Humidifier

by J. B. Hogan

Part 1 and part 2
appear in this issue.

conclusion

* * *

Stephen and Lisa made a quick stop at the visitor’s center and then walked across the wide Avenue of the Dead. Down to their left the road ran towards the massive Pyramid of the Sun, located on the right or east side of the Avenue about halfway down to the Pyramid of the Moon, itself situated at the far, north end of the archaeological zone.

Climbing up, over, and down a set of steps leading to a wide field called the Ciudadela, featuring a series of low, symmetrically placed stone pyramid platforms, they walked eastwardly, towards the newer and older temples of Queztalcoatl, which were at the back of the expansive Ciudadela. Barely ten yards beyond the steps, the first of the never ending stream of souvenir and trinket vendors approached them.

“Obsidiana, cuartzo,” the first vendor described the black rock and clear glass objects he held up for their appraisal. “Barato, cheap. Good deal.”

“No, gracias, no,” Stephen said firmly, fending the vendor away from Lisa.

Stephen put his arm lightly on Lisa’s waist to guide her to the right toward the pyramid of Quetzalcoatl. As they walked, he stopping vendors with a wave or a few words, she drank in the physical environment of the Ciudadela — not yet looking to their left towards the majesty of the Pyramid of the Sun or beyond to the slightly lesser presence of the Pyramid of the Moon. He kept up a running monologue while she smiled happily, maybe hearing him, maybe too interested in the reality of the ruins to concentrate on a verbal summary of their history.

“This first one,” he said, pointing to the large pyramid at the back, right center of the Ciudadela, “was built on top of the old one. They didn’t discover it until they were restoring the front one. The old one is the really interesting one.” He pointed up ahead to their right. “It’s behind here.”

“Great,” she said, putting her arm through his. “How do you know so much about it?”

“I must’ve read it somewhere,” he said, not really knowing himself.

Next he led them on around the first pyramid, which they decided not to climb so they could go straight on to the old one.

“Oh, my gosh,” Lisa said as soon as the sculpture and architecture of the interior temple could be seen from the walkway that ran between the backside of the newer pyramid and the front of the old. “This is amazing.”

She hurried on ahead, stopping directly in front of the partially restored steps that had led in the vastly distant past to the top of the old pyramid where strange rituals had been performed. Rituals only incompletely remembered through archeological and historical speculation and in the blood running in the veins of Mexico’s remaining indigenous population.

“What are these heads?” she asked, pointing to an alternating pattern of sculpted figures running horizontally with each level of steps and vertically at the sides of the steps themselves.

“The ones with the circle eyes,” Stephen recited, “are Tlaloc, the water or rain god. The snake heads are Quetzalcoatl. He’s the number one god. The plumed serpent. La serpienta enplumada.”

“La serpienta enplumada,” she repeated. “What a beautiful name.”

“You should hear a native say it,” he told her. “I can’t do it justice. It’s a very beautiful name.”

They admired the old temple for several minutes more, she moving back and forth on the walkway to get different angles on the ancient ruin. He watched her with his own admiration.

She wore dark brown shorts that came almost to her knees, yet showed her well-exercised, shapely and nearly as dark legs. She worked hard to keep herself looking so buff and had succeeded very well indeed. Hardly anyone could guess her true age of thirty-three. Above the brown shorts she wore a white cotton, short-sleeved peasant blouse with a red and green butterfly embroidered above her right breast. Her medium-length, wavy brown hair hung to her shoulders and she wore dark sunglasses that hid her intelligent, light green eyes.

All in all, Stephen thought, she was at the peak of her womanhood: pretty, smart, successful. It was not surprising to him why she was so appealing. He couldn’t imagine any man not wanting to be with a woman like her.

“You wanna go on to the Pyramid of the Sun?” he asked when see seemed to have absorbed all that the present temple had to offer.

“Sure,” she said, following him down the walkway and then up and out onto the other side of the Ciudadela with its row of pyramid platforms facing a similar row directly across the large open field beyond the temple. They were halfway back to the Avenue of the Dead when she suddenly put her arm out to stop him.

“Wait,” she said, “listen.”

“What?” he asked, looking around the Ciudadela.

“Can’t you hear it?”

He listened intently, for what he didn’t know. He heard the cries of vendors, the conversations of tourists, the wind moving through the grass.

“There,” she said, “hear the wind?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s there. I feel it. I feel them. I see their history, the sacrifices, the priests, the people.”

He concentrated all his mental powers on seeing and hearing what she did.

“On the winds of time,” she said, eyes closed, “they’re still alive. Their spirits are still here.”

“Yes,” he said, not feeling but imagining the truth of her insight. In his mind he pictured the Ciudadela at its peak, its pyramids brightly painted, its spaces filled with flamboyantly dressed warriors, statesmen, priests, kings.

“What a terrible, beautiful place this has been,” she said, taking his hand unbidden. They stood still for a few moments, eyes closed, listening to the wind, listening to the past. Finally, the sharp cry of a nearby vendor broke the spell. They opened their eyes and looked at each other.

“Thank you for taking me here,” she smiled at him, squeezing his hand.

At the Pyramid of the Sun they stopped for several minutes admiring its massiveness and height. He slowly scanned it from its base to the very top.

“Too high up for me,” she admitted. “Good exercise, but heights bother me.”

“Me, too,” he confessed.

“Let’s go on to the Pyramid of the Moon,” she suggested, letting him off any hook he might have been trying to impale himself on.

“Right on,” he said. She laughed and took his arm.

“This is a little more like it,” he said when they had reached the symmetrical plaza fronting the Pyramid of the Moon.

“What went on in this area?” she asked.

“Supposedly,” he said, sweeping his left arm around to encompass the series of low side by side and facing platform-like pyramids in the plaza, “this was like a military and maybe religious parade ground, if you will. You can imagine the chiefs and priests of all the local tribes up on these flat-surfaced pyramids with all their warriors in formation at the bases.”

“It must have been spectacular,” she imagined.

“And really colorful, too, if the historians are right,” he added. “It would have really been something to see. As long as you weren’t being sacrificed, that is.”

“Yeah,” she smiled, “as long as.”

“Well, I’m going to go up the Moon,” he announced, “will you hold my backpack?”

“Sure,” she said, taking the day bag from him. “Go ahead. I’ll watch you.”

She stayed in the center of the plaza and watched him traverse the Pyramid of the Moon. At the first level of the pyramid he stopped, looked for her and finding her, waved. She waved back. From the second level of the pyramid he again waved at her. She waved back and indicated for him to come down. He signaled okay and after catching his breath began a careful descent.

“Coming down those steps,” he said when he had rejoined her on the plaza, “is pretty bad. It looks like you’re going straight down and the steps are really tall.”

“Let’s get something to eat and drink,” she suggested, taking his arm. “Besides I want to shop a little for souvenirs before we go.”

“Alright,” he said, “sounds good to me. But how about a picture first?”

“Okay,” she agreed, handing him her camera. “You take me and then I’ll take you.”

“Good deal,” he said.

After the picture taking, they had sodas and sandwiches at a little tienda at the head of a series of souvenir shops just outside the archaeological zone. They then spent a good hour or more going from shop to shop, her pricing, selecting, rejecting, sometimes buying up and down the souvenir row, him standing to one side, watching, laughing, admiring, frequently groaning as she purchased this or that mass produced “artifact.”

At the end of the tour, they climbed on board a big bus. Sitting together near the front, they held hands, she resting her head on his shoulder, the interested driver checking them out in his rearview mirror. A hot item. When Stephen caught the bus driver checking them out in the mirror, he smiled at the man and gave him the high sign. The driver smiled back knowingly and winked.

When they got back to town it was nearly dark and they climbed off the bus slowly, stiffly, quietly happy from their day at the great ruins. They walked past a cathedral near the drop off point and on to the zocalo, the pretty, park-like town square. They had a slow beer together at an outdoor restaurant.

“You’re a wonderful guide,” she said.

He slid his chair closer to her; leaned towards her for a kiss, but she turned so that he could only kiss her cheek. As he moved closer still, he felt an odd shaking, a peculiar drifting sensation, followed by what seemed a dark shadow drifting over, blocking, closing out his sight.

* * *

“Wake up, buddy,” he heard a man’s voice call to him. Then he felt the shaking again. Slowly he opened his eyes.

“Lisa?” he said, before his eyes focused completely. “You’re so won...”

“Easy, tiger,” the man’s voice said, very close by.

“Tom?” Stephen said. “What are you doing here?”

“He just got here,” Stephen heard Lisa say from just beyond his vision.

Crap, he thought, I must’ve been saying really stupid stuff coming out of my fever.

“Was I saying really stupid stuff when I came out of my fever?” he asked his friends.

Lisa moved into his line of sight. She and Tom exchanged a quick look.

“Oh, no,” she let Stephen off the hook. “You weren’t saying anything.”

“No?” he worried.

“Not since I got here,” Tom told him.

“You look like you’re going to be okay now,” Lisa said. “Now that Tom’s here, I think I better go. He can take care of you.”

“Thank you, Lisa,” Stephen said sincerely. “I’m sorry you had to go to so much trouble.”

“It wasn’t trouble, Stephen,” she said. “We’re friends. That’s what friends do for each other.”

“Thank you anyway.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Okay, Tom,” Stephen demanded of his friend almost the same moment Lisa exited Stephen’s apartment. “Was I blabbing stupid stuff about Lisa while I was out?”

“Well,” Tom drawled. “You might’ve called her name a couple of times.”

“Oh, jeez.”

“And you were mumbling about Mexico or something. What was that about? Did you have dreams?”

“I guess,” Stephen said.

Looking down at his wet shirt, he noticed a small wrapper and a small pin, the kind you put on the fronts of ballcaps, resting on his clothes. He pulled them out to look at them more closely.

“What do you have there?” Tom asked, seeing the items in Stephen’s hands.

Stephen looked at the wrapper. It said El Morro Chocolate. The pin was shaped like the Pyramid of the Sun. Along the bottom of it was the word Teotihuacan. A little chill ran down Stephen’s back. All he could think of then was getting into the bathroom to take a steaming hot bath or shower. He had to get cleaned up and warm.

“Nothing,” he told Tom, dropping the wrapper and pin under his wet covers. “Nothing at all.”

Stephen slowly rose from the couch, wrapping a wet sheet around his wet body and clothes.

“I gotta take a shower or something,” he said to Tom. “I gotta get squared away.”

“Sure,” Tom said, helping his friend stand up. “Sure you do.”