But man does: he owes his life.
And the debt of his life is called destiny.
And it must be paid.
And in order to direct the destiny of men, the mother earth and the father sun invented and ordained time, which is the course of destiny.
And thus as the sun had its days exactly numbered, man must know the name and the number of his days, which are different from the days of nature, which has no destiny, only purpose; but different, too, from the days of the gods, who possess neither time nor destiny, although it is true that it is they who give them to nature and to man.
With his extended hand, the old man erased five lines in the dust and looked into my questioning eyes.
And he continued to count:
The gods granted twenty days to the destiny of the names of man, calling them the day of the Crocodile, the Wind, the House, the Lizard, the Snake, the Skull, the Deer, the Rabbit, the Water, the Dog, the Monkey, the Grass, the Reed, the Ocelot, the Eagle, the Vulture, the Earthquake, the Knife, the Rain, and the Flower.
But man not only has his day and his name, but his destiny as well is inseparable from the sign of the gods to whom he must offer sacrifices to repay the debt of his life.
And so, in addition to the twenty days of the name of man, were ordained the thirteen days of the gods’ being.
And the year of destiny, which is different from the year of the sun’s voyage or of the germination of the earth, begins when the first day of the twenty coincides with the first day of the thirteen.
And this happens only when the twenty days have turned thirteen times or when the thirteen days have turned twenty times.
In this way the destinies of the arrow and of circular being are linked, the line of man and the sphere of the gods, and of this conjunction is born total time, which is neither line nor sphere, but the marriage of both.
“Look at these lines, brother, and count them to the point my finger indicates.”
As I counted, I asked: “Why twenty and why thirteen?”
“Twenty because this is the natural number of the complete man, who had that many fingers and toes. Thirteen because it is the incomprehensible number of mystery, and thus is fitting for the gods.”
I counted two hundred and sixty lines, which, it is true, are twenty times thirteen or thirteen times twenty, and I accepted the fact that for the ancient these were the days of the human year, different from the solar year, and I asked: “And why did you erase those five days from the time of the sun?”
The ancient sighed and recounted the following:
As I sigh, so sighed the goddess, our mother earth, and she wept bitterly throughout the night, imploring men to repay her for the debt of their lives.
But the only thing men could give to repay their lives was life, and the goddess knew that, and she wept, desiring to eat the hearts of men.
The men were afraid and they offered the goddess the other two things they had besides life: fruits as an offering; time as adoration.
The goddess cried out, saying that was not enough, that the fruit was in reality another gift of the earth and the sun to men, and to give something that did not belong to them was not a gift at all.
The goddess cried out, saying it was not enough, that time, too, was a gift of the earth and the sun to men, that men needed it while the earth and the sun did not, and that by giving time to men they had lost their divine eternity, and chained themselves to calendars not fitting to a god.
The goddess cried out, saying it was not enough, that the only gift man could give to the gods was life, and that she would not be stilled until they gave her blood, and she would no longer give fruit if it were not watered with human blood.
Beneath the skin of her mountains and her valleys and her rivers, earth had articulations filled with eyes and mouths: she saw everything, nothing sated her appetites, and men asked themselves whether if in order to go on living they must actually all die to feed the thirst and hunger of the earth and the sun.
Their offerings of the fruits of nature were not enough, for the earth refused to continue to give fruit and with her died the first sun of Fire and the world was covered with ice and we all perished from cold and hunger.
And the prayers of time were not enough, for the earth concerted with the sun so that time disappeared and the second sun of Wind died, when everything was destroyed by tempests and we had to abandon our temples and carry our homes on our backs.
And thus evils succeeded evils; men tried to flee, but where could they flee that was not the earth, always the earth?
“Look, brother, look outside, toward the light, toward the indomitable jungle, and see there the wounds of our sufferings, and recall with me the terrible catastrophes that beset us again and again.”
The third sun of Water died; then everything was swept away by the deluge, and it rained fire, and men burned and their cities with them.
Each sun perished because men did not want to sacrifice themselves for the gods, and the price of their refusal was destruction.
Each sun was reborn because men again honored the gods, and sacrificed themselves for them.
And in each catastrophe we lost everything and had to begin again from nothing.
“What sun is today’s sun?” I asked.
“The fourth sun, which is the sun of the Earth, which will disappear like the others, in the midst of earthquakes, hunger, destruction, war, and death, unless we keep it alive with the river of our blood.”
He said that thus it was foretold, and the destiny of each man was to procure the postponement of the fatal destiny of all men by balancing the death of some against the lives of others.
“But, my lord, I have seen no sacrifice in your land, except the ordinary ones of illness and hunger.”
With great sadness the ancient said: “No, we do not kill each other. We live in order to offer our lives to others. Wait and you will understand.”
In my fevered mind I tried to put in order the things related by the ancient, and this was my conclusion: If there is more life than death, the gods soon will see that the debt of life is repaid with widespread death; and if there is more death than life, the gods will be without the blood that nourishes them, and they will have to sacrifice themselves so that the life that vitalizes them may begin again. Thus, by dying for the gods, men postpone their total extinction, and the gods postpone their own extinction by dying so that life can begin again. I felt, Sire, poor arrow that I was, that I had penetrated a hermetic circle, both great and round, deep and high, where all the forces of men were directed toward discovering the fragile equilibrium between life and death.
And I said to myself: “Like one drop added to a cup filled to the brim with blood, I have become a part of this life and this death described by the ancient immersed in the gentle pearls and warming cotton.”
Perhaps the ancient read my thoughts, for these were his words: “You have returned, brother. You have come home. Take your place in your house. You will have as many days as the twenty days of destiny to complete your destiny. The gods were generous. As I with my hand, they erased five days from the time of the sun. Those are the masked days. Those are the faceless days, that belong neither to the gods nor to men. Your life depends upon whether you can win those days from the gods who will try to take them from you and win them for themselves. You must try to win the days and store them away against the days of your death. And when you feel death approach, say: ‘Stop, don’t touch me, I have saved one day. Let me live it. Wait.’ And you can do this five times during the life that remains to you.”
“And if I win them, will they be happy days for me, my lord?”