Aztec Summer

The Mexican midsummer sun beamed down mercilessly, vertically, so that men's heads and shoulders glowed but their faces, and every human expression, disappeared, dark and intense in the radiant noon, and their bodies were illuminated only for a moment at a time with the pounding of arms and legs. From almost as high as the sun, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of eyes, worshipful and expectant and desperate, gazed downward, almost vertically, it seemed, and the stands, foreboding and tall, were part temple, part cauldron, and saw some dreams come to fruition and many shattered in despair. On fields partially scorched and partially green, the gateway to triumph was so deep that heroes almost had time enough to turn in celebration half a moment after their heroism had crossed the line, yet half a moment before it had nestled in the back of the net. Story-tellers, men of many tongues, celebrated caricatures in their own right, screamed feverishly to the masses, to tell of the drama as it unfolded, rolling cameras projected moving images and snapping cameras froze images in time, and both launched their moments, moving and still, into the eternity of divine drama. A winter and a summer, and a change in between, and a summer and a winter, and ten thousand miles away, young boys and men, and a girl or two, marvelled at the spectacle, and revelled in the glory, and dreamed that it was theirs. From three or six seasons, and ten thousand miles away, I fell so deeply and dearly in love with the Aztec summer's noon. 10th August 2018