The Dragonflies of Chaac
by Harrison Kim
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
I had come to Mexico for adventure, for change and personal metamorphosis. I had purposely ridden to the most remote areas. “I will go with whatever happens,” I thought at the time. “it’s all part of the adventure.” Now I was in one that was far over my head.
The old man motioned me to toss my old clothes onto the floor. He lifted a scrawny arm and pointed from his eyes to the door, its pine wood decorated with a replica of a green dragonfly. I nodded again and walked out into the buzzing insect swarm, following the old man until we caught up with the other villagers hiking into the jungle.
As we entered the humidity-filled shade beneath the high trees, the insects dispersed. I could hear them thrumming among the branches above. The people silently filed towards the round pool, with its hanging mangroves. As we approached, the jungle swirled. I held on to a tree for a moment. “It’ll be good to cool off,” I thought. “I’m getting too much sun.”
We all stepped silently, one by one into the pond. The warm water felt hotter than the air. I reached to my pocket, touched my wallet and passport. “Everything’s in a waterproof bag,” I thought, as I followed the villagers into the water.
“I’m part of this,” I thought. I’d searched for spiritual experience all across Mexico. “Let the ceremony begin,” I said to myself as the clouds gathered above us.
* * *
Now, after the deluge, who was I? I stared again at my gnarled brown hands and peered up at the dissipating rain. I smelled like the forest, like the musky decaying leaves in the mud at the edge of the pond. How long had I been standing in the water?
I noticed the villagers walking one by one out of the pond. On the edge stood a pale young man with a hawk-like face. He ran his fingers through his short brown hair. He looked at me and smiled widely. The smile was so catching that I grinned, too. It took a moment to figure out I was gazing back at myself, at the person I used to be. I’d come to Mexico for change, but this was different from anything I expected.
“Who are you?” I shouted at him. “Why are you inside my body?”
Other people turned around to look.
“You’ll be fine, old man,” said my voice from the person I used to be. “You appear refreshed from the rain.”
A young woman with very white teeth said something to me.
“I don’t speak Mayan,” I told her.
“You are one of us,” she said in Spanish. She pointed at the pale boy. “He has been born again, as have you, thanks to Chaac.”
She wore a bleached white scarf wrapped up high on her head. One long indigo dragonfly buzzed around her face.
“Who am I?” I asked her.
“You are Alicante, my grandfather.”
“I’m only twenty-four years old,” I said.
A few of the people near me began to laugh.
“You wanted to change,” explained the woman. “Otherwise, you would not have done so.” She smiled. “Even I am not who I was before the storm. We all went into the thunder cloud. Chaac sends us back in different forms, whether it be bodies or souls. I’m in the same body, but my spirit is light and purified.”
She touched my arm. “Come now, Grandfather Alicante.” She sounded gentle, her voice lilting, calm and insistent. “You must come home.”
“It doesn’t seem possible we share a family,” I told her. “My name is not Alicante.”
Yet I heard a familiarity in the tone of her voice, and we shared the same brown colour of our skin.
All around the pond, people ran their hands down their bodies, as if to be certain of their changed natures. My fingertips found a bony chest and protruding ribs. I moved painfully from the water. My back ached. I heard whispering as people turned to one another.
“Peace,” they uttered. “Peace be with you.”
The sun shone above them, full of its afternoon power.
The owner of my former body stretched it out on the shore, then began to lope away through the jungle.
I lifted my sandals from the pond, tried to catch up. The young woman climbed out beside me, water streaming from her ankle-length skirt. She quickly moved ahead of me, and I followed her as she stepped over the path towards the village. The distance seemed a lot greater now than when we walked in, and the trail was bumpy and covered with thick roots; so many ups and downs.
I stopped for a rest. The self I used to be sat balanced on a mushroom-covered stump, stretching his arms above his head. “You will be fine,” he said. “Keep breathing hard. In another year, there will be another ceremony, and you can fall into a different body.” He gave me a long look. “I will continue with the bicycle ride.”
“You were the one who beckoned me,” I said. “I should have stayed with the police chief.”
“No one knows what would have happened if you had stayed,” the young man said. “No one can tell the future. You might have been shot.” He alighted from the stump. “You will grow into yourself,” he said, “and understand the truth.”
I hobbled into the village and headed to the house with the wooden dragonfly emblem affixed to the door. My old clothes still lay in the front room. A hammock, a few candles, a jug of water lay beside them.
“Come in, Grandfather Alicante,” said the young woman. “You must be thirsty. I will pour you some coconut milk.”
I sat and drank it, and the girl spoke to me in Mayan. At first, I said “I told you already. I don’t understand that language.”
“You do,” she told me. “Listen to the rhythm.”
Her lips moved, and I began to comprehend. I drank cup after cup of warm coconut milk and listened to her story. She said I’d always lived in this village, along with generations of my family. Once a year we offer ourselves to the Thunder God, Chaac, and in that ceremony our spirits rise into the clouds with the dragonflies and then drop back to the pond, purified as rain. In these ceremonies, spirits often do not return into the same bodies.
“What is your name?” I asked, and I did not know what language I was speaking.
“Sacniete,” she told me. “White Flower.”
Yelling erupted outside, and the roar of a vehicle engine. I stood up, rubbed my sore back and stepped outside, Sacniete right behind me. An all-terrain vehicle sat by the police station. A burly man in green fatigues was patting down the pockets of my old self, the young man with the hawk-like face. Then he pushed him face first against the station wall. “Who do you work for?”
“I came here as a tourist,” said the young man.
Armando, the police chief, stood with his hand on his holster. “Works for our enemies, I’m sure of it,” he said. “Listen, Leon. This fellow is up here to spy on us. When I asked him questions, he ran out on me.”
The young man pointed to the Chief. “That’s a lie. He stole my bicycle.”
The burly Leon held a passport and wallet, which he’d taken from the young man’s pockets.
“American, eh?” Leon said, holding a credit card up to the sky. “And you don’t speak English?”
The young man said nothing. Leon shoved the objects into his military jacket.
“This is valuable I. D. How did you get it?”
“I can explain,” said the young man.
“I think you stole it,” Leon pushed him towards the back seat of the ATV. “You’re working for the gangs, I know it. Your Spanish is too good for a gringo. Get in.”
“I have nothing to do with the gangs,” the young man protested. “I’m an American tourist.”
Armando passed Leon some cash. “Make sure he doesn’t come back,” he said, “We don’t want drug dealer filth up here infecting these people.”
“We’ll make sure.” Leon handcuffed the young man, then he started the machine, its engine noise shattering once more the silence of the village. He kicked the vehicle into gear and it roared away. I saw the young man staring back, his face a distorted, puzzled frown.
“The outsider is gone,” I said to Sacniete. “I feel sorry for him.”
The girl put her hand on my arm. “I wouldn’t want to be in Leon’s hands.”
I nodded and rubbed my white-whiskered chin. I’d had many dreams about America, but I didn’t belong there. That was a country for young men, like the boy in Leon’s ATV. I belonged with the jungle and the village.
The police chief disappeared into his station. I hobbled down the street, following the dragonflies and Sacniete. The green-winged insects flew everywhere here; they were part of my life now. When we stepped inside the house, I took off my sandals and drank the last of the coconut milk.
“I am Alicante,” I told my granddaughter, “until next year’s ceremony.” I smiled and pointed. “Then I may become a dragonfly, like them.”
I’d made a joke, and Sacniete smiled. Yet inside and outside my head, all I heard was the constant thrumming of their multicoloured wings.
Copyright © 2026 by Harrison Kim
