You Dreamed of Empires

by Álvaro Enrigue

Men who were used to setting temples ablaze, crushing cities, and ripping hearts out like tomatoes one day awoke and thought twice before picking up a precious stone from the ground. No, they said, not another war, because then there will be no room in the temples to keep all the young men for sacrifice; talk to the rebels, double their tribute if you want to humiliate them. And then they moved on to the next thing. They died younger than they should have, from illness or killed in ridiculous accidents, seized by sadness and imperial rancor—some strange malady, some paralysis, maybe caused by having known no limits until their own bodies were beset by them.

After years operating in a court where anyone could disappear from one day to the next, never to be mentioned again, he was able to maintain a perpetual appearance of equanimity even if inside he was about to lose his shit.