UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 5-1-2013 Pyramid of the Sun James Joseph Brown University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Fiction Commons, and the Poetry Commons Repository Citation Brown, James Joseph, "Pyramid of the Sun" (2013). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 1808. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/4478205 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. 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PYRAMID OF THE SUN By James Joseph Brown Bachelor of Arts in History University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1993 Bachelor of Arts in Spanish University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1993 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Department of English College of Liberal Arts The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2013 THE GRADUATE COLLEGE We recommend the thesis prepared under our supervision by James Joseph Brown entitled Pyramid of the Sun be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Department of English Maile Chapman, Ph.D., Committee Chair Donald Revell, Ph.D., Committee Member Felicia Campbell, Ph.D., Committee Member Anita Revilla, Ph.D., Graduate College Representative Tom Piechota, Ph.D., Interim Vice President for Research & Dean of the Graduate College May 2013 ii ABSTRACT Pyramid of the Sun by James Joseph Brown Prof. Maile Chapman Chair Professor of English University of Nevada, Las Vegas Pyramid of the Sun is a novel which is experimental in structure. It weaves traditional prose with original poems based on Aztec creation myths. The narrative is not strictly linear, but approaches the plot from several angles – past, present, and future – simultaneously. It comes back to its starting point at the end, like a snake devouring its own tail. The novel takes the Aztec and Mayan belief that time is circular and never- ending and reinterprets it in a contemporary, hard-edged setting that touches down at various points across the globe, including Moscow, Seville, Seoul and Las Vegas. Pyramid of the Sun explores a world where gritty realism, lyricism, and mythic themes combine. It is a world where the borders between cultures, languages and sexual identities blur and fade until they become almost meaningless. iii Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Phase 1: Temple of the Feathered Serpent ...........................................................................1 Phase 2: Perestroika .............................................................................................................6 Phase 3: Glasnost ...............................................................................................................21 Phase 4: Spanish Lessons...................................................................................................34 Phase 5: The North Star .....................................................................................................54 Phase 6: Flower of Youth ..................................................................................................84 Phase 7: The Pyramid of the Sun .....................................................................................141 The Final Phase: A New Age...........................................................................................219 Vita ...................................................................................................................................225 iv “And look, the child Is there in the almond tree, Standing upright, Like a string of boats arriving in dream. He climbs Between moon and sun. He tries to bend toward us, Through the smoke, His laughing fire, Where angel and serpent have the same face. In the clusters of words that now have ripened, He offers us Once more from the fruit of the tree. And the mason is already Bending over the depths of the light. His spade gathers up its rubble For the impossible mending.” Yves Bonnefoy, “The Earth” v Phase 1: Temple of the Feathered Serpent Meztli: Teotihuacán, Mexico Meztli was more otherworldly creature than human, more cobwebbed prowler on the shadow side of the stone ziggurats than resident of Earth. She hobbled up and down the steps of the pyramids, reaching her clawed hands into the abandoned recesses and cavities of the ruins, plucking out shiny trinkets; stray buttons and coins which fell from the pockets of tourists who scaled the monuments. Meztli hoarded them, stuffed them into the ever-expanding folds of her shawls, which wrapped around her like the layers of clouds enveloping the surface of one of the large outer planets of the Solar System. The sun set and the moon slipped into the wide expanse of sky. The stars shone brightly, and dimly. Meztli saw the sky as both clear, and hazy with pollution at the same time, as if time were happening not as a sequence of events, but as a continuous circle, and she was somewhere in the center of it, able to see it all at once. At night she found her way back to the Citadel, back to the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. She sought dampness, darkness, and warmth. These were the conditions that could sustain the fragility of a heart which beat so slowly it had almost stopped entirely. She found her way through cracks in the walls barely big enough for a tiny person to fit through. Then 1 she moved through fissures in the stone floor smaller than that, unseen. She melted into the undiscovered passageways below the temple, retreated to the sacred space at the heart of the ancient center of spiritual power. It was a small cave that pulsated with the vibrations of the cosmos. She curled into a fetal ball and placed her fists into her mouth. That’s when the visions came. Sometimes, Meztli thought of this time as simply her life, and the time she was awake and scampering around above ground in the heat and the dust as her purgatory, her waking nightmare. The sun an angry god glaring in her eyes, boring into her thoughts and burning out any shred of happiness and tranquility she may have ever felt. She wanted to stay in the cave below the temple forever, but she had to go out into the world above, to forage for food, to pick up coins and trade them for bags of peanuts and husks of corn with chili and lime. She had plenty of water. It dripped onto the rocks of the cave from an unknown source, its sound an incessant lullaby from the belly of the earth itself. The visions came to her from other lives. Places she had never been and couldn’t comprehend. She dreamt in languages she didn’t understand when she woke. She saw boats sailing from a land of snow-covered birch forests, a family separated by boys dressed as soldiers, tears the color of amber falling into the ocean. She saw the boats running aground in another land of snow-covered birch forests, she saw them coming to shore in a place of dusty, rolling plains and horses. One night, Meztli received a powerful visitor, someone who thrived in dampness and darkness. Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the underworld, drifted through her cave, skeletal and otherworldly. He was adorned in robes of bark and his hands were enormous claws and his hair was glittering with stars. The first time he passed through Meztli’s 2 cave, she was both terrified and oddly aroused. Had he come to see her? Had the coziness of her cave piqued his interest? But her hopes of an otherworldly ravaging were dashed when his consort, Mictecacíhuatl drifted in after him, her face a gruesome skull, her skirt a writhing, hissing mass of fork-tongued serpents. The couple left a chill in the air in their wake which left her shivering. Their dog paced behind them in measured steps. Meztli took an instant disliking to the scraggly little beast. He glared at her with malicious, spectral eyes, and she glared back, not willing to give an inch of ground in her own territory, in the cave that until then had the warm, rhythmic sensation of a cosmic womb, protective and inviolate. The dog, affronted by the incident, sought vengeance on Meztli. He found a way to materialize during the day in the physical realm, or perhaps, like her, this was his natural state of existence. She was at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun, her head wrapped to protect her from the harmful rays. She was reading the palm of a tourist. His face was one she had seen before, in a vision. First in the cave below the temple, and then, above ground, standing in front of her, placing his hand in hers, his eyes open and trusting, placing his whole heart in her hands. And Meztli knowing, he would lose everything. But then he could begin again. The dog came back just as the tourist left. He snarled at her, but she stared him down. No, you will not drive me from this place, dog of death. No, I will not let your masters take me before I am ready. They stood there at a frozen impasse while the universe ground to a standstill around them. Then, slowly, the planets resumed their orbits. The sun set. The moon began to shine. Their faces went up in flames as if someone had struck a match to them. The tourist snapped a picture, looked down, 3 embarrassed, and rushed away. The dog followed him. The tourist didn’t notice. Meztli knew the dog would not catch up to him. He would be back, this tourist, he knew how to travel lightly, how to keep moving, even if it meant leaving something behind, or everything.