Xochitl

Every night for months now at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky on the Chicago skyline. For the people of Chicago, this had been a harrowing and terrifying sight but nothing came of it. The sky would turn purple at night but by morning the phenomenon had vanished. Scientists, religious capitalists, and internet spectators took turns giving their opinions over what exactly was happening in the Windy City. However, after a month of the unexplained, the people turned their attention back to the latest political trend or internet intoxication. Before long the purple sky had lost its wonder and became part of everyday life.

Xochitl was a simple woman who led a simple life. Early mornings were sunrises and coffee, afternoons were spent at the S & E Factory surrounded by fellow immigrants and handsy supervisors, and in the evenings she wrote a passage into her journal and melted into dreams of a brighter future. This was her life, day in and day out. Occasionally she would treat herself to a night out. Occasionally she would send money back to her sisters in the motherland. How far she had come only to find herself in this looping American dream. Once she had prayed for greatness. She had prayed for opportunities. She had prayed for fire. The prayers had run dry and she no longer bowed her head in submission.

Sundays were Xochitl's favorite day of the week. On Sundays, the one day off she was gifted after years of dedicated work, she bent down over a handloom she had found in an antique store year ago. She would sit in quiet, just as many had done before her, and stitch together, trusting the cloth to guide her hand.

The factory floor was especially full of gossip one afternoon as men and women discussed the purple haze that visited nightly. Many of them could not get over the beauty and the magic and wonder. Even though this had not been written in any religious text there was no denying the mystical connection to something bigger. One particular story continued to be circled around the floor, a story of ancient times, a time forgotten. The people of Tenochtitlan had once believed that a purple sky was a sign from the gods, a reminder of the beauty of creation. It was said that the purple clouds were the souls of the Aztec warriors who had died bravely in battle, and now they danced with the blushing sky to celebrate their eternal glory.

But Xochitl did not believe in such things. She saw the world in terms of what could be seen and touched, and had no time for myths or superstitions. Magic, religion, and the spiritual had done nothing for her life or the life of the people around her. She was a witness to a crumbling society and to her, no amount of belief could keep them from hurling themselves faster into destruction.

However, one night as she was walking home from a night on the town, and just as she turned into an alley she looked up and saw something that would change her view of the world forever. In the midst of the swirling purple clouds, she saw a figure form. Hundreds of eyes with wings, golden feathers, tall and proud, with a feathered headdress, and two snakes continually entangling themselves around the figure, a man or a woman or both or neither. Xochitl rubbed her eyes, thinking that she must be imagining things, but when she looked again, they were still there.

The figure descended slowly from the clouds and landed on the ground in front of her. Terror paralyzed Xochitl. Curiosity made her attentive. She did not flee. She did not cower. She stood and accepted whatever was to come next. The figure introduced themselves as Huitzilopochtli, the deity of war and the sun. A name only spoken in ancient times and in ancient cultures but a name that resonated still. Xochitl wanted to be skeptical, but she couldn't deny the power and beauty of the figure before her. As Huitzilopochtli spoke, the sounds of the city faded into silence. The world stood still.

Huitzilopochtli told Xochitl that they had come to her because she had been chosen by the pantheon to assist. The world was changing, they said, and the old ways were being forgotten. Even as the deities had blessed the city with new magic and wonder the people continued to turn their backs and focus on tiny screens and irrelevant bickering. What was sent to be a reminder of what could be had been turned into monotony and the promise of "better" continued to be diluted by those in positions of power. The Aztec deities needed someone to remind the people of their own power and their own potential.

Xochitl was confused. What could she, a simple woman, do to help the gods? But Huitzilopochtli told her that she had a gift. A gift of weaving. She had the power to weave the world into being, to create beauty where there was none. She was gifted with the fire of creation.

They showed her a vision of the world as it could be, a world of magic and wonder. Xochitl saw the rivers running with gold, the trees heavy with fruit, and the sky ablaze with colors she had never imagined. She saw people of all nationalities supporting themselves and the land. She saw joy and love, peace and light. She felt a stirring in her heart, a longing to be part of this world.

Huitzilopochtli gave Xochitl a spindle and a thread, and told her to weave the world she saw into being. Fear consumed her again. At first, she was unsure of what to do, what to create, but as she started to spin the thread, she felt a sense of purpose and power. For sixty nights she weaved and weaved falling deeper into meditation, falling deeper into prayer.

She wove the thread into a tapestry, with images of the gods and goddesses of the Aztec pantheon, and of heroes from the past who refused to accept the world order, leaders, guardians, and prophets proclaiming unity and breaking chains. As she wove, she felt their presence around her, guiding her hands and whispering in her ear. Ancestors. When the tapestry was complete, she stood before it in awe of what she had created, of what she was capable of creating.

When the tapestry was complete, she hung it on the factory floor, where the people could see it. Immediately the tapestry was taken down and Xochitl was forced out for disobedience. However, just before being taken down, it had witnessed by the selected few that understood the meaning and the power of this creation. They followed Xochitl out of the factory and assisted in presenting the tapestry to the entire city.

Together they held the tapestry high and paraded it through the various divided neighborhoods.

At first, the people were skeptical, but as they looked at the tapestry, they saw the world as it could be. They saw the magic and beauty that Xochitl had woven into the fabric of creation. They felt the power of the gods and goddesses and of the ancestors, they had once forgotten, and they remembered their own strength and their own courage.

The people of Chicago began to see the world in a new way. They saw the purple clouds as a reminder of the power that lives within them gifted from above. They saw the world as a tapestry, woven by the hands not of the divine but of humanity.

And the city became better, and the world became better, and the skies didn't change but the people did.

Xochitl became famous for her weaving. People came from far and wide to see her tapestries, each one more beautiful and intricate than the last. Her work was praised by priests and nobles and artists, who saw in her a glimpse of the divine.

And as so it was that Xochitl, a simple woman, brought beauty and wonder back into the world.