Andy Weston

“I love this room, said Moctezuma, you can't imagine how I miss being a priest. Where there were splotches of blood, he saw sprays of flowers. The withered fingers of the hands of great warriors sacrificed during the year's festivals swayed pleasingly like the branches of a small tree to the beat of some music he couldn't place, though in a possible future we would have recognized it. It was T. Rex's "Monolith."
The priest was also up to his ears in whatever he had taken to carry out his temple duties, so he bent his magic powers of hearing to the music and caught the sexy crooning of Marc Bolan.
He smiled. That's good stuff, he said.
Moctezuma swung his hips to the beat.
It's nothing I've ever heard before, he replied, but I like it. He pulled his elbows in tight and shimmied, moving his head gravely from side to side, transfixed by pleasure. The priest, swaying his own ass to the beat—he was nearly eighty, but on mushrooms he was a jaguar-said, I was thinking about you, believe it or not; look at this.”
― Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires

“I'm going to need some cactus-of-tongues. The shaman screwed up his eyes, making a hissing sound that expressed both shock and disapproval.
It's very strong, he said, something to try once in a lifetime, maybe twice, and this would be the fourth or fifth time I've given you one; you might get lost on the trip. The huey tlatoani closed his eyes.
The empire weighs on one's shoulders, he said, sometimes too heavy; help is needed. What do you want it for? My meeting is with the chief of the Caxtilteca. Who? Make it ready, that's an order: two pieces, no more. The shaman shrugged. You're the boss, he said, but don't say later that I didn't warn you.”
― Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires

“Out of bedrooms and wards
long lines of the dead walk towards you
asking you,
‘Who were you to decide
that our innings was over?
Who gave you the umpire’s white coat
and upraised finger?’
Did you think we would never speak
from the graves you gave us?”
― Michael Rosen

“Slabber Olli told her about the places he had been. He had been to the bottom of the sea and wandered endless gardens of stars in outer space. He said that human time as we know it was over.
That the waters would rise and then fall, and then fiery waters would come. The Earth would be reshaped into something new. Mud would flow. Boiling canyons would open up.
"The mountains are already starting to move,” Slabber Olli said.
He told her about creatures that used to live in the sea, like reptiles with two mouths, a horizontal one and a vertical one. He told her about creatures at the bottom of the sea shaped like elm leaves, with five eyes and long, bendy elephant trunks and scissors on their heads.
About sharks with anvils growing on their backs. Flightless birds three meters tall that ran after deer on graceful, muscular legs that bent and stretched, bent and stretched, their beaks opened wide. He told her about the rockets people would build to shoot themselves off to other planets, and how badly it would turn out. Humans would continue their journey. They would find doors to knock on and portals that wouldn't open when they knocked, and the humans would break them down, and the ones they couldn't break they would build keys for. And all the while, humans would be changing. Humans would be changed not just by time but by humans themselves, and before long you'd have to call them human derivatives, and then something else entirely. In the end, it was just matter rearranging itself over and over. What was the Earth? Nothing more than an entrance hall where humanity had once briefly waited.
Slabber Olli talked about a lot of other things, too, and Elina listened and understood that the part of Slabber Olli that was still human wanted to wander and search for knowledge, just like anyone else. The evening advanced, the light softened. At some point, Slabber Olli disappeared. Elina went back to the boat.”
― Juhani Karila