My Red Tiger

I have always been interested in pyramids. Inevitably in school I'd write assigned history papers on Egyptians and their strange triangular pyramids. Pages were lined, wrinkled and spotted in our old encyclopedia about Mayans, pyramids and Egyptians. Many drops of food and drink fell on their pages because I was too intent on my ancient intriguing civilizations to pay proper attention to mundane matters of juicy hot dogs and wobbly glasses of milk.

So, of course, I leaped at the chance to go to Egypt. How could I refuse when Ken asked me? Aunt Andrea begged me? There was no way I could say no. And Ken knew it.

I wonder if cold, false-hearted Ken knows about my talisman stone from Egypt? Would he care if he knew?

My stone is before me now, my own private jewel. An objective observer would see only a pale yellow stone shaped roughly in the form of a miniature pyramid. But I know better. This tiny sliver of rock is my key to instant memory.

In its depths I see, shimmering from my tears, cameo scenes of emotional events from my past.

I relive the dreaming magic of a full moon night when love was sweeter than spring and filled my world. Through welling tears I see a ghastly betrayal of love: unforgivable, dreadful. I see a shaken, running, frightened woman seeking a new life and finding dark mysteries in Mayaland on the Yucatan Peninsula. In my dreams snakes writhe unendingly over Mayan temples. I see Juan, my dark mysterious Mayan. I see an inscrutable red tiger, the uncanny jaguar god of ancient Mayans.

In my mind, in those secret inner places where truth always shines, I'll admit the trip to Egypt was the start of this current nightmare. My red tiger was growling into life on the remote Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. But I was blissfully, eagerly going to Egypt seeking their pyramids and completely unaware of that other pyramid waiting for me. Waiting and holding cold black horror and my red tiger.

If only I'd said, no, that innocent sun-shiny day which now seems so long ago in experience. If only I'd said, no to Ken, and no to Egypt, perhaps these circles of fate wouldn't have started. But how could I, when I'd dreamed so long of seeing, with

my very own eyes, the mysterious Sphinx and Giza Pyramids?