The Sacrifice

• Jessie Muir, Grade 8, Grace Lutheran College
• Poetry
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

My mother is fetching the bowls of food for me, my brothers and sisters. I take a glance at their bowls but notice I have more and different food to them. I am very suspicious because this has been going on for quite some time – almost one year now. My siblings don’t mention anything. I stare at my bowl. The foreign food seems so familiar now but I know that there is something not quite ordinary about it. The taste of maize, beans and animal fats warms my mouth and chest. It doesn’t taste at all palatable but at least it’s food.
We are going out to the main meeting area of my village, Machu Picchu, where our ruler Patchacuti is making a special announcement. We all murmur in greeting and file into the crowd. Patchacuti clears his throat and begins his long, tedious speech about the privileges of being chosen as a sacrifice for the Gods. I spot my friend Chic’Ya in the crowd and she mouths the words ‘Greetings, Juanita.’ And I giggle and say my greetings silently back to her. I am distracted from Patchacuti’s previously insipid words for these seem new and fresh. ‘I am sure that our three sacrifices will be appreciated by both the gods and the people of Machu Picchu as it is a great position to hold. The sacrificial boys and girls should be more than grateful.’
Continuously, these words ring in my head for the whole day until I reach home, where I notice my mother slouched at a table, weeping. I run to her and wrap my arms around her. With shaky breaths she grasps my hand. I search her eyes for any hidden information but there is none. ‘Juanita,’ she starts, ‘you have been chosen as a sacrifice. You will leave at sunset.’ I close my eyes and my mother and I support each other’s grief.
My brothers and sister crowd around me as my mother silently braids my hair.
She keeps finding single white hairs in amongst my otherwise dark brown hair – a sign of my stress. As she finishes she gives me a squeeze and signals that it is time to leave. She accompanies me to Mount Llullaillaco and stands close as the men escorting me and two other; younger children, feed us fermented maize, beer and coca leaves. Again, I noticed that I am given more than the others. I say goodbye to my mother one last time and feel the chill in my bones as tears slip down my face and find their way into the corners of my mouth. The men escort us up the mountain and I can see the fear in the children’s eyes – it’s only a matter of time before I realise, I own that fear too.
I can feel my insides wriggling with, what? Fear, or the effects of the coca leaves, I cannot tell. We reach a point in the rough mountainside were the guards can’t come any further. A large, muscular guard comes up to us and grunts, ‘Continue up the mountain until you reach the golden flag.’ We just look at him and obey. The cold bites into my flesh and I fear that I will faint before I reach the flag.
Soon enough, there is a flat surface and the children and I fall asleep in the freezing cold. My last thoughts are of my mother, brothers and sisters.
I hope my sacrifice is worth it. Then, darkness.
My name is Juanita, I am fifteen years old. And I am, a sacrifice.