deaf to me, thankfully. Finally, because there was no alternative, I prayed to myself. I was, after all, an honorary god. I had no notion of what might happen. The exact workings of this process were unimaginable. It was an act of creating myself anew, a miracle comparable only to the wonders of Ometeotl, the greatest god, the force which casts many shadows which we also worship as gods.
“All the other gods are really only aspects of this supreme deity. It was logical to assume that this was also true of myself. Ometeotl can accomplish almost anything. Thus I felt a sudden surge of joy and hope. I asked myself to provide salvation. The request was poorly worded; the results wholly selfish. I felt my body change. Not without pain, I was transformed into the being who now stands before you. I did not question my new identity, but I was unable to help my crew. They drowned as I soared off into the sky. Flying came naturally to me, but it was exhausting. Then clouds descended and I knew that a storm was approaching.
“My heightened senses were overwhelmed with messages of impending catastrophe. I had flown far before the lightning struck me. My wings were damaged beyond repair and I spiralled down. But I did not land in the sea. I struck soft sand and rolled into a deep sleep. When I awoke, the sky was clear. I was marooned on a tiny island, devoid of vegetation and animal life. It was a perfect circle, fifty paces in diameter. I sat on a rock and shaded my head with a broken wing. A few seeds had been caught in my feathers. They fell to the ground. But I did not grasp the significance of this lucky accident.
“Because I was a proper god now, a brand new god, it was not essential for me to eat or drink. I felt the pangs of hunger and thirst, and later their agonies, for I was not carved from stone, but they did not kill me. For all I knew, I was immortal. In time I did receive a little food and liquid, but before the rains came, I lapped sea water. It drove me mad, but I survived. The downpour was fresh and washed my plumage. I slaked my thirst. Although I was ignorant of the fact, those first pure droplets activated the seeds in the sandy soil. I slept in the exact centre of the island, balancing on one leg, because I felt that was my duty. I was still largely ignorant of the parameters of my identity. I did not think to count away the days. And so the weeks passed. Then one morning I had a garden. I tended that garden, because it became my only chance of escape.
“Have you ever tried to build a raft from vegetables? I doubt it! It may be easy with asparagus, which can be woven, but I had none of that. I had to lash avocados, potatoes and tomatoes together with their own fibres. Many others must be peeled and these skins pinned together with stalks to create a sail. My leg acted as a mast. I lay on my back on the raft, my foot raised vertically until it ached itself to numbness. I used my arms as paddles. The first vessel sank not more than a dozen strokes from the island. I swam back and tended the garden for another year and tried again. The second raft went twice as far before it sank. My third effort was devoured from beneath by migrating eels before it was halfway to the horizon. The seasons passed. Every year I grew a new raft. Sometimes I saw more of those floating mountains in the distance. They came and went but never approached my shore.
“With the passing of time they changed shape. They became sleeker, harder. Now they belched smoke, like volcanoes. Later still, they had no smokes and no sails. But my main fear was that a sudden storm might sink my raft at a distance too far from my island to swim back. Then I should drown and sink to the bottom. As I pondered the danger, I realised that the solution lay beyond this fate, not before it. My lungs would fill with water, true, but I could not die. I was a god. Once on the seabed, all I had to do was choose a direction and begin walking.
“It would not be easy, but few miracles are. Eventually I would reach a continent which was connected to my own land. If not, I could simply walk across other oceans until I did. I hooted in anguish at all the time lost building rafts from vegetables. Without waiting for doubts to expand in my mind, which would lighten my head and make me too buoyant to sink, I walked into the gentle waves. The water slapped my thighs, belly, chest and throat like a playful wife. The first surge into my mouth was the worst. It shocked me out of a dream, or would have done if I had been asleep.
“I felt more keenly aware of my own being, its inner workings and empty spaces. I swallowed as much as I could and then pretended to die. I walked and kept going. The descent was not gradual or smooth. I had to hop down in stages, over the lips of vast cliffs onto equally large plateaux. The pressure increased to an unbearable level, but I had the endurance of a god, and it is they who operate the sea. So I did not despair at its power; I struggled onward. The filtered sunlight finally became soupy shadow, then granulated night, and I met strange creatures which carried their own lamps.
“I caught some of these, holding them out before me like torches. If they struggled too hard, I bit their heads off. Often they were placid. When I reached the abyssal plain, I was vaguely astonished at the amount of life beneath my feet. There were countless scuttling things just below the seabed. And tiny worms, millions of them. I stumbled over manganese nodules in the claustrophobic gloom. And iron ornaments too. Where had these come from? Had Chalchiuhtlicue fashioned them and discarded them here? Were they the utensils of an unborn civilisation, a replacement for our own?
“In time I came upon a submerged hill so peculiar that I still do not trust my memory on the issue. It too was iron, but perfectly angular, with bolts protruding from its edges. It leaned a little, but its summit was flat, containing three conical objects, little volcanoes, which rose at slanted angles and spewed little fish. I only saw it in the murk because it was swarming with those lantern creatures. Great holes had been knocked in the side, or else these were the mouths of natural caves. You think this is strange? It is nothing compared with what I witnessed next. A giant ball hanging on a cable, with a single eye which threw a beam of powerful light over the seabed!
“I feared I might be lanced by that ray, and perhaps blinded, temporarily at least. But it settled on the iron hill and fixed itself there. Was this the eyeball of Ometeotl? I watched for an hour, until it rose back up on its cable, presumably to the surface. I pushed on. I came to a cliff at last. I ascended slowly, resting on each ledge, beating my sodden wings to propel me between isolated handholds. There were caverns in the sides of this cliff, tunnels which probably led back down into the centre of the very planet. Once I entered one and roosted on a stalagmite. But I dared not venture too far inside.
“I resumed my climb. I broke into the air, crawled up to a beach. For long hours I flexed the muscles of my abdomen and chest, squeezing the dark water out of my belly and lungs. The salt was thick and painful in my incorruptible blood. I stood and surveyed my surroundings. My disappointment will be legendary. I had not reached a continent, merely another island! It was scarcely bigger than the one I had escaped from, and equally barren. I knew I should have to return to the deeps. I was overwhelmed with fear. Not fear of the unknown, but a genuine dread of repeating a vile experience. Yet I had no choice.
“Back in the abyss I was struck with an odd thought. What if the appliances of civilisation had not yet reached their ultimate form? What if the obsidian mirror, reed boat and wooden sledge were not the final products of invention? An absurd notion, but of many doubts this one hurt me the most. Technology
is a gift of the gods and used by mankind to placate them. Anything that has been revealed in such a way cannot be improved. As a god myself, I should have been confident that this fact was unarguable. But I continued to wonder about it during most of my long seabed pilgrimage, at least until the underwater earthquake struck.
“It was an astounding event, perhaps akin to swallowing a stomach and having it digest you, rather than the reverse. Naturally the stomach must be turned inside-out first. Anyway, I was in the middle of an enormous plain. Two weeks earlier I had crossed an oceanic ridge through its highest, brightest pass, where a slab of stone blocked a mysterious vent and shrimps died in their thousands around it, but now all was flat and dreary. There was a constant rain of particles, shreds of fish and other decayed creatures from above.
“I might as well confess that I often dined on these. It is shameful, but a fact remains so, even in hindsight, and when you are a god. Then the water around my ears, which was usually very cold, suddenly grew hot. An invisible current caught me up and I felt a dull booming in every feather and sinew of my body. I was sucked along at a furious rate. The seabed had shaken itself open and a giant crack twisted itself along the floor of the abyss. The currents were not simple. I was convected high over the fault, so that I could peer down into it.
“The red throbbing glow of rising magma was like the clotted blood which pumps out of a dead heart when it is being massaged between the thighs of an errant serving girl who works in the temple of Tlaloc. There is always one! I had resigned myself to a vanishing act which involved sinking into the molten core of the world and burning forever. No, that is a lie. Not even a god may resign himself to that. But as I said, the eddies were more chaotic and elaborate than I might fathom. I passed over the hellish canyon and out of the region of boiling water and smoke, descending gently as I reached a zone of cold water, back to the featureless abyssal desert.
“That was not the only natural catastrophe in which I was involved. Once a whirlpool opened above my head. That was when I had climbed out of the abyss and reached a continental shelf. The water here was relatively shallow. Suddenly I was at the narrow end of a funnel which exposed me to the open air. I thought the release of pressure might detonate my skull. But the maelstrom was sealed. A giant disc of clear glass was wedged at its top. Through it, I could see distant people made even smaller. A bizarre experience.
“But I continued walking. Another few days and I passed an incomprehensible, but certainly sunken, city. Two men gestured at each other in the distance. One carried a tool made of two hinged blades. I avoided them, as I try to avoid all unreasonable mysteries. It was clear that I was deluded. My fatigue had caused me to hallucinate. When I finally reached land which did not belong to an island and crawled ashore and asked the first man I met for directions to Tenochtitlan, he shrieked and ran away. It was almost as if he had never heard of the place! The greatest city in the world!
“I walked further and always met with the same response. The skin of these people was very white and unhealthy. They were idiotic ghosts. As I proceeded, their appearance and character slowly altered. But still their actions betrayed ignorance of our mighty capital. It was confusing. I asked instead for Montezuma, to no avail. Onward I went, finally crossing below another stretch of water, to a land of ice and deer with branches growing out of their heads. At last people seemed to vaguely recognise the name of our emperor in my mouth, but they always said ‘Mexico! Mexico!’ and pointed south. I followed this direction and the climate grew milder.
“In many ways, this overland journey was more terrible than the undersea one. Before, I had been alone. Now I was continually assailed by groups or individuals who seemed to hold a grudge against gods. Stones shattered my broken wings. I was struck by a pellet from a stick which barked fire. But the land began to look more familiar. And now when I repeated that strange mantra ‘Mexico! Mexico!’ the people pointed with their fingers lower and lower toward the ground, so that I knew I was nearing my destination. Whether this destination turned out to be the same as the city of Tenochtitlan still remained to be discovered. When I broached its suburbs, I thought not. Now I know it is, and I extend my gratitude to you all for making it so . . . .”
He has finished and the silence seems like disembodied anger. The people watching him are experimenting with expressions. Already they have tried most of them, at least those available to humans. When he began speaking, they were attentive. Then their concentration detached itself elsewhere. Now it comes back into focus but sharpened not on the stone of interest. Rather, they are dismayed, wearied. One of them yawns.
“Well, that was extremely boring!”
“Was he trying to talk like an owl? He made a poor job of it. But full marks to him for effort. He certainly tries to keep in character.”
“Tries too hard, if you ask me. Who exactly is under there?”
“I don’t think he’s one of my friends.”
“Whose friend is he? Maybe he’s a gatecrasher!”
They chuckle and the hostility fades. Then the priestess steps forward and offers him something. He notices for the first time that her hands are flecked with paint. He gazes into her eyes. They outpierce even his own. She is beautiful and strong. Her nose is also hooked like a beak. She is discreetly remembering his proportions. He understands that she is giving him one of her own pictures.
He examines it. For a moment, it seems an abstract jumble of colours and shapes. It is not a codex, with stylised figures and symmetrical format. It is loose in composition. Then he realises it is a miracle, a product of belated prophecy. It depicts the floating mountain which sank his original boat. Every detail is the same, even down to the silver men who gather at the rails.
Somebody shouts: “Which one have you given him, Remedios?”
And she answers: “The arrival of Cortés!”
“A shocking theme! A day of lamentation and progress!”
In a daze, he carries his gift back to his throne. He sits and holds it before him, studying its contents obsessively. It is too beautiful. His difficulties have truly been understood. Here is the proof. Even before he related his history, his people must already have guessed it. He feels ready to drown himself again, in this sea, perhaps more usefully than before. He kisses the paint, does not taste salt. Held so close to his huge eyes that the painting forms his entire horizon, he might really be sinking into it. Then he hears singing, the fabled result of all drownings. He is exultant, fearful and disabused.
No, the strange flower has been coaxed into life again. But now its music is slower, more sombre and restrained. His people must be exhausted, for they no longer throw themselves wildly about the room. They cling to each other instead, in pairs, generally one man and one woman. They move very gradually, swaying their hips and barely lifting their feet. He rests his gift on his lap and watches them. He nods in time to the music. His priestess is clutching a man with a hairy face and a spiked helmet. Then they are pressing lips, feeding off each other.
Soon the other couples copy them, spontaneously, as if this is a natural consequence of dancing with so little vitality. They start to leave the chamber, holding hands. He listens to them tripping lightly down the passage, through the portals and into the night. The barrier slams. He sits still, curious to know what this ritualised departure signifies. The room is almost empty now, but still he sits quietly. His priestess and her man are the last two mortals left. The flower finishes its last song and lapses into silence. Then the girl too is gone, leading her companion out, but through the other door. He hears them climbing up. They are in the mysterious room directly above him.
He hears laughter and other noises. There is a rhythmic squeaking which grows faster, then a moan, a sequence of gasps. Then silence. The sacrificial area must be on the roof of his temple! But no, it sounds as if they have slain each other! How can they both be sacrifices? A god may forget simple things. He will wait to see who brings the heart of the other. He hopes the girl is the a
ggressor. He waits. The gift grows heavy on his knees. He waits and the candles burn down and out. He is sitting alone in the dark. He does not adjust his position. The smell of spilled drink comes to him each time he inhales deeply. He sits alone. The truth is that religious rituals can be a chore. He sits alone and waits.
Tin in the Soul
So there I was and here I am. The hills were flatter but the valleys were steeper, meaning that the landscape changed itself but not my blisters. Crafty of it, and bleeding selfish too, if it’s me you ask, and it ought to be, for nobody else had my experience in that place at that precise instant. Not nice, my leaking feet. Enough to put one off washing socks for life, those stains, which really belonged in my toes. More than enough, indeed, in both directions of time, which covered my previous neglect of laundry matters.
I had departed the forest of giant toadstools outside Lladloh with a violent sneeze and a mild case of puffball poisoning, for paths there were none, and I had to clamber over the fungi, dislodging spores. The village in question had rejected me, so I turned my back on that uncivil shambles, with its dripping roofs and lurking shadows and mouldy folks, and returned to the wandering life, my heart no lighter than my stomach, which suggests I was glum, for I had recently devoured an unforgettable sandwich and was perilously stuffed.
Now if truth be known, and the honest sort of lie is my favourite, I could hardly walk properly. A bit to the east and a lot to the south was my bearing. Of adventures there were few and I sneaked around those before they noticed. I tarried no more than a single night in every town I entered, because I had no money to pay my bill at inns. But there was also a strange pull from the horizon. I wondered as I waddled. Men with too much education may explain the effect with magnets. But cutlery from the supper tables never followed me.
Soon I felt more at ease with my girth, thanks to my digestion and the exercise of fleeing from landlords, but the extra weight on my feet had done its damage. Sinking fast, they were, in all manner of soils. I came to softer ground and a relief it was, but not for my ears. A noise rumbled and tapped them on the lobes. Wax they had, but not sufficient. The notes pushed in. Most creepy tunes I know are wispy veils. This one throbbed. It was unearthly in the fashion of Uranus, massive and gassy, a swollen belly given sudden tongue.
