9:00 AM
Back in the apartment, Tim opened the bottle of mescal and poured a large shot into a glass. He gulped it down and the mescal burned as it rushed down his throat and into his gut. It relaxed him and he felt less haunted. Its swift invasion of his brain left him stunned for a moment and he sat down at the table, picked up his medallion and held it in his hands.
… papier-mâché figures sway in the square … a cacophony of traditional music … massed village bands … the rhythm of rising rockets thumping into the air … dancing trees flap miniature limbs in time to the music … eyes flash from the trees’ waistbands … dryads and satyrs cavort carved and painted … liquid motes of fiery tunes float in the air … music visible and almost tactile for a moment or two … stamping feet … stilt dancers … the music stops … young children … boys and girls … emerging from the trees … live dryads bark-skinned brown-eyed … a nymph walks over eyes open in invitation …
Tim’s mind clicked back into gear. Of course, that’s where he had seen the girl from the paper kiosk: she had been dancing in a papier-mâché tree, in the zócalo, and when the music stopped, she invited him to join her in her tree.
Colibrí, the tiny bird with the warrior’s soul, whirrs its wings … twin windmills, sun-dog ear-rings, draw circles round a suddenly-clouded sun … a flock of tiny feathered angels as bright as postage stamps sit in the trees in the courtyard to raise their voices in their afterlife of praise …
Tim checked his watch: if he wanted to visit the baths, it was time to get going. He got up from the table, slipped his medallion around his neck, walked out of his apartment and closed the door behind him.
I love the vision of the dryads and satyrs. Aha, that’s where he’s seen her before!
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I loved those colossal trees. They were a part of ‘fiesta’ in the zocalo. Huge, papier mache figures. I was invited inside someone’s tree, but was too shy to accept.
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Aw, Well that would have been a tale to remember!
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I love the Colibri…tiny bird with a warrior’s soul…Those hummingbirds are sooooo mean!
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That is part of the Aztec mythology: warriors who die in war are transformed into hummingbirds and dance attendance on the sun. We forget the old myths at our peril.
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The old myths contain rich meals for our tasting..
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Indeed they do. Micky Mouse isn’t quite the same. Nor Donald Duck.
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