Chapter One: A Boy and a Stone

The Birth of the Jaguar Kings

The stone didn’t think highly of mankind.   The stone thought humans were far too interested in themselves and not at all as interested in stones as they should be. If the stone could feel and hear it would also probably welcome my apology for calling it the stone.  I call it a stone, because those whom came to possess it called it such. But it’s really not a stone at all. 

The stones story itself is quite fascinating. The stone, could it talk, would tell you of the great pressures and processes which helped it form and grow: the long, slow, methodical, mysterious, and seemingly magical events which caused it to become.  Change can be a wondrous thing.  Over time what is becomes what was, and what will be becomes what’s past. But this is not the story of the stone but rather of a little girl.

Now the reason I mention the stone is, I quite agree that we, are often far too concerned with ourselves and not with all the other wondrous things that make up our world. And to be fair the stone does play an important part in our story. See the stone was formed in a place far away and long ago.  It was created deep in the ground and over a very, very long time.

The place the stone was formed, at least on the surface, was a rainforest, and in this rainforest was a village.  And in this village lived a smallish boy.  Though this boy lived long ago and so very far away, he was not unlike most boys you may know now.  He dreamed very similar dreams as most boys do and always have: Dreams of being an older boy, a bigger boy, of having great adventures and of doing great things.  He dreamt a lot.  His parents thought he dreamt perhaps a bit too much, frankly.  He dreamt of becoming a great leader of his people which made the villagers smile and chuckle as he was such a small boy. When I shut my eyes I can picture him, His arms long and thin.  His body was thin as well. He had nearly a waste and his legs when he stood were thin and straight so as to give the appearance he had no knees at all.

Now on the day the boy discovered our stone, he was as we would say now, grounded.  His father had sent him to get some water to help with preparing for dinner.  The boy had made it to the river on the banks of the village when his mind had begun to wander as it was want to do.  He was imagining himself as the great hunter in a story the older people of the village told, the story of the Jaguar Gods.  The story of Ex Balanque (esh baa lan k), the Star Jaguar, the Black Jaguar, the Jaguar King.

Now, Ex Balanque, was the oldest and strongest of all the Jaguars in the rainforest. All the animals were his subjects and the rainforest was filled with his children. The people of his village told a story of the great hunter who would come one day and slay Ex Balanque, the night jaguar, and thus through this slaying would become, Ek Balam, the Sun Jaguar, the yellow Jaguar.  Ek Balam would become the leader of the village and its people of the jungle and its creatures. 

The boy’s father was quite upset seeing his son sitting by the river, his eyes gazing off in the distance daydreaming again instead of doing as he was told.  He gave the boy a gentle-ish tap on the side of the head to wake him and proceeded to tell him that, as punishment for his foolishness, he would not be joining the hunt with the men as had been promised.  He told him he needed to stop these silly dreams and that it was not very likely a boy so small would ever be the leader of the village, and that perhaps he should consider a different profession in the future.

The next day the boy watched as the men of the village left for the hunt.  He was saddened he was not going and his mother took pity on the boy and told him he could play along the fields bordering the village but not to wander off.

“I will be a great warrior, someday” the small boy said to himself.  “One day I will be strong”, he said, kicking the dirt as he wandered.  The boy knew to be a great leader he must be a great hunter.  His father had given him a small bow, small like him.  It was a fine bow and the boy’s favourite toy, but the draw on the bow was light and the arrows didn’t fly too far.  The older boys and men of the village would string more reeds on their bows which made them harder to pull but caused the arrows to fly farther.  He knew if he did this his arms would grow stronger and them maybe someday he could indeed be a great hunter, so he began looking for the reeds used for the string of the bows.

Humans are very lazy, I’m sure the stone would tell you.  They may run about a lot more than stones, but to what purpose really.  As the boy wandered looking for the reeds he saw that most of them closest to the village had been used over time by the other men and boys.  The easy ones plucked and used by the lazy boys meant he had to wander slightly farther into the rainforest.  As he wandered farther into the rainforest, so too did his mind wander back to the story of the great hunter and the Jaguar King. 

It was some time and quite a bit farther into the woods the boy went before his eyes came upon a clump of reeds suitable for his bow, which stirred him from his daydream.

His father had not allowed him a knife yet, as the boy was quite clumsy and awkward, so he grabbed a stone to cut the reeds.  No not our stone, a very different stone.  It was much smaller, thin and sharp on one end.  Our stone was quite a bit bigger, about the size of say a softball and had sharp protrusions about its face.

The boy cut the reeds and placed one end of the bow to the ground.  He tied the reeds to one side and began pushing the other end downward to string the new reeds tight.

            CRACK!!!

Some sounds are most unwelcome to humans, the stone would point out.  Stones themselves could care less about sounds really.   This sound was most unwelcome to the boy.  It was the sound of his bow, the gift from his father, snapping in half. 

The boy looked at the bow and knew he would be in trouble for this, then looked around him and realized he would also be in trouble because he had wandered quite far away from the village, despite his mother’s instructions to him.

            CRACK!!!

Now this sound was much like the sound of the bow snapping, as it was made as well by the sound of wood being snapped.  Only this wood was not broken by the boy but rather by a very large Jaguar just a bit upwind from the boy.

The first crack had made the boy sad, but this crack replaced sadness with fear.  The boy crouched down and peered through the wood.  The body, sleek and black and spotted was unmistakable.  The boy knew the jaguar could smell his scent on the wind, he knew from the stories of the great hunter that in order to survive a jaguar, a hunter must use all his senses too.  The boy decided that if he could circle the Jaguar perhaps it would lose his scent.  Even though this meant going farther away from his village he felt it the smart thing to do.

To the boy’s credit he did not run, but as quickly and quietly as he could, made his way in a great arch deeper into the rainforest.

But the Jaguar, well, he too was a hunter, and he used his senses to track the boy and narrowed the distance.

When the boy saw the Jaguar had indeed found him and was closing the distance to him, the fear took over and the boy began to run.

There in front of the boy was a small opening in the ground and the boy in a panic scampered inside.  The opening widened into a long narrow dark cave.  It was very wet inside and the boy in too much panic moved too quickly for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

 CRACK!!!

 This was an entirely different sound than the bow and the stick, this was the sound of the boy’s head hitting a stone on the roof of the cave.  Yes, this stone was our stone. 

The boy’s head was much softer than our stone and the sharp protrusions cut the boy but force of the impact did loosen the stone some from the muck and mud of the roof of the cave.  The boy felt the wetness of his head but could not see in the darkness if he was wounded.  He looked back toward the opening of the cave at the dimple of light that shown through, then the light for a moment vanished and the boy knew the Jaguar had found his hiding space. His body blocked the light as it entered.

Alone and weaponless, he grabbed what he could to defend himself, and with the strength the fear provided him, un-wedged our stone from the muddy home of the cave ceiling.  He raised the stone above his head with both hands, crouched and waited.  He smelled the air, thick with wet sleek fur.  He used his ears. The soft rustle of padded feet on wet rocky ground, and he narrowed his eyes as they adjusted to the darkness, the body of the crouched beast ready to spring toward him. 

Time is a swamp.  It thickens and slows events.  Moments become whole lives.  Sometimes lives of joy, but often not.  The second it took the Jaguar to leap at the boy was a lifetime of fear.  The boy feared that his bank of time was nearly out and this second, as precious as all are, was his last.

            The animal leapt.

Reviews

[Charles Anthony Almanza]

So judging from the reviews I see a lot of people didn't quite understand what was going on or get what you were trying to do, but I loved it. It's an inversion of the Popol Vuh, one of the oldest and still intact creation stories of the Ki'che Maya people, and if I'm correct, it is set between the second creation of Mankind and the third, right? At least, that's what I drew from it, and it is rare to see someone try and do that same thing.

I think it could use a little polishing with grammar and sentence structure and syntax (no doubt writers usually buff that out over time and practice and more reading, of course) but overall, I do hope you continue this series. It looks to be promising.

[Annemarie Musawale Simi..]

Hi. So I started to read the story but I couldn't quite get into it. It didn't pull me in. I kept waiting for it to start but you build up momentum and then you squander it by moving on to some other facet of the story. So it ends up taking me this way and that and I feel like I'm on the sea being buffeted by a particularly directionless strong wind. furthermore there are some very unnecessary spelling mistakes. I want to say something good about it but all I can come up with is that the story seems original if I could only get into it enough. I think a second run through could streamline it and make it more of the story that you're going for.

[Its Me!]

Hi... this is a candid review. Your story starts like an essay a bit bland for a fresh story. With the title, I can guess that your story is worth the read and more but not with that starting. It becomes too historical in the centre and a bit boring. However, I like your ending of the first chapter. Your story here sounds like an allegory except that, I can't find its allegorical meaning. Chap, don't give up, I can see immense potential in you!

[Mr Kizmo]

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and review the work so far. Appreciate the words and thoughts.