A Tiny Monument

   

       

    Click.

    It is a cruel omnipotence which bedevils petty lives.

    Click.

    Here, at the end of days, Nahua's thoughts flew out over the sparkling waves.  How could something so beautiful deliver so calamitous a time as these past few months?  Click.  Had they strayed so far from Quetzalcoatl's divine plan?

    The waves broke upon a distant cliff face.  Such power.  It could be no surprise that it might manifest itself in ways beyond these beaches and inland-- All the way to the heart of Aztlan, all the way to Tenochtitlan's gates.  Click.  Nahua stacked another small stone just beyond the reach of the foaming surf which licked the sand.

    They had fought the conquerors, but what use was there in fighting an enemy in league with the heavens, with Tlaloc, God of the sea, of the rain, of storms and of thunder?  How do you defeat an enemy who was borne by Huitzilopochtli's hand to your door?  Who rode mythical beasts into battle, and whose very presence seemed to sap the strength and life of not just warriors, but of women and children as well?  Entire villages had met their end without even a struggle.  It was as if some malevolence preceded them.

    Click.

    The waves crept ever closer to Nahua's tiny monument.  When they reached it, it would be toppled and swept away, dragged into limitless depths.  It would be gone and forgotten, like him and everything he had known.  How small it had all been.  How terribly small.  Anger welled from within him.  He jumped up and shouted in the face of the merciless gods.  "You have taken everything from a people to whom you were sacred!  What is this?! Punishment?!  Have we stumbled once to be forsaken by you?! "  He hurled the rocks that he hadn't yet placed and beat his chest at the sea.  He laughed scornfully as the weight of these final days squeezed such vehemence from his lungs.  "You will NOT win!  You CANNOT!  By destroying your people you destroy yourselves!  Already, they topple your likenesses.  Do you think that they will serve you?"

    Spent, Nahua dropped again to his knees and wept over his project.  The first stone, the largest, had been placed for his gods.  The second for his ancestors.  He had placed the third for his people.

    The tide just brushed the god stone.  Their time was near.  The fourth stone he had set for his family, now lost.  Fifth, the smallest yet, was for Nahua himself.  The water deepened briefly around this shrine and again withdrew, foam clinging to the edges of the rocks.  Before he had thrown his remaining pebbles at the sea, he had intended to place a final for them all and their afterlives...But there was no use.

    Suddenly, Nahua felt a great exhaustion.  The grief which enveloped his heart turned to a pity for all things.  His life and those of the gods, even the conquistadors.  They would inherit this world now, and it was one devoid of stability.  One that was tossed from one great power to the next without rhyme or reason.  May this Jesus Christo, this Spaniard's God, have better luck than those before him.

    The incoming surf rattled the last bastion of the Aztecs.  Nahua stood and stared across the ocean's undulating hide.  "I forgive you, Quetzalcoatl.  And you, Huitzilopochtili, who have been driven from this place.  Finally, I forgive you, Tlaloc.  We shall all vanish together."

    With that, he rose and strode mightily into the rushing waves.  In a moment, he would be gone.  A moment more, and a civilization would follow him.