The God in the Clear Rock

by Lucian Randolph

CHAPTER EIGHT

  December 19, 2012 AD - 9:56 AM,

  2,600 Miles West of the Moondance

  15:56 GMT

  • • • • •

  In her dreams, she doesn’t know it’s a man.

  In her dreams, she is still a six-year-old girl. And to her, the man is not a man. He is a mythical beast of the jungle with skin the multicolor of leaves and bark. And the arms and legs of the mythical beast of the jungle are the same color as the pattern on the wondrous creature’s face. And the strange, dark staff that he holds in his hands, with the glowing red light on the top that silently spits fire out of the end, is covered in the same multicolor pattern of the beast of the jungle. Only the beautiful smile of the mythical creature is not the color of the jungle.

  And his eyes.

  His eyes are the color of the sky. But not the bright blue sky of a summer day. They are the dark gray sky of a foreboding God who has charged the mythical beast of the jungle to save the little girl with the black hair from the flash of light and boom in the night that hurt her ears for days so many years ago. And the jungle beast did save her. Then he rewarded her with chocolate and sent her home to be with her father. And then she is covered with a warm feeling of love.

  That’s how she remembered it in her dreams.

  But she knows that’s not really what happened. Marissé had never forgotten that night; not one minute or second of it. She had never forgotten how she ended up in the protection of the mythical beast of the jungle. She never knew how he had saved her, or what he had saved her from. She only knew that she had felt safe, even though she was frightened. She’d never felt that safe since then. She unconsciously reached up and felt the locket that was around her neck. It was the only piece of jewelry on her entire body. In fact, it was the only piece of jewelry she had in the entire camp. It was damn close to the only piece of jewelry she owned.

  She wasn’t that six-year-old girl any more. She was twenty-nine now, and that little girl was twenty-three birthdays earlier. Long before she returned to the jungles of her childhood home as a real archeologist, she knew that her mythical beast of the jungle was a soldier; most likely American. And she knew that the unknown soldier had saved her life from some threat, which was likely there because of him in the first place. But she also knew the kind soldier had made a great effort to save her life and make her feel safe; above and beyond what he needed to do.

  She had never forgotten that. That was the way Marissé was. It was just how her brain worked. Once it went in her head, it never came out. This was a skill that aided her immensely in her academic pursuit of the single-minded goal she’d had in her life since the time she was born on the green jungle peninsula of the Yucatan. Now that she had achieved that first goal, she was setting even higher goals where her single-minded focus would be valuable.

  The little black-haired girl, who ran around these very jungle hills and ruins as a child, had grown up to be a beautiful ebony-haired woman. And that woman now presided over an enormous archeological dig that was her very own. And the pyramid they were working on was one she discovered herself.

  Doctor Marissé Sanchez stood on the edge of a mountain of rubble inside the massive pyramid that her team of local Mayan descendants were unearthing for the first time in almost five-hundred years. As she looked down, she realized she didn’t have anything that could be used to wipe sweat off her dripping face. And at this moment, she was soaking wet from sweat. She was wearing a light brown tank top that was stained dark from her glistening olive skin. Long past being modest, Marissé had no bra under the thin cotton tank top. Her sweat made the wet material of the shirt mold closely to the skin of her torso and perfectly shaped breasts like blotchy skin-colored paint. Even in the humid jungle, she was beautiful. Her heritage, which was descended from the great people of her Meso-American home, had blended with the modern European genes which had been spreading over the globe during the last two millennia and produced a beauty of unequalled splendor, even among her own ancient peoples.

  Marissé was not just beautiful, she was stunning.

  And she would have looked like she belonged on the cover of National Geographic Magazine if it weren’t for the dusty black baseball cap pulled high on her head with the bright orange emblem of the University of Miami on the front of the cap. This made her look like she was a pitcher for a woman’s softball team.

  She reached down and grabbed the water bottle sitting next to her foot, unscrewed the cap and tossed back her head. The water gushed down her throat, slightly dripping down her chin as she extended her neck in an over exaggerated effort to help the bottle relinquish the last of its drops of purified liquid life.

  Then like a construction worker, she used her left forearm to wipe her mouth dry; leaving streaks of brown mud across both her face and her arm. She followed that with a loud pleasurable sigh. The only thing missing was a good belch to finish the image of a construction worker drinking a beer. Suddenly, Marissé’s eyes got really wide. Then, her body and torso tightened slightly, and she busted out a long manly burp.

  Now, the image was complete.

  Jacinto looked up from a few feet below her, where he was overseeing the workers removing the last of the boulders from the expansive entrance to the lower levels in the pyramid.

  “Nice one, Boss. You sure that’s not beer you have in that bottle?”

  Marissé was standing on the pile of rubble that her crew and Jacinto had been removing for the past week. She wanted to completely clear the entrance down into the levels below. She already knew what was down there. They’d been in and out of the lower levels for the entire week. It was a gruesome discovery. That was why she spent the last week taking the rubble out of the entrance rather than going back down below. Like her, she knew most of her crew were local descendants of the Mayans. Their ancestors were the ones who once built and inhabited this lost-city pyramid complex in the middle of the jungle of her homeland.

  So out of respect, and a desire to keep up morale, she limited access to the underground vaults and put her entire team on another task. Marissé did not care that it put her schedule back a week in digging. She knew these people needed time to come to grips with what they had seen with their own eyes. And clearing the forty foot wide entrance, which went from the main mezzanine to the subterranean complex below, was good physical work. Marissé hoped it would draw their attention away from the horrors that must be going through their minds. And it would give her a head start on preparations for a detailed archeological exploration of the layers of floors and rooms below them. She and Jacinto were planning to begin the first phase in just a few hours. She looked down at him now, after slowly relishing her gastric announcement.

  “No. After last night, no more cerveza… No mas, por favor.”

  Jacinto was still looking at up her and chuckled.

  “Ahhh Boss, they were Corona Lights. You’re such a pussy.”

  Marissé gave him a playfully scolding look. “Yes. But this pussy is still your boss and your professor… so shut-up and get back to work.” Then she pointed a long finger at him and shook it up and down.

  Jacinto went along with his verbal lashing. “As you say, Boss.” He turned and raised up his hand in a playful mock motion of swinging a bullwhip at the workers who were all a few feet below him, while making the noise of a snapping whip with his mouth.

  “Hurry up you slaves… Get back to work… You heard the Egyptian Pharaoh Princess from Mayan Mérida… She says you’re not working fast enough.” His whipping motions became even more exaggerated.

  Marissé looked around and smiled genuinely. The humor was doing everyone some good. The men were finally smiling and talking again while they worked. Jacinto was still turned toward the diggers and pretending to beat them with a bullwhip. When he looked back at his professor and mentor, she quickly dumped the smile and put on a scolding look of a disappointed teacher.

  “Jacinto, I need to check your transcripts again for
your history prerequisites. You’re confusing all my loyal subjects here by telling them the Egyptian Pharaohs knew of the Mayans. And although I do love the comparison to Cleopatra… it’ll be me who’s holding a real bullwhip if you don’t get the last of this rubble cleared from my beautiful parquet floor. So I can look at the splendor of my magnificent entrance to the basement down below. Where my friend, and historically challenged pupil, you and I will be going very shortly to finish checking out—”

  Marissé had begun speaking like a saint on a mountain during her mini-monologue. But she suddenly stopped when she realized what she was about to say. The last thing she needed right now was to get everyone thinking about it, again. She quickly recovered and smiled earnestly at him this time. Then she pointed her finger, again.

  “What you might be able to finish your PhD on.”

  Jacinto gave her an understanding smile in return. He knew what was bothering her. Everyone at the camp had been troubled by what they found below. But he also knew that it was his job to go down there with his friend and professor to help her find an explanation for what all of them had seen. He stuck his hands out and shrugged.

  “What? You mean I don’t just get my degree ‘cuz I agreed to come out here in this overgrown Land-of-the-Lost with you?”

  “Look, mi Cubano consentido, nobody gets a free ride from me. No matter how much you try to ply me with Corona beer… light or not.”

  Just then, the rock pile Marissé was standing on gave way. A foot-sized stone slid forward and down taking her right boot with it. She stuck out her arms and the now airborne foot, then tried to catch her balance on her left leg. She leaned forward and then to the side. Then she twisted back to the front, like a doll bending at the waist. Slowly, she stretched out and arched slightly to the left before she caught her balance. When she finally stopped moving, she was leaning forward with her hands stretched out to the sides, and the balancing leg was stuck out to the back. She looked like a gymnast on the beam trying to stick a one-legged arabesque landing.

  The crowd of men lit up with applause, but it sounded like slapping two slippers together.

  Marissé looked over and saw the entire dig crew had stopped and were now clapping their gloved hands. Then she looked down and saw that her tank top was hanging wetly from her chest. Her perfect C-cup breasts were now clearly visible to the entire room of men. Marissé didn’t move. She stayed in her partial arabesque position looking at her exposed breasts.

  “Well, hello girls.”

  Then she melodramatically stood up and put her feet firmly on the rock pile. She curtsied and bowed her head like a proper lady for a moment more. Just as she was about to tell everyone that the peep-show was now over, and they were all free to return to work, she heard the sound.

  Like a distant electrical sizzle coming from the sky, the sound drifted into the open mezzanine level forty feet above the overgrown plaza floor. Suddenly, everyone heard screaming and loud yells of pain.

  Marissé jumped off the rock pile and took off for the side opening of the mezzanine. When she got there, she slid on her boots across the last few feet of dirt and stone; stopping just before she exited the overhang of the pyramid. Outside, the sky was a bright shade of lavender and vermillion. The strange color stretched as far as you could see in all directions. As she watched the bands of color streak across the sky, she could suddenly tell the intermittent cloud cover was rapidly disappearing.

  Then all the clouds were gone.

  After they disappeared, it got sunny, and the aurora colors were too bright to look at.

  Marissé knew this was unusually bright, even for the tropics. As she looked down from the glowing clear sky, she saw where the cries of pain were coming from.

  Several workers had been down on the plaza removing debris. All of them were local natives and their skin had been hammered by the intense Central American sunlight their whole lives. Many of them had dark tans from constant work in the daylight with no shirts. As long as the men had plenty of water and some shade to siesta in during the hottest part of the day, they were fine. It was only a little before ten in the morning. Although she and her working crew were hot and sweaty inside the pyramid, the day had not yet become stifling.

  But on the plaza in front of her, several workers that were shirtless were now yelling in pain and running for the protection of whatever shelter they could find. Most of them made it into the jungle on the plaza sides or into the many popup tents that dotted the huge mountaintop courtyard. Two other workers were carrying rubble down the side of the steep pyramid and were about halfway down the forty feet to the bottom when the aurora began. They dropped the rocks they were carrying when the skin on their back and arms began to sunburn in front of their eyes.

  Both men took off running back up the pyramid and now jumped past Marissé into the protection of the mezzanine. They almost slid into the men who had quickly followed Marissé over to the opening. As the two sunburned laborers stood in front of the group, their exposed skin continued to redden visibly while everyone watched. One of the other workers reached out and slowly pressed his finger onto one of their bright red arms. It left a light pink circle the size of a quarter that quickly faded back into the deep red of his sunburned skin.

  The burned man almost backhanded his workmate. But suddenly, the skin on his body started to sting even more.

  Jacinto jumped past the fried workers and looked out the opening at the sky.

  “Yo Boss, that’s one of those solar showers that’ve been giving the whole world an aurora. But it’s never been this bright before.”

  Marissé turned from the injured men in front of her and joined Jacinto to look out at the cloudless pink sky.

  “It’s never caused anything like this to happen, either.” She pointed down at the empty plaza and her men hiding from the daylight. As they both watched the light show from their pyramid perch in the Yucatan, they couldn’t see what was happening in orbit around their beautiful blue planet.

  It was probably best they didn’t know.

  For the next hour, Marissé and her men sat almost silently and watched the sky. The colors of the aurora faded in and out and wavered over the jungle for as far as they could see.

  It actually faded in and out over the entire sunlit side of the planet.

  But Marissé, Jacinto and her Mayan descendant crew didn’t know that. They just knew the daily siesta had come early today.

  And tomorrow, all of them would wear long sleeve shirts…

  And a hat…

  CHAPTER NINE

  1544 AD – Mayan Yucatan,

  Central America