from The Toe Bone & Tooth - Martin Prechtel

the first of what i hope are many selections from the fantastic work of Martin Prechtel.  these two principally
concerning elements and their use, from The Toe Bone & Tooth

--

These particular Gods, the sovereigns of the wild mountains and untouched ravines, truly hated steel.  They hated the steel of plows and axes, the steel of saws and machetes, the steel of hooks, nails, rifles and swords.  They hated the steel of horseshoes and wagon tires, and would come to hate anything that steel could make, cut, carve or contain.  When it came to metal, gold was good enough and silver they could abide, copper was a favorite and about lead they would negotiate, but to the Gods steel was the tooth in the jaws of a consuming monster called comfort to which humans were addicted.  Steel had a soul that was a natural coward and demanded blood and it was the earth it cut.  Because the Gods saw the problems of their grandson as having come from steel and for some other reasons, not all of them clear, Gaspar was to them an ally now.  After several meetings of all the Gods and Spirits of the Mountain, Gaspar was shown to a hall where young extravagantly attired Rain Gods sat waiting for the day when they would armor up in hail and windstorms, hoping to rush forth to wound the annual troops of dryness, whose clear blood was rain, and whom they fought to pierce with their thundering arrows, lightning spears and jade axes.

--

"No, you see, I'm Gustavos Rodas and I go barefoot," holding up his callused feet to show me, "because I hate to see animals killed, eaten or made to suffer.  I don't eat the flesh of any animal and I don't use their leather, even for shoes.  I don't use plastics because it comes from petroleum, which comes from ancient animals as well.  Using gasoline or diesel to me is the same as wearing leather, using plastic or eating meat.  I don't ride horses, drive mules or pack donkeys either because I hate to see them suffer.  I have caballerias of lands, thousands of cuerdas everywhere which I loan out to all the Indians and Ladinos everywhere, who send me little bits of what they grow or make and that's how I live.
"No, i'm Gustavo Rodas and because I'm Gustavo Rodas I love all the people, even those from the Big Cities and other countries, but I don't like at all what they do to animals by the lives they live and of course those people hate me for not allowing any of those rich babosos to build on the land that crowns the holy water of the river that my family owns, who are themselves descendants from Quiche' kings, not Tecun the general, but from the kings themselves from G'umarcah.
"No, I'm Gustavo Rodas and the rich people, though none of these morosos are as rich as I am, have paid off even my children to betray their father and these things that I believe, who now only want me to sell off all my land to these horrible developers and rich folks who are killing this canyon and the entire lakeshore, illegally, for you know only villagers can own the communal holdings and nobody can legally own within two hundred feet of any shoreline, but they find ways around it.
"No, I'm Gustavo Rodas and the rich people here have fingered me to the police, who they have paid off to harass me into selling and giving in, and to whom I refuse to counterpay to keep them off, the police who are supposedly here to protect us from thieves are thieves in the employ of thieves.
"No, the green bottles and broken glass and Sonya and Momon are only there around my house to keep the cowardly paid-off police from entering my little garden while I'm away, because the police persist on trying to transplant marijuana bushes so they can come by with the Gaurdia de Hacienda and haul me off to seven years in prison, so they can confiscate my holdings and auction off my land.
"No, now you know, I'm Gustavo Rodas and that these dogs only bite people who come over the walls.  The entire world comes through the gates and gets all the roses they might need.  Now answer me this next thing, my friend, there are only two reasons for a man to risk his health to jump a wall bristling with razor glass and rushing in front of angry powerful dogs just to steal three roses he could've gotten by walking through the gate.  The first one is a woman and the second one is a girl.  Which one is she?"