Mercurial Ends

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Hello Readers,

Again this chapter is a work-in-progress, its timely so I wanted to get it up asap. Once it has been edited I will resubmit it officially.

In the meantime, please enjoy it as it is. I wrote this chapter actually 2 years ago -- but life that last few weeks has been hectic and I could get it to Arch Angel to edit before the Mayan End of the World Day.

I love to hear your thoughts, I loved writing this chapter. Please also vote.

Cheers and Happy Reading,

Talyis

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CHAPTER 6 - THE END OF THE WORLD IS A BITCH

"Tabor, you are so cold to touch. What is wrong with you?" he mother's voice snapped her out of her daydream.

"What do you mean?"

"Tabor! I've been calling your name for a good five minutes. You just sat staring out into space." Her mother's brows were furrowed in lines with her forehead her speculating eyes made her feel uneasy in her own awkwardness.

"I guess I was daydreaming."

"Tabor, maybe you should see someone. I have this feeling that whatever it was that you went through you should really talk it out. You've had this cloud over you. I can't quite explain it. But I have a feeling that something really horr-... well I cant say that, now, can I?" Her mother crossed her chest a number of times. Her body fidgeted in her seat to try find a way to express her anxious feeling. Tabor only looked at her mother, her eyes were hazy and tired. She forgot that Shy told her parents what happened and then made them forget whatever parts that were too hard for them. Her mother of course found the whole situation very hard and forgot everything but there were still remnants- motherly intuitions of what Tabor was feeling at that very moment.

"Nothing mother. I was just daydreaming." Indeed, it was a daydream, but she was so exhausted she forgot what was morning and night- her body was so overwhelm but she tried to stay awake as much as possible. If she were dreaming about the Institute it was the strange dreams in a Yucatan-like jungle.

"Honey, you can talk to me. You know that right?" Tabor only rolled her eyes and nodded. "Darling, what is your agreement with Shy?"

"Agreement?"

"Well, he hasn't proposed to you. But he watches over you like he would kill anything that came to harm you."

"Mom, it's just Shy being irritating."

"Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"Well make sure he marries you before you get pregnant."

Pregnant she was not and children was something she loved but was even possible for Shy to conceive chilredn. Would he be the one that would take care of her and a baby? She shuddered thinking of what kind of creature she would have if she had a baby by Shy.

"Mom, it's just a little bit complicated right now. We love each other but it's... it's just complicated."

"Oh I see. So he is still shopping?"

"Mom!" the idea of Shy still looking for women made her sick to her stomach. She was absolutely committed to him.

"Oh don't Mom me. Come on, lets go. I don't want to be late for this gala."

"Mom you know how much I don't like to go to these things. And plus I am carrying around a cane. "

"Come on dear, daughter. Your pumpkins awaits."

Tabor sighed and then quickly pulled her gown over her head hiding her Converse shoes, not caring if she looked ridiculous by juxtaposing hip culture with old money.

Her mother smiled brightly happy to see her in something other than jeans and a t-shirt and looking more regal. Her mother and father were the Sag Harbor types who loved to sit outside with an intellectual novel or go to the beach and dress their children or child in her case in white. Which were definitely not the outfits of choice for a little girl who loved to explore, pick up crabs on the beach and run wild through the woods.

"I am only doing this for you," she said through gritted teeth.

"Yes, yes, I know darling." She beamed again and tucked a lock of her daughter's hair behind her ear. "Come on lets go. Are you sure Shy won't mind me stealing you for the evening."

"Mom!!"

"Yes I know darling, he's just—well more overprotective of you than I have ever been." She giggled slightly and twirled her hands in the air concerto-like. "I kinda like it. It levels my absurdity out."

"Mother , I never said that you were absurd."

"You didn't have to darling." The actress pranced out the door tossing her fine scarves behind her. "I know!" And with that her mom took a dramatic pregnant pause.

Tabor was glad for the silence in the town car on the way to the Natural History Museum. She loved her mother, but sitting in her thoughts had become a habit she developed in captivity. It often troubled her and made her wonder if she had lost a part of herself within those bars.

Her mother quickly pulled her out of the car and led her directly to her friends. The lobby was filled with socialites and their older gentleman escorts that looked more interested in bee lining it to the champagne line and cheese tables than chat.

"Meet me my daughter Salome..." she heard her mother say over and over again while she shook countless number of hands and plastered a smile across her face.

Tabor couldn't wait for the moment when her mother would find one of her real true friends that she could chatter with and catch up on their latest news so she could sneak away. Thankfully her mother ran into a Sag Harbor sailing partner and Tabor slipped away.

Tabor wondered down the halls of the museum away from the colossal diorama of the milky way past the windows of cavemen and sea creatures. She just walked aimlessly, not really paying attention to the descriptions, not really making stories in her head of what these plaster and wax representations meant.

"This new exhibit is extraordinary" a faceless voice said beyond her in an old New England money accent.

"I've always found the Mayans very interesting Richard. What a wonderful donation you made to the museum." A waspy lady replied and then she heard the heels clip-clip away followed by the shuffle of expensive Oxfords.

Tabor walked under the banner and couldn't help but roll her eyes: "2012: the End of the World."

As she walked and looked at the windows, describing how the built the pyramids and the agriculture of the Mayans. She couldn't help the urge to push the big red buttons that would atomize the action behind the windows. Little brown men pushed boulders to the top of the pyramids. Another made a quick flash of water flow down as blue tube to represent the irrigation system.

"Hi, I see you've found our new exhibit," a lady came up to her dressed in a museum uniform.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well the Mayans are mostly talked about today because of their 2012 prediction of the end of the world."

"Yeah. But isn't that pseudo-science."

"Well, not quite. They were really good at predicting weather patterns, astronomical events and of course they are well known for their calendar."

"Which predicts the end of the world?"

"Well, there are more to the Mayans than that. Why don't I turn on the entire exhibit for you and you can explore. I don't mind. You don't look like you are very interested in the Gala, am I right?"

"Bingo!" Tabor pointed her finger like a gun at the young woman.

"Hey, I understand. My family are "blue-bloods" too," She seemed to cringe at admitting it herself. "They still try to drag me to these types of events. They never understood why I wanted to work here, but hey, to us and our rebellion." With that lady opened the control panel and started to flip on the switches that lite up the entire exhibit hall and other animotrons came to life.

"Thanks." Tabor smiled for the first time that evening genuinely.

She walked through the hall as the room began to rumble when she crossed over a sensor and a loud-godlike woman's voice began to narrator the history of the Mayans as she approached the empty room filled with screens that flip up with black, reds and yellow volcano images.

Air was pushed towards her face so that she would feel like she was taking a journey from Manhattan to the jungles of the Mayan civilization thousands of years ago. The woman narrated about the strange occurrences that happened and how the Mayans used it to document on their calendar such as the tidal shifts and lunar eclipses. A heavy hum rumbled around her from the speakers at her feet that sounded hypnotic.

"A figure has been found in recent excavations of a woman figure always painted with reds and yellows. It is understood by few who this woman was to the Mayans. Most Mayan royalty were men but this woman was either a ruler of the Mayans or a human-god."

Pots and wall carving on the movie screens circled Tabor. Drawings of a woman with prominent breasts and hips to suggest that the stick figure was a woman but always had lines of red and yellow surrounding her like a halo.

"Unlike other carvings found, this Mayan woman always was detailed with color which thankfully for our archeologist can still see today."

"So what does the story of this woman have to do with the 2012 prediction? We do not know, but latest archeology finds have dated the woman to be the last ruler of the Mayans at the time of their demise. Other suggests that the woman is not Mayan or god-like but of the first group of conquistadors, perhaps a wife of the captain or a whore brought on to entertain the sailors on the journey."

The documentary style music shifted to an ethereal tribal beat that brought goosebumps to Tabor's arms.

"But what if she was a part of the Mayan end of the world story? One carving found in a remote village shows the women again surrounded with a halo of red and yellow. Notice the circle above this carvings. This is the symbol for solar eclipse, which would predate the woman far before the Spanish take over. Another in a village further away depicts the woman and a volcano."

Tabor's stomach dropped as the reenactment actress stood at an edge of a cliff while volcanos erupted around her.

"As scientists and archeologists continue to hunt for clues about the mysterious woman in yellow and red and if she does play a part in the narrative of the entire world's fate."

The woman in red and whites was only a silhouette her hair flowing in the wind, while the physical air blowing on Tabor filling up the room. The woman raised her arms and the volcanoes surrounding her on the screens erupted loudly before all the screens blacked out.

A single star appeared and the woman started to narrate again telling the more well-known explanation of the Mayan calendar system and how the earth's predicted axis would point the world in the direction of a void in the galaxy. But Tabor was shaken to the core and numbly nimbled out of the room. Her body was still vibrating from the subwoofer speakers and the chill of the faux air that had blasted her skin.

She sank to the ground her gold silk gown surrounded her covering her legs that she pulled closely to herself. She felt her body was literally exhausted, as she tried to take deep breaths to calm the stress that was mounting her body. She covered her eyes with her forehead but as soon as her eyes were closed she had to open her eyes. All she could see was the images of her dream and the horrifying images of the Natural History Museum. She snapped her hands away from her eyes and then looked up seeing the pottery that depicted the woman in red and yellow that they showed on the video.

Tabor scrambled awkwardly to her feet and with slow deliberate steps walked up to the case. The two-foot water cistern was quite intriguing with etchings of the woman with distinctive reds and yellow lines flowing from her, like a child's drawing of the sun. Looking closer, she noticed the eyes of the woman were also slightly colored with silver as if she had lightning coming from her eyes. Her eyes trained on the woman's as if she were hoping it to speak to her, zap her with lightning for the entire room to rock and rotate with answers. But nothing happened. Just a stressed out Power Aura thinking of the coincidence that her dreams matched up to this strange unorthodox exhibit at the Natural History Museum. She closed her eyes in withdrawn and retreated back to the wall and leaned against the wall.

"So, what did you think?" the museum woman return. "Are you okay?"

Tabor only shook her head and lied. "Migraine."

"Sorry."

"You know this exhibit is pretty scary. I wouldn't think it would be really good for children."

"Oh you mean the video room?" She chuckled and tapped on the warning placard: Parental Accompaniment suggested for Children 13 years or younger.

"Ahhh," Tabor nodded and then shook her head still trying to gather her thoughts.

"So what did you think?"

"I dunno, weird."

"Yeah! I saw that you were looking at Aura."

Tabor chocked and coughed loudly. "Excuse me!"

"Archeolgical Unknown Root of Apocalypse." The woman giggled and smiled cheesy at her acronym proudly.

"I was a part of the archeological team that found Aura. She's amazing isn't she."

"Yeah," Tabor said half heartily.

"I know," the woman responded sheepishly her eyes looking affectionately on the old dried clay. "Boring geeky stuff."

"No I didn't mean it that way it's just-"

"No its okay. It's that with the 2012 event upcoming and the recession not pulling in donors as it has in the past, the museum has-"

"Turned to pop culture fascinations." Tabor finished her sentence and felt a little bad for dissing her work. The young woman was obviously very passionate about it. She wondered if it were really a reflection of herself and her lost of passion in her own work.

"More or less. But I really do think this woman is significant. You see during this time there were major platonic shifts as well. And although we hope to find her remains, it is hard to tell if she was really a part of the Mayans as she is found in many surrounding villages and communities in the region who were actually tribes that were captured and sacrificed by the Mayans."

"So what do you think she was? I mean, I am curious." Tabor shrugged trying to seem a little more kinder than she had been with the young woman.

"Well, I think she is a demi-god. I think she was someone of importance, possibly a ruler and they thought that she was a god. I am not one who believes aliens had given the Mayan's their knowledge by the way." She laughed and tried to regain her composure. "I don't know why people think that a culture outside of Europe wouldn't be able to document and study the world without needing the help of little green men. But I digress.

"There are so many things geological and astronomical occurrences that we have found that carbon date with these depictions of Aura."

"What kinda occurrences?"

"Well we believe that she was around during a solar eclipse, during a large platonic shift that caused multiply volcanoes to erupt. Well, in essence, I believe she was attributed to be similar to the gods that cause the weather occurrences. But the Mayans believed the gods were not only responsible for weather. But this particular goddess was like Apollo, the bringer of the sun and Demeter, the moon and all other geological earth phenomenon all wrapped into one."

"What would she have to do with the 2012-?"

"Well, the Mayans wrote into the calendar predicting these things to happen and that they were caused by this woman. Plus, I recently found two more pieces that would suggest that she was also a goddess of animals and death. So she is kinda the ultimate god responsible for all the occurrences at the time."

"Death?"

"Well, yes." She said matter-of-factly. "This new piece is actually acquired by the Smithsonian it's a carving of Aura with bodies surrounding her. It's actually a large piece found within the largest temple in the Mayan city."

"Animals? The woman in the video didn't say anything about animals."

"Well no, it's not as scintillating. She is also depicted with a dog or wolf."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but it may mean she may have had a domesticated dog. Mayans also had domesticated dogs, which were often used to hunt for smaller tribes."

"Hmmm. Pretty brutal."

"Well," the woman tilted her head and shrugged. "I guess apocalypse is pretty brutal."

"I guess," Tabor shrugged and a bit disappointed that they was further away from finding anything than ever.

"Yeah, and they blame it all on women. History repeats itself again."

"Salome!" Her mother called while entering the room, her chiffon gown shuffling loudly with every step it reminded her of when she was a little girl trying to avoid these socialite gatherings. "I've been looking for you everywhere. You can't scare me like that. You are on notice my darling on disappearances."

Tabor sighed and gathered her gown in her hands, "Thank you-"

"Megan. Megan Westwick."

"Tabor-"

"Oh of the Westwick family in Connecticut," Tabor's mom piped.

"Yes. More or less," Megan answered.

"Oh, charmed. I just met your mother this evening."

Megan raised her eyebrow in acknowledgement and plastered a crocked smile Tabor knew all too well.

"Well, come along Salome. There is a young painter just like yourself; I think you should meet him."

"Thanks for letting me see the exhibit Megan," Tabor said.

"No problem, Tabor." The girls waved goodbye while the actress pulled Tabor away heading back towards the hall.

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The train rumbled down the tracks away from Manhattan swaying left and right with abrupt stops that jolted Tabor in and out of her strong exhaustion. The doors clanked open and closed before the car was yanked forward pulling her into the next seat. The train rattled along the tracks and the loud hum of the air conditioning was deafening.

Three men walked broke the law by entering the car's emergency exit. They looked like Murray Hill types, white college graduate boys whose parents still paid their rent. They did not have to worry about a thing, they landed a great hedge-fund job and the city was for their taking. Tabor rolled her eyes and sniffled. Her nose was becoming congested by the cold air blowing on her from the train vents. The three boys sat across from her in the nearly vacant car blowing smoke in her direction. Her eyes watered as the smoke further irritated her. A deeply wrinkled Russian woman that had more makeup than a teen learning how to apply it quickly got out of the train as soon as the doors opened. The men chuckled and continued to purposely blow the marijuana smoke in Tabor's direction.

"What's the matter, girl? You don't like weed?" the taller boy said and then nudged his shorter friends.

Tabor exhaled deeply and looked away from the men, covering her nose and mouth with her hand. She debated getting off before the train travelled over the Manhattan Bridge but she tired and was on the train first, dammit; she was not going to be pushed away.

"What's wrong girl? You all dressed up with nowhere to go?" the other said as soon as the door closed. He stood up, holding on to the middle vertical bar letting the train make him sway around the bar closer to Tabor.

"Please just leave me alone."

"She wants to be left alone," the third spoke with a distinctive New Jersey accent. "Why are you being so prudish? We know you want to be with us, help you pull you up from your boot straps."

Tabor's contempt began to boil deep inside her. She didn't have to deal with it often but when she had till deal with ignorant and plainly racist people it was always a shock.

"Come on girl. Have fun with us." The man swaying on the bar said and then with his marijuana butt in hand pushed a lock of her hair out of her face.

Tabor shock and stood up abruptly. She wasn't even sure of herself how she was going out handle the situation but when the man touched her, complete boldness overtook her. "You are not allowed to smoke on the train."