F. Pizarro

Chapter One

Chitzu and the Messengers

The only thing I can remember about the day before the outbreak began is walking home to Machu Picchu. I usually walked home with a few friends such as Kamikazeu, Iapao and Chitzu. But today I was walking alone. Everyone was picking potatoes and peeling the skins off beans. The harvest was coming soon and when the state inspectors came, everything had to be in order. If not, you were taken to The Inca’s court and he decided your fate. One of the punishments for being lazy was death and we certainly did not want that.

            I looked up at the clouds as they got nearer and nearer and nearer. They were a deep shade of violet now. The stars were emerging from them. Fireflies came out of the bushes. Sensing night was coming, I hurried. The wind made ruffles through my hair. Taking broad steps, I tried to make my way up the mountain. Seeing a terrace cleared of beans I sat down, wiping the dust out of the bags that I collected from the Quito square. I knew one went to The Inca and his advisors, not just for him but for times of disaster and need, one bag went to the temple, and one bag we got to keep with the allyu, or our family.

“Tequila! Get up here! We need those bags. The third for the church is ready to be stuffed in the bag.”

“Coming!” I told my mother. With a grunt I heaved myself up and continued to walk up the mountain to Machu Picchu. After all the clouds had disappeared, I peered up and saw Chitzu running toward me.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Is my mother up there perseverating over the fact that the bags have not yet reached her coarse hands?”

“Well, to be honest, yes,” Chitzu answered. “Here, give me one of the bags.”

I handed one of the woven bags I held in my hands.

“So what else is she worried about?” I questioned of Chitzu. I couldn’t see her face anymore. She had a beautiful face and not one blemish had ruined it. Her eyelashes were long, thin, pieces of dust, which touched her face gracefully every time she blinked. Chitzu’s green eyes sparkled like the mist on a summer’s day. Her hair was sliver dyed brown and her nose was perfect to bring everything all together.

            I, however, did not have that type of beauty. There was a scar on my cheek, a result of where I had fallen off the terrace at age five. My eyelashes were scraggly, untidy hairs of a wet dog that always kept falling off. My eyes seemed like smoke that never glistened, even if I put my head into the family fire. My nose looked like a llama herd had run over it.

            Even though I knew, I would never hold her beauty, I was envious of Chitzu. Sometimes, I was so angry with her, I’d ask the stone in town square:

            “Stone…Stone…in the building…who is the fairest of them all?”

            Then, just as the stone was about to answer, Chitzu would walk by and say a friendly, ‘Hello’ before she passed on by to get to her destination. Then as my insides got steamy before burning up with anger, I would kick the stone building with my legs and pound my fists on the building before continuing on.

But I wasn’t about to burst into anger as I stared at Chitzu’s astonishing face.

“Oh, she’s worried about if the government officials will come too early…and that the amount of potatoes won’t grow right for next year….” Chitzu paused. “Do I have to go on?” she asked.

            I laughed heartily before replying, “No!” This was followed by another fit of laughter.

“Come on,” Chitzu said, making my senses alert again. Following this, Chitzu and I climbed up the rest of the mountain into the outskirts of Manchu Picchu.

Before the story continues, I must explain something. The fact is that I do not live in Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is a fort, with higher elevation then the environment we live in. The Inca stores half of his gold here. The gold is kept in a vault made of stone. Retired military officers guarded the monster of a fort, taking shifts. People, like me and Chitzu, were allowed to live on the outskirts. However, to make sure we did not steal his “sweat of the sun” we were only allowed to go up one thousand two hundred feet. The rest of the land was reserved for his gold. If you were caught going even one thousand two hundred and one feet above sea level, you were considered a traitor of society. And there was only one punishment for that, death.

            “Well, here we are,” Chitzu sighed in the middle of her sentence, “the city of the sweat of the sun.”

            “And, the people are busier than ever,” I commented, glancing around.

            My comment was not false. The men were wiping potatoes and other crops from terraces. Then, they handed them to the boys, which were right alongside their fathers, who stuffed the crops into hand-woven baskets their mothers had made. Then the boys would carry them up to their mothers, who would count the total number of their crops and divide each crop into thirds, one third for the home, one third for the church, and one third for the government. After the disabled and the elderly counted the crops to be sure each one third was equal, the girls put the crops in bags, much like the one I was holding, heaved them to the outside of the house they belonged to and waited for the next bag which would come extremely soon.

            “We better get those bags to my mother,” I reminded Chitzu.

            “Right,” she said, quite stern then she usually was and hurried off to my mother.

            When Chitzu and I reached her, my mother grabbed the bags, coughed and said:

            “Tequila, try to be a little quicker next time.”  She made a grimace directly at me.

            “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, stepping away from her.

           My mother continued, “Chitzu, thank you for helping Tequila carry those bags.”

            “I don’t mind the favor,” Chitzu added as an afterthought, “my pleasure.”

            I really do not know if my mother was paying attention to Chitzu because she had handed the bags to the girls and was watching them be loaded with crops. Regardless she said:

“Well, you girls better get off to bed. It’s a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chitzu and I replied in unison and we both headed to our dwellings in separate directions, Chitzu heading west and I going east.

 Then, after walking into my home’s door, I lie down in my bed and fell asleep.