Remember More

Chapter 19

REMEMBER MORE

CHAPTER 19

The next morning. In the lobby of the hotel.

John ambled up to Yan.

"You ready?" Yan smiled at him. She was rubbing some moisturizer on her hands and wrists. She must have just gone to the washroom.

John regarded her and then he looked away.

All around them, the morning crowd was just beginning its hustle and bustle. The staff and it seemed the hotel building itself was slowly coming back to life after a night's sweet slumber. The rain, however, was something out of its usual routine. Gazing out the front doors, which were of the automatic sliding variety, John could see that an entire area over to the left of the main parking lot was still flooded from the storm last night and was cordoned off, so nobody and no cars could navigate through it and possibly get stuck. A few men were working hard, even now, to clear the storm drains that had been stopped up with unexpected debris, a water removal system that no doubt had not been put through its paces for quite some time.

"Well?" Yan indicated the door. "Shall we go?" She adjusted her hair, tying it back in a ponytail.

John dipped his head to stare down at his feet. He cleared his throat. "Yan…about last night…I…um…"

Yan took a step in toward him. "Don't say sorry."

He looked up. "Huh?"

"I said, don't say sorry."

"What? But I…"

Yan took another step in. To embracing distance.

"Yan…"

She stretched up on her tiptoes, closed her eyes and planted a big wet one, full on his lips.

John's eyes went wide at first, until the wondrous softness of her mouth began to sink in, and then he closed his eyes too and melted into the warmth of the all-enveloping sweetness that threatened now to swallow him whole.

Yan eased back.

John nearly fell over.

He tipped to one side. Throwing his arms out for balance, he just kept from collapsing. He breathed in and out quickly.

Yan reached out and steadied him. She giggled.

John blinked repeatedly. "Whoa…"

"Good morning, professor." She began heading out the door. Smiling, she threw him a glance over her shoulder. "Now, are you coming or not?"

~~~

The Nazca lines are famous designs and figures drawn into the ground in the Nazca Desert in Southern Peru. The area in question is about fifty miles in size and lies between the towns of Nazca and Palpa nearly 250 miles south of Lima. The figures are believed to have been made some time between 400 and 650 AD. There are hundreds of different drawings. Some of them are simple lines. Others are pictures of animals and plants, like monkeys, spiders and fish and there is even one that looks like a hummingbird.

The pictures in the ground are huge. The largest ones can be nearly 700 feet across and though you can still make them out from a high point on a nearby hilltop, these larger ones can only and truly be appreciated when you are gazing down upon them from the sky in an airplane.

The traditional view of them is that they were made for religious purposes. Perhaps they were drawn so large by the people that their gods might see them from heaven above. But how were they made? How were they drawn in the ground so perfect and true and accurate? Did they do it by themselves? Did they have help?