The sun slipped free of the horizon, chasing the darkness and illuminating a small figure seated cross-legged in the dirt in front of a wall of granite. A modest fire flickered shadows across his face as he peered closely at a bit of shiny metal held lightly in dirt-caked fingers.
Hunched as he was, the smoke from a clay jar between his feet billowed in his nostrils and streamed around his ears. Fragrance. Vision. Transa.
Screened off from the world.
His spirit soared with the smoke and he breathed deeply.
Overhead, beyond human sight, an eagle soared on thermals.
In the distance, muted by a thick grove of trees, the village bustled and hummed.
But the sage and yopo filled his ears.
He flipped the ingot in the air and deftly caught it in his teeth. A flat polished stone sat next to his hip and he shifted his weight so he could lean over it.
With the rhythm of the wind, he began pounding the ingot, spreading it like clay. After a while he gripped it between two clay rods and thrust it into the fire. When it was hot, he pulled it out, dipped it in water, and found his rhythm, rocking and pounding and pounding and rocking. Muscles rippled on his shoulders, and tendons stood out on his arms like vines in the trees.
Again he heated the gold and annealed it.
And again.
Until it was thin as a coca leaf.
He added another coal to the herbs in the clay pot, and squinted at the yellow disc. The sun was a full handswidth above the horizon now, and he held the gold up to compare.
As the thick white smoke filled his senses with fragrance and calm, he picked up a long sharp stone. The tip of his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he scratched a design into the gold.
He positioned the sharp stone and tapped it with a rock.
tik tik tik
tik tik tik
tik tik tik
The sound echoed off the granite, mingling with the crackling fire and the hush of the wind. Briefly he closed his eyes and enjoyed the song. tik tik
A spiral emerged on the disc. He narrowed his eyes and rode the rhythm of the spiral until it joined with the eye and beak of an eagle.
He stopped tapping and glanced skyward. Somewhere, eagle was watching, searching.
When he could not see the bird, he returned to the gold disc.
tik tik
tik
tik
More gently, carefully now. Details. A feather. A nostril.
tik
He raised the disc to the sun again and smiled.
The smoke filled him with calm and soothing heaviness.
His feet had long since fallen asleep, and as he shifted, they were filled with a tingling pain. Momentarily worried, he glanced back at the sun. Angry? Had he made a mistake?
Suddenly the screech of the eagle tore through the stillness and all was well. He punched a hole through the disc, and rubbed the whole with sand til it shone with a splendor of life-giving brotherhood with the sun.
He lay back, stretched his legs, and absorbed the warmth like a lizard.