The Sixth Mark of the Harvest

I had been in the Altiplano of Bolivia for three months, cataloging the nocturnal insects that thrived in the salt flats. My name is Diego, and I had taken the assignment to escape the noise of the city, but the silence here was its own kind of pressure. I slept in a converted adobe hut, its walls thick against the wind that howled like a starving animal.

One night, at 10:15, I lay in my cot, staring at the corrugated tin roof. Sleep was a distant land. I closed my eyes, and instead of counting sheep, I let my mind drift. I thought of my mother’s ceviche, the way the lime stung a cut, the laugh of my friend Marta. But then, without warning, a series of images flashed behind my eyelids, faster than lightning. They were not of demons or inverted numbers. They were of a field of quinoa, the stalks bent under a storm of locusts, and in the center, a single scarecrow wearing a crown of thorns. The vision lasted three seconds, and when it ended, I felt as if a mountain had been placed on my chest.

I forced my eyes open, but my body refused to move. I could see the edge of my bedside table, the crack in the ceiling, the faint moonlight through the single window. My lungs burned as I tried to inhale against the weight. I wanted to pray, but my voice was trapped in my throat. Then I remembered a phrase my grandmother used to say, a peasant exorcism: ‘By the salt of the earth, I command you to return to the barren ground.’ I recited it in my mind, and the pressure lifted as if a hand had released me. I gasped, sitting up, drenched in sweat. My first thought was that it was sleep paralysis, the same condition that had terrorized my sister back in Chile, but she never mentioned visions of a crow’s nest or a number. The images were so crisp, so alien.

I did not sleep that night. I sat against the wall, watching the moon traverse the heavens, and I noticed something odd: the clock on my nightstand read 6:66. It was impossible, but there it was, the minutes turning to 6:67, 6:68, as if time had bent. I blinked, and it returned to 12:46. My breath caught. I wondered if the altitude had affected my mind, or if there was something in the local water. The next day, I told my field partner, Lucas, about the occurrence. He laughed, saying it was just the ‘soroche,’ the altitude sickness. But his eyes glanced away, and I knew he had his own secrets. Later, I found a book in the ruin of a Jesuit mission, written in a dialect I barely understood. It spoke of the ‘Harvest of the Sixth Mark,’ and that those who saw the sign were chosen to be threshed by the ‘Reaper of the Plague.’

The visions persisted, but only when I closed my eyes at night. Each time, the images grew more detailed. The scarecrow would turn its head, revealing a face like a desiccated llama, and it would raise a hand, fingers long and skeletal, pointing at me. The locusts would then rise in a swarm, and I would see the number 666 hidden in the pattern of their wings. The pressure in my chest became a familiar dread. I tried sleeping in the communal barracks with other researchers, but the visions followed me. I tried sleeping upright, but my eyes would close on their own. I tried drinking a potent local brew to knock myself out, but the dreams would slip through. It was not just sleep paralysis anymore; it was an invasion.

One evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, I decided to confront the source. I walked to the field in my vision, a quinoa plot that belonged to an elderly farmer named Don Severino. He was known to be a wise man who spoke to the apus, the mountain spirits. I found him kneeling among the crops, his hands deep in the soil. He looked up, his eyes milky with cataracts, and said, ‘You have seen the harvest that comes for you.’ I asked him what it meant. He told me that the old ones knew of a bargain, that one night a year, the earth opened and released a ‘mark’ to those who were sleeping with their hearts open. That mark was not a symbol but a call. It was the number of the sixth cycle, and it appeared only to those who had the blood of the salt weavers in their veins. He touched my forehead with his thumb, leaving a smear of loam. ‘You must plant a seed of your own,’ he said, ‘or else the harvest will take you.’ I did not understand, but he walked away, leaving me alone.

That night, I followed his advice in a literal way. I took a handful of quinoa seeds and, before lying down, I pressed one into my navel and whispered, ‘I sow myself, not to be reaped.’ I closed my eyes, and the vision came, but this time, the scarecrow paused. It tilted its head, and I saw that its crown of thorns was not a crown but a ring of braided straw that held a single drop of blood. The locusts settled, and the field grew still. The weight on my chest did not come. I slept. The next morning, I found a small stalk of quinoa growing out of a crack in the floor, where I had placed the seed. I touched it, and it crumbled to dust. The visions did not return, but I still felt a faint tremor, like the earth was waiting. I left the Altiplano a week later, and I have never closed my eyes without seeing that field, that scarecrow, and the number that is still imprinted on my mind. It was not a demon, and it was not a hallucination. It was an invitation, and I refused it. But I know, somewhere, the harvest is still in progress, and the reaper is patient.