Ojo Negra



“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space … or so they say.”

“That’s not helping right now Eli.”

Sara shook her head in disbelief.

“Jesus. Natty has dragged us halfway around the world, to some unknown fate and you’re spouting crazy shit like that?”

Eli mumbled a desultory apology.

Sara waved away the apology with less enthusiasm than it was given. She was tired, dirty, sweaty and scared. She’d been scared now for over a week. It was exhausting. She felt like a live wire on edge and ready to break.

She kicked at the dust under the plastic table they were seated around. It was hot in Guatemala and really humid. The air was hot and sticky, the sun so strong it was brutal.

All that was true, but it was also beautiful. There was an underlying feeling of magic in the air. The jungles were achingly green, lush. You could feel its pulse in the singing bugs and birds. Hear its heartbeat in the call of it’s hidden creatures.

It was just so hard to enjoy when you were scared shitless, staring at your best friend waiting for her to…To what? Die? Explode? Levitate and erupt into a ball of light.

She had been like this for just over a week. Either manic, pacing, demanding that they had to go to some special place. Or eyes glazed, clouded over with some strange fog, rattling off complex calculations, indecipherable science jargon, full histories of ours and possibly other worlds. She was impossible to reach in these moments. Eli had to carry her off the plane in Guatemala City. She had been fine the whole flight, excited even. But as soon as they touched down her head snapped to attention, the storm clouds covered her eyes and she very loudly started reciting what sounded like names.

“That’s a name for sure…Po Ngbe. I thinks it’s like a Mayan king” said Eli

“An Olmec king”

Sara turned to the voice behind them. An older gentleman in a wrinkled button down and khakis smiled at her cautiously.

“ Po Ngbe was Olmec”

“ oh…um, gracious Señor “ Sara stumbled over her words, uncomfortable speaking what little spanish she knew out loud.

“ Your friend seems to be reciting names from the Mayan and Olmec period. But many are unfamiliar.“

“ Wow, ok. Are you a professor or something”

The man’s face lit up with a smile, wrinkles creased his kind features.

“ I’m something. I’m a ticket agent at Museo Ixchel de Traje indigena. Is the young lady ok ….” The man trailed off looking troubled.

Maybe the look of fear on the young Americans' faces stopped him.

That was a big problem, how to explain Nattys bizarre, often disruptive behavior.

The morning after it all started she had caused a scene at their local cafe, knocking over her chair and reciting the elements, at full volume. When she ran out of known ones she started making them up or….something. Tom who was with them had theorized it was elements yet unknown to man. But with all the psychedelics he had consumed the night before you had to assume he was still out in the ether.

+ + +

The night this all started, Sara, Natty and a whole gaggle of friends had organized a big camping trip to watch a meteor shower. Some people had brought more than the customary beers and blunts. But Sara was positive that Natty hadn’t taken any psychedelics or been dosed.

The shower started late into the night. Those who had managed to stay awake for the shower wandered down to the lake edge away from the dwindling campfire. The sky put on a spectacular show. It was breathtaking, a celestial fireworks display. They oohed and ahhed.

Something hit Tom hard in the head a few other people were hit and cried out. Sara felt a sharp pain in her cheek. When she reached up her face was wet. It was blood. Not a lot but still… Then it really got wild. A full on storm. Everyone ran to the tree line as they were pelted with little bits of….rock?

“ I think they are micro meteors” Tom yelled over the sound of the shower.. Just like that it was over, it must have lasted less than a minute. A few people were bleeding just small scrapes and cuts, nothing major. After checking themselves for injury most went running back out into the open laughing, looking for their own tiny piece of outer space.

But not Natty. She was hunched over hands over her eye. Sara jogged over to her.

“ Hey are you alright?”

Natty looked up at her, hands still over her face.

“ I don’t know. I got hit in the eye, it really hurts. My visions all blurry. It’s watering a lot.”

Sara used her light to see the damage.

“Oh my god Nat, holy shit” near the center of her eye was a tiny grey rock, a perfectly smooth oval . Nats eye was pouring tears,but Sara didn’t see any blood.

“ What? What the fuck Sara!?!”

“ There is one of those mini meteors ….uhh…it’s stuck IN your eyeball”

“Oh hell no” Natty started to back up and tripped over her own feet she sat down hard on the ground. Eli came over

“ Hey you two ok? We’re all headed back to camp. Come on.”

Sara showed Eli Nattys eye.

“ What are we gonna do? Should we take her to the hospital? I can’t drive right now. Can you ?”

“Me? No way, Look, let's just get back to camp and figure it out there.”

They walked slowly back to the camp, Natty trailing behind hand over her eye. Most people had gone to bed but, there were still some gathered around the fire.

Grace was up. Thank god, she was in the last year of veterinary school. So you know, practically a doctor. They sat Natty down on a log near the fire she had gone pretty quiet on the walk. She claimed it didn’t hurt any more, the river of tears a trickle now.

Grace came over after a garbled explanation from inebriated Eli.

“Hey Nat heard you got a little something in your eye. Can I take a look?”

Nat leaned her head back so Grace could get a look.

She pulled Nats eyelids apart and asked her to look this way then that.

“Well, whatever was there isn’t there now. Are you sure it was stuck in there? I don’t see anything or any injury”

Sara was adamant

“I saw it. It was crazy looking. Stuck in her eye, in the colored part”

Grace blinked then nodded

“The iris?”

“Yea, that part” Grace dutifully looked again but still no sign.

“Well it’s gone now, how are you feeling Nat any pain, blurring or loss of vision?”

Natty shook her head.

“ I don't know what to tell you, it looks fine to me, just keep an eye on her, ok?”

Sara promised to stay vigilant . Nat was already asleep by the time she crawled into own sleeping bag. She was out in seconds.

But not for long.

She snapped awake. Natty was talking loudly and so fast Sara couldn’t understand what she was saying

Sitting bolt upright eyes wide open, back rigid she went on and,on not pausing for breath. Natty shook her pleading for her to stop,to be quiet.

She begged her to tell her if she took something… she abruptly stopped. Nattys mouth shut tight, her eyes fluttered closed, she flopped back onto her sleeping bag breathing softly, looking blissfully asleep. Sara was up the rest of the night watching her until the sun rose. Not long after camp started to come alive.

Sara went to sit by the dead fire hands balled in her hoodie sleeves.

Tom came by

“Hey were you and Natty fighting last night I thought I heard you guys yelling”

Sara blinked up at him, her reverie interrupted.

“ Fighting? Oh no, Nat was having a nightmare I was trying to wake her up”

“Shit, is she ok? Bad shrooms? “

“No she wasn’t tripping…not that I know of. She’s fine.”

People started packing up heading home.

Eli, Sara and Natty piled into Tom's car. . They all agreed brunch was in order.

Sara watched Natty from the corner of her eye on the drive . She was being very quiet. You could put it down to a hangover but, something seemed to be bothering her. She looked stressed, concerned.

Sara and Nat had been inseparable for years now. They met as teenagers waiting tables at an Applebees in small town, Minnesota. The minute they had enough money they ran from their suffocating existence to the big city.They thrived in Minneapolis, flew their freak flags high. They got into the art scene, the music scene, anything that was not small town Applebees. They did it all together. They lived in the same communal house, worked at the same co-op grocery. They were best friends, soul-sisters.

So she knew something was off. Even before the brunch incident.

They had managed to steer Nat back to the car. Eli telling the other patrons something about a very rare, very personal disorder as he paid the check. He dashed out the door and sprinted to the car.

Tom had Nattys face cradled in his hands.

“Sweetie, honey, I need you to tell me what you took last night,Okaaay. Just take a deep breath and let us know so we can figure out how to help you.”

He wasn’t getting through. They were standing at the car, crowded around Natty trying to block any onlookers' view. Nat had moved on to numbers, some kind of equations. Sara standing at her side felt the world slow and go silent as she caught a glimpse of something in Nattys left eye. Through the swirling gray, caught by the sun she could see something ,oval in shape. The piece of rock from last night. It had to be. It was still in there. Her eye had swallowed it in. Sara pushed Tom out of the way, she pushed Nattys head at an angle to get a better look.

“Geez Sis, take it easy with her”

“ Look ! Look at her eye!” Sara hissed,voice choked from panic.

They all took their turns staring into Nattys eye as she prattled on unseeing.

+ + +

That had been it, they had no money to take her to a doctor, besides Nat refused to go.

Tom abandoned them for home insisting that Natty was fine, just bad acid or something. Completely ignoring the meteor lodged in her eye.

Natty had started pacing as soon as she got to her room.

“ I have to go. Now, we can’t wait any longer. I have to find the place and go.” she couldn’t tell them where. She said she could feel it. Feel it in her pulling at her. A physical, visceral feeling, a tug right behind her navel, a flutter in her heartbeat.

Maybe it was the lingering effects of the mushrooms or his not so secret, secret crush on Sara that kept Eli there but he stayed. After three hours and another storm of words they found “the place”.

Guatemala.

Eli had dug up an old world atlas on one of the bookshelves in the giant old communal house the girls lived in. After flipping through the book, running her hands over the old soft pages Natty had gasped.

“ Here it’s here.” Natty looked up smiling for the first time since the Meteor shower.

It wasn’t an easy sell. Natty tried to explain but funnily enough didn’t have the words. But she had to go. Was going. They could come or not, but she was going and right away. Of course Sara wasn’t going to let her go alone not with these fits that left her incapacitated, vulnerable.

Sara knew she should call Nattys parents but they were fundamentalist Christians who would either lock her away or call for some kind of phony exorcism from a con man pastor. She couldn’t do that to Nat. They had fought so hard to get away from that life. She hoped maybe this obsession, these fits would fade as they made plans, scrounged money and packed. But the fits only got more frequent, her need to get to Guatemala more imperative.

Eli surprised them both while they were using his laptop to buy tickets.

“ Look for three tickets, I'm coming.”

“ Wait, what ? You don’t have to do that.” Sara said caught totally off guard

“ no I don’t…but I’m coming. You can’t do this by yourself and I couldn’t be comfortable knowing you two were down there with only your shitty Spanish skills to go on”

The relief Sara felt was immeasurable. She was so in it, so wrapped up in everything she hadn’t realized how scared she was.

They managed to get some cheap flights with too many layovers. Sara was sure their bags would never make it. But there they were on the wonky carousel in Guatemala City’s international airport.

+ + +

The man from the plane watched them from across the way. He looked curiously at Natty, waiting to see if the strange girl would continue her oration from the plane. He had watched as the young man put her on his back and carried her off the plane after most passengers had departed. The girl continued listing name after name. Ancient names, unknown people from a past so long gone, how could they ever know who she was talking about.

He walked quietly behind them, shocked by her accurate pronunciation and constant breathless flow. Then she stopped, put her forehead to the boy's shoulder and asked to be let down. She looked around dazed at first, then her excitement was explosive.

“We made it! We are almost there. I can feel it” she emphasized this by pushing both hands on her stomach. The other girl, the one he had spoken with, saw him staring. She took her friend by the hand and they hurried to baggage claim.

He didn’t know why but he followed them pulled by something deep in him down deep his own belly.

Following them outside he watched them trying to decipher the ancient map on the wall near the bus stops.

He watched for a few minutes . When he finally got up the nerve to approach them they were arguing about spending the night in Guatemala city or heading straight to San Benito.

“ It’s not there but it’s close. I can’t wait any longer, let’s go.”

“Excuse me, can I assist you ?” he asked tentatively

They looked up at him. The small girl, the one he spoke with, looked guarded, hostile even.

“No, Gracious. We are fine thank you” She quickly looked back to the map.

He spoke to the boy. He seemed more receptive

“ Most of the buses for that part of the country leave in the morning. There is a night bus but if you don’t get tickets early it will be full”

Eli looked at him with a small smile, grateful someone was taking his side.

“ I told you guys. Lets go get food, a good night's sleep and make a plan for tomorrow”

“No, I need to be there Now!” The strange girl almost yelled; she looked desperate, haunted.

“ Dammit Nat, it's just not possible tonight. You heard the man. We will leave in the morning. Look, you may be able to live on whatever is driving you right now. But, Sara and I need sleep, food. To be honest I need a beer.”

Natty began to cry softly

“I know, I'm sorry. I just… I have to get there as soon as possible. I have to…” She stopped, saw the man still staring.

She looked at him, into him, through him.

Her left eye clouded and she walked to him hand out stretched. A smile broke her face as she cupped this stranger's cheek.

Sara gaped as Natty started to speak. She had never heard the language before it wasnt spanish. The man clasped her hands in his and started speaking back to her, in the same dialect. After a brief hurried conversation Natty turned back to her friends. Her left eye remained clouded over but Natty was lucid.

We have to go with him. He is going to help us get to where we need to go.

The man seemed astonished by his own agreement. But nonetheless he confirmed he would help in any way he could.

Too tired and confused to protest, Sara and Eli exchanged a glance, shrugged and followed the man to his car. He introduced himself on the way. Gilberto was a married father of 4 adult children. He proudly told them he was from a city in the north and from Mayan descent. He and Natty continued their conversation in their shared language as they made their way to a dusty square of earth that doubled as long term parking. They got into Gilbertos car and were driven to a colorfully painted stucco house with an iron gate on a small crowded street.

Gilberto called his wife on the way there explaining that he had picked up three Americanos and they were spending the night. She had sounded exasperated but only because she did not have enough to feed them, not at the strangeness of the situation.

She was kind and doting to the three strangers. She made up a small guest room that had been their sons for the girls and an ancient looking floral couch for Eli. They all showered and changed before sitting down to a veritable feast served in the couples cheery little courtyard. After stuffing themselves with all on offer they sat back to answers some soft ball questions about their families and lives

Ixchel, Gilbertos wife, brought out a bottle of Quetzalteca, a local liquor and some cold beers.

“ Ok, enough of the easy questions. Now you tell us your real story. Why are you here? What is happening with Ms Natty ?”

They spoke long into the evening. The local liquor easing the fantastical story out of them. They told the couple about the meteor shower. Nattys fits. Her insistence that she come to Guatemala.

“ How do you speak Q’eqchi, and so well?”asked Gilberto

“ speak what ? “ Natty looked genuinely confused.

“ at the airport when we spoke it was in Q’eqchi. And on our whole drive here. You have been dropping in and out of it all night. Your accent is strange but the words are right.”

Natty stuttered and looked lost

“ I didn't know, I don't know. I don’t speak any other languages. A few words of French from high school.

“Maybe it's xenoglossy” Said Eli, head back looking up into the sky above the courtyard, the square of the house around him framing the night sky like a painting.

“ like speaking in tongues” Sara asked

“ No, that's called glossolalia. Xenoglossy is speaking a language you never learned. Some old Parapsychologist named it”

“ where do you learn this stuff” Sara said squinting at him through slightly drunken eyes.

“Podcasts”

“ Ok, that is it.” Ixchel pronounced. “time for bed everybody let’s go”

Sara and Eli complied happily.

“ I'll be up soon” Gilberto said to his wife, “I need to ask Natty some more questions.”

They spoke long into the night at the kitchen table

+ + +

“She hasn’t had a fit since we first got here” Eli said through a mouthful of fried paintains.

“ I mean the cloudy eye thing is weird and all. And I guess her speaking fluent Mayan dialects is way bizarre but it’s also pretty bad ass.”

Sara picked at her food staring into the potted plants in the cozy little courtyard.

“ Hey come on I know this is way weird but she’s gonna be alright. She already seems better…”

Sara looked up at him then

“Better? Better than what,Eli? She has a space rock lodged in an eye that looks like a goddamn hurricane. She’s speaking ancient languages and is compelled like a possessed person to go to some unknown location, And when we get there what will happen? How’s this all gonna end?”

Sara started to cry then. Eli knelt before her, encircling her with his arms.

“ Ok, yea,we don’t know what’s going to happen, but we went out on a limb here. We decided to do this her way. Because we both know deep down that this is not just some mental break. This is some big time sci-fi movie shit. We know we all have to do this for whatever is coming next. Whatever that is will change everything… forever. So get it out, cry, scream if you need to, but we are here, we ARE doing this so let’s just be all in. I’ll be there with you both every step of the way.”

Sara pulled away and looked at him. She knew he was right. They had never seriously considered anything else. They talked about it, a little, just her and Eli. But in the end, they had just gone with it. Followed Natty into the unknown.

She nodded.

“ You’re right. Something in me that says we have to keep going. But I’m scared for her and us, and maybe the whole planet. I know I sound dramatic but, this feels dramatic.

+ + +

He and Natty had come to breakfast that morning triumphant.

“Gilberto figured it out. Where I need to go. He showed me a map of Guatemala last night with all the historical and notable sites marked. Like an old tourist map. I had one of my fits.”

“Yes she went all still then started touching the map, whispering something. It was not a language I know. She stopped at Yaxha, a ruin near two lakes up north. Smaller than places like Tikal but very beautiful”

Gilberto was in now too. As compelled as any of them. He had packed up his little Suzuki samurai with wife’s blessing and started the long drive to Yaxha.

+ + +

Nattys leg was bouncing a mile a minute as she chewed a nail staring into the jungle across the road.

A massive tour bus pulled up its contents poured out in search of bathrooms, snacks and the best place to take a selfie.

Gilberto pushed his way out of the bathroom hurrying back to them

“ Come on, let's get out of here before we get stuck in this sea of gringos.”

“ we are gringos” Eli said ruefully

“ So what? We get there a little later than we thought” Sara said downing her last gulp of beer

“ No! No more waiting.” Nattys was almost vibrating with anxiety. No, not anxiety, Sara thought…excitement.

“ Fine,whatever let’s traipse into the jungle after dark and get eaten by jaguars or giant spiders.”

Back in the car Sara leaned against Eli in the back seat, tired from the day, the week and most definitely too many beers at the rest stop.

“Get some sleep if you can,I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night” he looked down at Sara and realized his words were lost on her. She was out. Head bumping along with the rutted road.

She woke to voices.

“ Ok let’s go”

“Really? Just like that ? They’re going to let us go in after dark?”

“Of course just a little charm from me and the two hundred American dollars from you guys. No problem.” Gilberto was lifting his bag from the back.

“I’ve got some bug spray and water in here. If you have rain jackets, bring them. I can smell it in the air.”

The night guards waved them in, straight faced as to not betray their joy over their recent windfall.

Yaxha sat between two lakes. The aptly named Yaxha and the Sacnab. The moon was not completely full but enough to see by in the open areas. It shone off the large expanses of water.

The silvery light illuminated the stone pyramids as they walked into that place out of time. Sara was struck by the complexity of these structures; they were massive and beautiful. Carvings still adorned many of the stones. Worn away by time and the elements you could still make out faces, shapes, animals. She trailed her hands along a carving of what Gilberto said was the head of a Jaguar.

“This place has something like 500 ruins and used to be home to some 50,000 people. The name is translates to green-blue water. A place for ceremonial purposes.”

“ How do you know all this stuff Gil? Did you study it in college?” Asked Eli as he took in the magic of the place.

Gilberto laughed softly

“No, I learned from when I was a kid. You could get a job giving tours at the ruins if you spoke another language. I learned English at a missionary school in town. Then I learned the lectures from the other tour guides. I would wait outside Tikal’s ruins and hustle the tourists offering them a guided tour. If I was lucky they would want me to take them to other lesser known sites. I came here a couple times. This is the way I made enough money to move to Guatemala City.” He smiled at the memories

“ but it also made me fall in love with my country's history, my history. Look at this place. Look what my people made.”

“ Nat….Natty!!!! Where are you going.” Sara took off running short legs pumping fast. Far outpaced by her leggy friend.

Natty was running full tilt towards one of the temple's pyramids, Sara chased after her. Scrabbling up the crumbling stairs behind her.

“What the hell, Nat” Sara huffed as she finally crested the top platform. Natty was standing facing Laguna Yaxha breathing hard.

“Here.” She said “ right here” she sat down cross legged

“ Here, what Natty? Now what?” But that was it. Natty went silent,rigid. Both her eyes had the storm swirling in them again. The left one was pulsing a dull greenish light, right where that rock had been.

Then Sara heard it, an incessant whisper coming from Nattys mouth Barely audible, her lips almost still. A rush of breathy language like an incantation. Something otherworldly with discenable weight to it.

She went on like this for hours. They watched her at first, waiting. Peering around the dark jungles surrounding the grounds of Yaxha. After a while they took shifts leaving to explore, relieve themselves or just get away to breathe.

The rain came at about one am. It bucketed down at first. They put on plastic ponchos from Gilberto’s bag but gave up trying to get one on Natty when she began rocking back and forth. Her voice, inaudible above the rain.

She never slowed even when the rain went from a deluge to soft misty patter. You could see steam rising from the jungle in the moonlight.

Gilberto pulled a bottle of tequila from the bottom of his bag.

They all smiled a little passsing it around swigging from it gratefully. None of them wanted to talk but someone had to ask. So Sara did.

“ How long do we wait?”

Gilberto shrugged and passed the bottle to Eli

“ Maybe sunrise? Maybe to sunset?” Gilberto looked resigned, steady as a rock.

Sara had, had enough, she stood, stormed off down the temple steps wrestling with her plastic poncho. She was half way down when the rain stopped. Almost to the bottom when the sound began. Deep. Tonal. Like the earth itself was emitting an Om to the heavens. It was all around them.

Sara turned to run back to Natty. She saw her then. Floating above the temple, head back, mouth and eyes wide, limbs dangling, limp. Sara was frozen with fear. From the corner of her eye she saw movement. Turning to look at the lake, water was falling up like a massive fountain. It stretched up toward the sky hundreds of feet above the lake's surface. At the center a beam of light shot skyward up through the night, deep into space. It was so bright, so dazzlingly white, Sara had to look away. The omnipresent sound hit a crescendo, the light went dark and Sara turned back Just in time to see the water fall back to the lake with no sound. The lake went still in a blink, smooth as glass. She couldn’t see Natty any more.

Running as fast as she could up the slick rock desperately praying her friend, her sister was there, that she was going to be ok.. at the top Gilberto and Eli were just getting up after being knocked over by some unseen force. Natty lay crumpled on the ground. Sara ran to her cradled her in her arms. She called her name as she smoothed hair away from her face Nattys eyes fluttered open. The right one normal the left one completely black now.

“ Nat are you ok can you hear me.” Sara begged

“ I’m ok. I’m ok.” She pushed Sara away needing to stand up

Gilberto and Eli came to them then.

Natty saw the bottle still clasped Gilberto’s hand, she grabbed it, took a long pull on it, and closed her eyes

“ What the fuck Natty!?!? Now what?” Sara asked exasperated

“Now we wait for them….”

“Who” Sara whispered voice catching with fear

Natty stared at them new shiny black eye reflecting the stars above as she turned her gaze skyward

“For them…the first ones”