Karan UppalMrs.OrloffEnglish Pre-AP P-41st May 2015The Last of the PastIn the midst of the Yucatn forests of the Mayan city, Chichen Itza. I lived in the north with my parents where my dad was an astonishing architect and mom was a farmer, who worked hastily in the fields. I was a little boy at the time, but I remember everything like a crystal clear diamond. I used to love my dads job and worked with him sometimes, but my dad was really busy that day and was working on something very important. My mother on the other hand was in our pueblo cooking some beans and avocados. The day was ending with brevity and during that time I was walking nearby a river that flowed through the city. It was very hot and humid and it felt like I was in scorching lava and continued to walk along the river and suddenly heard people screaming. I quickly ran back home and saw these shiny people with clothes of shiny material. They had sharp sticks and were killing people. I ran and tried to find my father but one of the shiny people got there before I did. The shiny man was different and was covered in gold shiny clothes, had a beard and stood at least a foot more than me. He thruster his spear through my father and soon found that he was dead. I couldn't stand to look at his body as the foreigners continued with their barbaric behavior and seemed as if they were scouring for something super important to them. My mother met me by the mouth of Chichen Itza pyramid where we fled south to Cob, another Mayan city that was connected by trade routes and a system of rivers that ran across the forests. It took us exactly 18 days to get there but we were too late, the foreigners got there before us and the city was all obliterated but all of the building still remained, some heavily scratched but only some still perfect. The people seemed so alien and I couldn't figure out why would they destroy everyone for no reason and leave all our buildings. It was something I had to figure out on my own. I had nothing left but my mother. We spent the nights in the forests and managed the harsh environment for a while until one night I had a dream. My dad was in my dream and came to tell me something important. He told me something about returning home and find the one thing that was important to our world. The next morning we left to Chichen Itza and came back to the ruins. The sight gave me goosebumps and the buildings and architecture were still untouched but the people were all gone. I was wondering why my father told me to come back and suddenly saw a gold piece of strip shining inside one of the towers that stood outside the Chichen Itza city. I went inside and saw numbers written in the Mayan language and a continuous set of numerals of the same continuing pattern. It seemed as if was a measure of time. My father always told me time was important but this was different it was telling us something. The carving were beautifully done and showed representations of our ancestors. It didn't seem complete and looked like some of it was still being finished. I soon left the tower and the same night I had another dream where my father told me something even important. He said "Time is longevity of our world". My father seemed like he was telling me that our world has a time to it. The next day I went to take a look at the gold strip and analyzed the numbers. It seemed as if the patterns kept going. I knew some of my own language and knew these numbers had to end somewhere so I set out to finish the gold plate. The plate was designed with numbers everywhere and then understood it was a calendar of our planet. I used whatever I could to finish designing it and came and used the exact calculations of whomever was finishing it and came to finally finish it after a few days. The calendar marked the end of our world and show on December 21, 2012 something catastrophic would happen and the world we know would come to an end. This didn't seem right and my mother at first didn't believe me but seeing what my father did and the calculations that our ancestors got, I believe that it actually may be correct. This is what our ancestors have developed for centuries and know it seems since we are the last it was my duty to preserve it. I carried the gold plate with me everywhere and went on to travel out of the Mayan territory leaving Palenque, Tikal and Calakmul with my mother who soon became very ill. She passed away sadly and soon over the years I kept the gold plate safe and completed it and soon learned that my father and his people discovered the calendar before the Spanish Conquistadors. The Spanish wanted our discoveries and tried to keep them as theirs, but I kept alive some of my heritage. I continued to be a storyteller and a student of history, but I knew there was a possibility that I could rewrite history and revive our culture and be a part of the magnificent history in the future.