Blood for the Sun

They'd cast his blood for the sun so it would rise up in the sky. By day's end the redness began to drain out, coloring the Ocean as the sun sank back down behind the horizon. Tomorrow someone else would be sacrificed, their blood meant to nourish the mighty Huitzilopochti and give him strength to battle the forces of night for another day.

Mayte could not get the sound of the shrine drums out of her head, nor stop the roar of the crowd from filling her ears as the priest cut into her brother's chest with his stone knife, then held Quito's still beating heart high above the altar of the Great Temple. How many hearts had it taken to keep the world lit since the first ones had emerged from the cosmic darkness, she wondered. How many more before the end of time?

Mayte's eyes were transfixed on the pulsating heart as its blood drained down the priest's arm. If he put it back, would Quito rise from the dead and come back to her? Would the world suddenly be cast into darkness if he did? There was no time to wonder any more as the priest kicked the lifeless body of her brother down the temple steps--a shell with no further consequence--and "her" world went "black."

When she came to, the sun was still bright, and the pounding in her head seemed to have slowed down and become duller. Her mouth was dry and her eyes still not fully focused. Then she realized it was not the sun at all, but bright artificial lights. She brushed loose tendrils of hair from her face and was suddenly startled to see the paleness of her hand and feel a strange upturn in her nose.

Gone was the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. Gone were four hundred years, and within the blink of an eye she was sitting in the observation deck of an operating theatre, fourth year medical student, watching as a team below replaced the defective heart of a fifty year old man with a new one.

"As you can see here, the v. cordis magna, or cardiac great vein received blood from the anterior surface of the ventricles and drains into the coronary sinus..."

Then suddenly, her tears began to flow uncontrollably as she cried for her long lost brother, "Quito, Quito..."

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