Summoning Rains

It was in the foolish state of desperation where my mind became so clouded that I found myself trudging into the barren land beyond the borders of my small desert town in search of salvation from a Zuni medicine man.

The rains visit this small desert community seldom, but after an abnormally long dry spell we began to find ourselves in a more precarious position than usual. There is an amount of struggle in a typical year waiting through the long hot dry season until late summer when the rains come. The last few years however, the rainy season has been on the light side. This year moving into the tenth calendar month they still remain completely absent. 

Some of the men have made the twenty-mile trek through the dust and wind to the blue waters northwest of here, but as the marks of days without rain increases on my vestry wall day by day, I’ve noticed that fewer men are willing to make that trek to the blue waters and more of my parishioners have been finding solace in the local tavern rather than our house of God. 

The mothers have settled for giving their young ones dust baths saving the precious water for a few meager sips in the evening.

As more of the crops and the livestock dies from dehydration, I hear the curses and screams from those that used to regularly attend my mass on the Sabbath. 

Locked away in my vestry, I hide from these encounters and my parishioners for I no longer have words of comfort to offer and I cannot bear to see the desperation in their eyes. Though little consolation I found in my ensconcement as I find my dreams haunted by their dirge.

It was after an acutely torturous dream, where upon I awoke in sheets soaked through with perspiration hardly able to catch my breath, mind still hazy from demonic screams from my abandoned flock that I made my ill-guided decision to seek the unorthodox help from the heathens that occupy the desert on the western side of mountains.

I knew that a Zuni medicine man occupied a small earthen hut among the mountains as a few of the hunters have claimed to have seen mystical things not of this realm in the area where they found it.

Some accounts of the medicine man are that he can take the form of a giant insect. Enormous compound eyes glistening in the sun. A large armored hunched back concealing wings like those of nightmares, and antennae flickering about on its god forsaken head as the mandibles crush sickeningly through the bones of puma and cattle alike as though they were communion wafers, if the poor beasts wander too close. 

No doubt this medicine man can conjure beings and deities beyond the veil of this world and could perhaps -curse my feeble mind and weakness of faith- summon some such god or spirit to grant mercy on the ignoble and innocents of my flock. And so, my heart full of fear and desperation, I walked into the desert.

I walked for hours under the endless sky and the relentless heat. My reality became a Sisyphean existence of my aching and blistered feet shuffling toward the horizon. The soles of my feet as well as my soul everlasting began to feel as though they were being poked and prodded by the vilest manner of centipedes and scorpions. 

All notion of time passing became impossible to grasp and after what could have just as easily been 20 hours, 5 days, or 40 years wandering in the desert, I collapsed.

In my delirium, I was sure I saw what some of the hunters described as an enormous insect wrapped in a Zuni blanket, playing a flute, antennae seemingly beckoning me nearer. I screamed as well as the dryness of my throat would allow. The tears that streamed from my eyes were but dust that blew away with the tumbleweeds. I searched for the strength to lift my body from the Earth but found my muscles like my faith were exhausted and the world dissolved to darkness.

I awoke in the shade of the dust-covered hut of the Zuni medicine man.

While the hut was not full of the grotesque décor that had presented in my imaginings, there was no shortage of crystals, baskets of dried marigolds as well as other desert flowers, and rings of branches intricately webbed with twine and adorned with feathers and beads of jade and obsidian and red jasper. 

The jovial appearance of the wrinkled and hunchbacked old man was unsettling at first as he seemed to laugh at the slightest incongruity however his friendly demeanor settled my nerves rather quickly despite his priapism and his mostly toothless smile.

He offered a small vessel of cactus juice which I gratefully accepted and upon sipping the bitter, yet refreshing liquid attempted a rudimentary communication. My attempts proved less than successful as he couldn't comprehend a word of the King's English and only the smallest bit of broken Spanish and so through a combination of hand gesticulation and the few Spanish words he knew I was able to convey my concerns regarding the drought, the dying crops and livestock, and the moral dissonance growing in my flock.

He listened and watched intently with his mostly toothless mouth agape and his hands holding on to his walking staff, which also dangled with semiprecious beads and feathers. Once I had finished, his demeanor became more serious in tone and his smile nearly left his leathery face.

He began waving his arms skyward and speaking in a dialect which sounded different than the occasional Zuni tribesman that came to town to barter. One word he kept repeating as if asking a question was “Tlaloc”.

As he had repeated my hand gestures which I had used to indicate rain, I nodded yes in the affirmative and repeated “Tlaloc” as best as my gringo tongue could manage.

A deep laugh built slowly from his diaphragm and he raised his arms skyward. He lifted his flute to his mouth and began to play a dizzyingly haunting melody which seemed to make my head spin. An uneasiness came to my stomach and I soon found myself retching violently on the earthen floor of his hut and then I found I had trouble keeping my faculties oriented. While conscientious did not escape me, I had the uniquely unfortunate experience of recognizing that my body was being moved about but remained incapable of not only realizing where my body was being moved, but also who was around me and any concept of time passing.

When I finally became cognizant of my ability to distinguish my bodily space and time once more, I found myself instead longing for peaceful darkness.  For as my eyes gained back their focus I took in the most dreadful sight. 

What I had earlier mistaken for an immense insect turned out to be the Zuni medicine man. A blanket draped over his shoulders and hunchback; two feathers stood erect on either side of his head from a headband. He pranced around under a blackened sky playing his flute. HIs flute as well as his priapism bounced along with his movements as he played.

Lightning cut suddenly across the sky and as the rolling thunder followed it brought along what by all accounts I could only think of as some demonic figure. What had first appeared to be a large stork-like bird had mutated into something of a man but with hideous green skin, large goggle-like eyes and razor sharp, pointed teeth. 

He surveyed the scene and seemed pleasantly entertained by the ostentatious dance of the Zuni medicine man, at least briefly. For as he turned his head, his eyes locked on me and he commenced to approach.

Another flash of lightning and crash of thunder foretold the imminent cloud burst and by the time this ghastly specter was within arm’s reach of me, rain had penetrated every inch of my body and I could feel the last bit of my faith dripping away with my rain-soaked tears from my chin.

I stared in horror of the arm reaching out to me. A covetous bloodlust in distant goggled eyes. And I knew there would be no paradise waiting for me.

 The next I knew I awoke in my vestry to the sound of rain drumming against my tiled roof. The terrifying images of Tlaloc's hand reaching for me never left my mind's eye and while I've contemplated my exit from the priesthood, I've instead continued to recite uninspired sermons and spend my spare time hiding behind the sacramental wine. I never again sought out the Zuni medicine man, though have seen his likeness appear on petroglyphs outside of town.

The End.