The Strange War Read online

jaguar furs, amber, and parrot feathers. The cities that we conquered give us as tribute every year 52,000 tons of food. The convoys of carriers are endless. The tribute-payers have to deliver 123,000 cotton garments and 33,000 bundles of feathers. The province of Yoaltepec sends us forty finger-thick gold bracelets every year. Tlachquiauco has to deliver twenty squash bottles of gold dust. From Xilotepec come 16,000 women’s dresses every year, 16,000 men’s robes, two warrior costumes with shields and headdress and four living eagles. From Tochpan comes pepper; from Tochtepec comes rubber and cocoa. The provinces deliver to us corn, grain, cocoa, honey, salt, pepper, tobacco, furniture, and pottery. They have to carry gold from the south coast, turquoise and jade from the east coast. Huaxtepec delivers paper, Cihuautlán mussels.

  Haven’t we joined many cities into a great empire? Our stone cutters, who make jewelry from precious stones, don’t they come from Xochimilco? And the feather weavers, who create wonderful headdresses, aren’t they from Amantlán? Didn’t we conquer them and burn their houses? And the goldsmiths come from far away to the south.

  Our emperor Moctezuma is ministered to by 3,000 servants - not to mention all of his eagles, snakes, and jaguars that eat 500 turkeys every day. In the month Uey tecuihuitl, when the poor have used up all their supplies, the emperor opens his storehouse and has food and drink distributed among the people. 700,000 people live in the city Mexico-Tenochtitlán. We have fortified the islands, and we have built dams in the water, bridges over the canals, temples and palaces, an aqueduct that brings water from Chapultepec to the capital. When the emperor builds a temple, the cities deliver stones and lime. Thousands of workers have to be fed by the emperor when they build a temple for the Gods. Our emperors have constructed gardens and baths, and animals and plants from the whole empire have been collected here. When the emperor celebrates a festival, he invites the rulers of the enemy cities and lavishes jewelry and rich clothing upon them. Who is as rich, as powerful as we are, the Mexicas? When our emperor Ahuitzotl crushed the rebellion of the Huaxteks, the celebrations lasted many weeks. The sacrifice of the prisoners alone lasted four days! No people is greater, no people is stronger than ours is!

  But:

  As they say, we don’t live here,

  nor have we come here to linger.

  Oh, I must leave the beautiful flowers,

  I must go down there to search for the hereafter.

  Oh, for one moment my heart became tired:

  the beautiful songs

  are only loaned to us.

  The Gods need sacrifices. We must nourish the Gods with sacrifices, so that they will not destroy the world. I dance. The drums beat, the flutes cry, I dance. Faster and faster I dance, wilder and wilder. Soon I will be with Huitzilopochtli. No, I am myself Huitzilopochtli. Do I not wear his robes, am I not dressed like him? Here stands the priest with the knife of black stone. Now it’s my turn.

  Traffic Jam

  Wherever a lot of people get together, things are always happening that nobody predicted or planned. Yes, even things that nobody wants to happen. Does that sound unbelievable?

  Think, for example, of the traffic jams on our freeways. Does somebody want the traffic jam to happen? Does anyone really want to sit around on a hot and dusty freeway and sweat? No, of course not. Everybody just wants to get somewhere as fast as possible. And that’s exactly why they are stuck in a traffic jam – and as a matter of fact, routinely and again and again.

  At Your Own Doorstep

  There was a town that suffered badly from traffic jams. For some reason there were not many traffic lights, and one reason for the constant jams was this: When drivers drove up to an intersection and saw that the column of cars across the intersection came to a stop, they would nonetheless try to press their car onto the intersection, so they would not be blocked by the traffic coming from the side when the column in front would move on. In this way of course they blocked the traffic coming from the left and from the right. What would happen further is hard to explain in words, a computer animation could make this clear in a minute. Let's try it anyway: All the roads from north to south were called streets, and all the roads going from east to west were called avenues. Now let's say Mrs. Kumar is driving along 5th Street going north and approaching the intersection of 5th Street and Avenue D. She sees that traffic behind the intersection is slowing down, but still she drives onto the intersection and has to stop right there. In this way she blocks the traffic going east to west and west to east on Avenue D. So it happens that Mrs. Miller, going west on Avenue D drives onto the intersection with 4th Street, blocking the traffic there, and Mrs. Szymanski, going east on Avenue D drives onto the intersection with 6th Street, blocking the traffic there. Next the intersections of 6th Street and Avenue C and 6th Street and Avenue E will be blocked, as well as 4th Street and Avenue C and 4th Street and Avenue E and so on … And the jam spreads across the whole town.

  “This is war on our roads!” Mrs. Kumar used to sigh every evening when she was driving home from work. One day Mrs. Kumar remembered the saying: Peace begins at your own doorstep. She decided not to press onto intersections any more. But when she stopped before an intersection because the traffic behind it was stopping to let the cars coming from the side pass, the drivers behind her would honk their horns and even shake their fists at her. Because, of course, if she would not press onto the intersection when it was possible for her to do so, it might be quite a long time until the traffic coming from the side would give her a chance to cross. But what was worse than other drivers being mad at her was this: When she did not make use of every possible advantage she arrived home about half an hour later than usual. This made her sad because her family were waiting for her to cook dinner and the children needed her to help them with their homework and really the chores in the house were so many that Mrs. Kumar felt she could not afford to lose this half hour. She felt it was her duty to her family to drive home as fast as she could. So after some days she just gave up and returned to driving like everybody else did.

  What Mrs. Kumar did not know was this: Two weeks earlier Mrs. Miller had had just the same thought. She also started to stop befor intersections to make way for the cars coming from the right and the left. She also got fists shaken at her and she also lost half an hour that she felt she should devote to her own family. And so Mrs. Miller had given up again just as Mrs. Kumar. And four weeks earlier Mrs. Szymanski had had just the same experience. And she had also given up.

  One Saturday afternoon Mrs. Kumar took her children to the playground in the park. She sat on one of the benches and watched them playing on the seesaw and the monkeybars. By chance Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Szymanski came to sit on the same bench and the three ladies started talking about the weather, the children, the cost of living and the impossible traffic situation of the city.

  “It is war on our roads!” sighed Mrs. Kumar.

  “This city is a madhouse!” said Mrs. Miller.

  “People are so selfish!” exclaimed Mrs. Szymanski.

  At this point Mrs. Fukuda, who was sitting on the next bench, bent over and said: “Excuse me for interfering, but I think that peace begins at your own doorstep. I have decided that from now on I will not drive onto intersections anymore. I think someone just has to start doing the sensible thing.”

  So the three other ladies all at the same time excitedly began to tell Mrs. Fukuda about their experiences.

  “It is hopeless!” sighed Mrs. Kumar.

  “It is a tragedy!” cried Mrs. Miller.

  “There is nothing that can be done!” exclaimed Mrs. Szymanski.

  “But we have a duty towards our fellow humans!” said Mrs. Fukuda. “We cannot be so selfish!”

  “Yes. But we also have a duty towards our families”, said Mrs. Kumar. “It is not selfishness that makes me drive as fast as I can. It is the wish to be with my family! I know I should drive a little slower so others can get home earlier. But what about my own family? It would be unfair to them.”

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bsp; “It is tragic”, said Mrs. Miller. “By driving sensibly we lose half an hour every day. But if everybody would drive sensibly, everybody would be home half an hour earlier every day!”

  “Yes, it's a tragedy!” said Mrs. Szymanski. “Being unselfish and sensible doesn't help. It even makes your family sad and the drivers behind you mad. Something is wrong with: Peace begins at your own doorstep!”

  “I think”, said Mrs. Fukuda, “that we should start a campaign! You see, you all had the same idea, but not at the same time. That is why you had no success. But if the four of us start driving sensibly tomorrow …”

  “Then there will be only four of us in a city of millions!” said Mrs. Kumar.

  “Well, so we will talk to our husbands. If they agree with us, we will already be eight. And if we talk to our neighbours … “

  “We must write letters to the newspapers!” said Mrs. Miller.

  “And make folders to hand out!” said Mrs. Szymanski.

  “And make bumper stickers: I stop before an intersection so YOU can be home earlier!”

  “No, it should say: So we all can be home earlier!”

  “And we should get on talk shows on TV!”

  So the four ladies exchanged phone numbers and started their campaign. Their children and even their husbands helped them to draft folders and make drawings and