Human Sacrifice to the Gods.

(WARNING: the pictures and text below get fairly graphic.)

A few months ago, my friend Tom made a post comparing the modern neoliberal system to the Aztec system of ritual human sacrifice. I don't know why, but last night I had a dream about it. It was troubling, and I couldn't sleep past 7:00 AM on a weekend when normally I sleep in 'til noon. I've been up since then, writing and drawing what comes below.

1. I dreamed I was a Tlaxcalan warrior. We fought against the Aztec Empire, and were defeated.

We were marched to Tenochtitlan, where their priests did worship to the gods. Sweet-smelling smoke billowed from the altars atop the great temples.

We will be sacrificed, and our bodies fed to Huitzilopochtli in the spirit world so that the end of the earth will be delayed. The people cheer, for they will taste our bodies in this world, and they hunger for it - they need the meat we will provide. We are foreigners to them, and defeated in battle. It is right and just that this should happen to us.

Rivers of blood poured down the temple stairs as my compatriots were sacrificed. It poured in torrents, to be collected in pools and basins and used for rituals.

The priests whirled and danced for hours atop the temples, in front of great crowds. I saw the stone knife plunge into my own chest.

After the people feasted on our bodies, our skulls were used to build a pyramid... a reminder of the great deeds we did for them, and all humanity, that the sun might still rise in the east tomorrow. In every city, in Cahokia, in Tenochtitlan, in Cuzco, there was something like this.

I met Huitzilopochtli. He asked me for tidings of Earth, and I told Him our people were happy. I asked Him to remember Tlaxcala. He nodded and thanked me for my offering.

2. I dreamed I was a Tlaxcalan warrior. We had made an alliance with Quetzalcoatl and his band of pale men, who came in the tall ships from the sunrise, that we might throw off the Aztec yoke.

They had captured Montezuma and were praying to their gods in a whitewashed temple. The strange incense they burned stung my eyes before they ate their God's flesh and drank His blood. This incense almost overpowered the familiar smoke of a city burning.

They have come to teach us the ways of Heaven more properly, and to end the sacrifice of men. We will join them in killing the Aztecs, and stopping their barbarity. They are foreign rulers to us no longer. It is right and just that this should happen to them.

In the great war we fought throughout Mexico, the rivers flowed with blood. Whatever our swords didn't kill, the pale men's firesticks shot, or their great beasts trampled. The men died in warfare, and the women and children were smote by the pale God's diseases.

Those who survived disposed of the dead in mass graves. There was no time or manpower for anything else.

Heaps of the dead littered the countryside, near every major city... Veracruz, Tlaxcala, and Mexico City.

I died in battle as we marched on against the northern tribes. I met the pale God. He had wounds in His hands. He thanked me for helping to lead Mexico to salvation, for now His priests could save the land.

3. I dreamed I was a junkie. I had just bought my fix of crack off of my dealer, and I loaded another pipe to stave off the demons. I was smoking down by the river, because there was no time to waste.

Smoke smelling like burning tinfoil filled my lungs. It would be disgusting if it was not also the relief I sought. It billowed out my lungs in great curls.

It is too late for me. I can feel my body starting to rot from the inside out. I will be dead soon, but that is probably for the best. Most of my friends are like me, or becoming like me. They are black, Mexican, Filipino, Native - but I am white. It doesn't matter. We are all the unwanted detritus of human society, and we chose our fate. It is right and just that this should happen to us.

As the relief started to fade, for the last time, everything began to go dark. I fell into the river, floating alongside dead fish, chemical waste, and God knows what else. My last living memory was feeling cold as my limp body was drug out of the river by the cops.

The great masses of people like me - the people society does not want to afford to help - are disposed of in great piles. By every major city - New York, Lima, Los Angeles - lies a pyramidal heap of human flesh, sacrificed to the god of the modern age.

In these pyramidal heaps are the junkies, the poor, the gays, the homeless. They are more often the descendants of people our ancestors conquered or enslaved, but we live in a post-racial world now, and white trash like me is also an acceptable sacrifice to the modern god. The priestly class on the evening news and the campaign trail tell the people comforting theologies about us, as our rotting stench fills their nostrils, so they will not worry. A handful of people march to stop the pyramids, but they just get shot and added to the pile.

I met the modern god. He sometimes had the head of a bull, sometimes of a bear. Sometimes he had the head of an elephant, other times a donkey. He wore a suit and wouldn't acknowledge my cries. He asked his servants to drag me away so I wouldn't bleed on anything valuable, and so he could happily forget where the money he counted came from.