When I drank the juice of the cactus, I lost control of my will and limbs. I slept with my sister, and all sorts of ills befell my kingdom.
Tula, the capital city, was thrown into disarray and chaos swallowed our lives. Young and old men at war against one another, their brothers and fathers. I have been wandering the earth and the sky for one thousand years. I was a fish in the wide sea, a turquoise bird and a morning star.
And now, as I comb my long black hair, close to the statues my people erected as guardians of our heritage, people from far-away lands come and take pictures of our pyramids and the ruins of our civilization.
I am only a woman earning her bread this time. A long-haired woman sitting in the shade and waiting for the next visitors to lead. I show them the National Park of Tula. They gape at my vast knowledge of hidden details and ask how it is possible. They congratulate me. They look around narrowing their eyes, as if they could extract knowledge from the ancient stones I point to. But they can’t, because it is not in them: they don’t know what it is like to follow the eagle’s flight, as it circles high up in the sky; or to find delight in the blue, purple and green wings of a giant butterfly, hovering in mid-air in a warm summer afternoon.
My knowledge comes from the thunderstorm and the desert, the wind and the ocean. My
knowledge comes from my ancestors, sleeping in their tombs, and from the earth and the sky.
For I watch the line of the horizon, where heaven and earth meet. In my wanderings, I have known pain and joy, love and loss, happiness and sorrow, relief and care.
This time, I have come back as an unassuming, pleasant tour guide. Tourists ask me about our customs. Did we really perform human sacrifices? I was the one who chose to sacrifice only snakes and birds. This is the crux that weighed down our civilization. My men fought for the sake of freedom from fear and ritual death. But how strange it is today for me to speak about it all as if nothing really mattered, about long-bygone ages and warring factions. How strange when tourists read their guidebooks and ask bookish questions: for, once, this dumb city was
alive, and the voices of children and women resounded within its walls.
I smile as I point to the four directions; Yankees nod and take their last pictures. The sun is setting down on the plateau. The ancient basalt warriors stand still, preserving their secrets.
At twilight, when I say goodbye to my last group of visitors, I sit on the top-most step of what is now called Pyramid C, at the very centre of the archaeological site. I will go back to sleep in an empty tomb, dreaming of the past age of glory and folly. Maybe, it is better so. Maybe, it is better to be here today, just an ordinary woman, a witness, a reticent bearer of secrets.
My people are still waiting for my return. They would not believe it, if I told them I am here,
and I have been here among them for some time. Quetzalcoatl is a hero, a warrior, a king, right? Little do they know about the mysteries of the human soul: why we need to go away, to flee or to forget, and why we keep coming back, although in ever new forms. Life is change and transformation; death a passage, and an initiation… but this age does not listen to the natural stirrings and knowing of the soul.
