The Great Water

THE GREAT WATER

                                           Jack Buckeridge

"Time cures pain, time forms the seasons, time fertilizes the earth . . . time cures pain, time . . ." Amaru stopped repeating his father's words and trembled, staring ahead at the great watery vastness. He had never seen the ocean before and although he had been preparing himself for many seasons for this moment, he was held spellbound by the silent enormity before him. His father's words were those of his grandfather and the one before him. They belonged to no one in particular. They belonged to the speaker, and had steadied him so often before. But here, looking down on The Great Water, any reference to fertility seemed out of place in a world where no plants grew, where even the seasons could not be measured, where pain itself surely meant something else. 

He pulled a coca leaf from the small bag around his shoulder and sat down on a large rock. He did not need more energy to run harder. Two hours before he had chewed another leaf coming up the steep mountain side. But The Great Water made him nervous and he needed to come to terms with the shock of seeing it.

It was nothing like the water he knew. In the mountains fast flowing streams surged down from great peaks, breaking here and there into falls or in long stretches where the water, painted white, howled like a hundred mountain cats. 

There was nothing like that here. Only stillness lay before him.

"It just goes on and on." he whispered to himself, remembering the words of other Chasquis who had seen it." It has no end. "

But everything surely has an end, he thought. Why should this be different? And if it does have an end, do other worlds lay at its edge? And if they do what would they be like?

And as if released by the sight of The Great Water, a flood of images raced through his mind, as he tried to imagine people in the other world. Were they like those in his? Or taller and stronger? Did they too pray to Viracocha and the other Gods? What did they eat? Were there llamas there to pull heavy loads? Did condors soar above their lands?

He closed his eyes and tried to still such thought. He wanted to simply observe the water,to let the marvel of seeing it seep into his soul. But the water had sparked a fire within. A thousand thoughts would not let him be. Nothing had ever done this to him before.

 "Time cures pain, time forms the seasons, time fertilizes the earth." he resumed the chant, eyes closed, preparing himself. He tried to imagine seeing mountains and snow for the first time. For one who lives in the jungle, or upon the coast, the impact of that first sight would be as great for them as this was for him.

The thought pleased him; and made him smile. It meant that he had reinterpreted his shock; put it in a frame from which it could be looked at from a different angle. It was not the first time that he had done something like that. And every time he did, it made him wonder whether this tool of imagination was really his, or was God himself whispering in his ear.

He opened his eyes again and shook his head. But this time the words had not worked, nor had the vision of snow. What lay before him had a power over him that he was unfamiliar with. He would need more time to temper his amazement.