Then one winter, a crystal chill blows in, enshrouding the Jemez Mountains in a silent, white peace. But an icy chant drowns out my holiday cheer: Your father is dead. Your father is dead. For twelve days we watch a vaguely ill man waste away from cancer that had hidden itself deep within. And on the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gives to me, Azrael, the Angel of Death, taunting, as he dances to the beat of a drum, his hoofed feet tapping out a macabre rhythm on our wooden floor.
It’s January sixth. Day of the Epiphany—an irony not lost to me. And I think it wise to keep my secret from the family who has noticed how much I’ve grown to resemble my grandmother, a moody woman who complains of spirits that fill our home. And I begin to wonder if she harbors the same secret I do. How else can I explain that she speaks of being kept awake, the night my father died, by an incessant tap reverberating throughout the house? Our eyes lock for an instant. I look into her soul, and it’s as dark as mine.
And I want to tell her of Bam. Of the alchemist. Of the boy who had served me tea, and the souls, even here, who breathe beneath our feet—Indians, priests, conquistadors, calling out in haunting voices, “I existed. Don’t forget.”
But another sound rises from within, leads me to stillness, and I turn away.
* * *
Later, a number swirls through my head and I Google it without asking why, only to discover a site that says, “2012: It’s closer than you think.” In the center is the Mayan calendar, thought to be perpetual. But then it hits that fateful year emblazoned across the screen, at which point the calendar drops into a blackened void—the ancient word for “Apocalypse” scrawled across the empty space beyond. My gaze is drawn to another number: 355 BC—the year in which humans learned to fear of Winter Solstice of 2012.
Walking across the land that evening, I hear ancient elders who speak of stars as if they’re ancestors, and I pray that I’ve found a place where nights will always be soft. But in the distance are mountains shrouded in secrets, where scientists, like blind moles, hide in laboratories hidden inside the earth, so we can all pretend they don’t exist.
The river calls me and I walk through the bosque, waiting for the breeze to comfort me as it whispers through the evening woods. But tonight, giant branches swell with the wind, undulating like a tsunami that engulfs people so fast, they don’t feel it coming until it’s too late. My ears pick up a new sound. Coyotes in the distance. But this time they don’t howl; they shriek like a pack of banshees riding atop the waves of a dark wind.
And I vomit in the mud because the voice of the elders has given way to Oppenheimer, the scientist who had no idea what he was creating the day he proclaimed that the sky would burst with the radiance of a thousand suns, and then found out, too late, just how right his theory was. His words moan through the branches, announcing that he has become Kali, Destroyer of the Worlds, reluctant creator of the “Splendor of the Mighty One.”
And now we drop upon Baghdad a milder version of the power Oppenheimer yielded us, convinced that the world will be humbled by our Shock and Awe. I hear children scream as their cribs ignite. A young woman with glistening black hair, belly pregnant with hope, crawls across a room, the son inside her, stolen by death as his soul questions what he did to deserve this. Back home a chorus proclaims the glory of the Religion of Love and every dark-skinned infidel is forced to partake in the blame for that mountain of twisted metal and splintered glass that rises at New York’s Ground Zero like a Luciferian monument to wrath.
Wandering along the river again, I try to convince myself that none of this really matters because, after all, time is disappearing and no one, not even NASA, can explain why. It’s their biggest scientific truth; the earth’s electro-magnetic resonance is speeding up. Time is collapsing. 2012 really is closer than you think.
In the valley, scorpions cry, their laments filling the sky with startled birds. And in my vision the Axis of Righteousness drops bombs again. This time it’s Tehran that’s burning. A cloud of nuclear death slashes its way through the autumn wind and Pakistan knows that it can’t be stopped—which means they’re next. And they can’t think straight. So they drum up ancient hatreds and drop the Big One on New Delhi, as if this will bring Islamabad back from the grave when it’s all over.
My mind’s eye leads me through a smoky mist where Ghost-people, skin hanging at their sides, walk to Yamuna, comforting arm of the blessed Ganges. They know the river will take them to a place of beauty, and they drift away, serenity filling their hearts as the water engulfs them and swirls their bodies downward toward peace. And my words mingle with theirs, reciting a prayer in a language I don’t even know.
But now I feel the world collapsing so fast I don’t even have time to consider my own death before a voice calls me to an ancient gathering, telling me to return to the garden. And I think perhaps this time we can plant the seeds of love rather than hate. My thoughts drift to the convent in the desert near my home, where I’ve spent afternoons ripe with beauty and in my heart, I need those women again.
Iwatch myself pick up the receiver to call them, but the phone is dead. Which is all right because they’re walking up my driveway, followed by women from around the world. African turbans, Mexican shawls. Crosses, crescent moons. Necklaces with the Star of David resting against strong, young necks. Together we plant rose bushes until a white flash draws our eyes toward Los Alamos.
And then we’re gone.
Except for the darkened images of our shapes that get burned into the adobe wall of my house, making us look like the people of Bam, frozen in time, lifting a child or wiping sweat from their brow. Arms suspended in the air forever; testimony to the work they never finished.
Years compress into seconds because Time no longer takes time. Flowers push through smoldering ashes as a handful of survivors gather at my garden and they couldn’t care less if this is the Jewish rose bush, the Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist one. All they know is that this garden was planted by the women whose images they see, lined up like oracles along the adobe wall. In one swift move, roses tangle into a blooming vine and climb up the trunk of a dead cottonwood. Their tendrils reach for a sliver of light that peeks through angry, soot-laden clouds that roll across the sky like molten lava.
And the people can see that behind these flowers lurk thorns that have drawn our blood, but they’ve just bloomed forth with Divine Grace. Beauty unadorned. Faces turn toward me, once again expecting an explanation that I really don’t have. And I want to tell them that they’re a couple of thousand years too late. But the words—like my cries—can’t escape my mouth. Tears swell into my eyes and hover, like captured moments with nowhere to go, and then I remember; like those silenced beneath Bam, I can’t speak. Burned into this wall, I’m nothing more than a memory of what I used to be, trying to call out, “I existed. Don’t forget.”