They arrive in a blur of motion and voices—a swarm of high schoolers, uniforms wrinkled, backpacks bouncing, spilling from the rattling school bus onto the warm stone stretch of the Zócalo, the ancient and beating heart of Mexico City. Some stretch like they’ve ridden from another country. Others snap selfies in front of the towering Catedral Metropolitana, grinning with braces, peace signs raised high.
A girl points up at the enormous Mexican flag flapping in the square, its fabric thundering like history itself. A boy with gelled hair and too much cologne jokes loudly in front of the ruins of Templo Mayor, half-listening as the tour guide explains how the stones once held blood and gods.
The teacher, Señor Vargas, tries to corral them with a whistle and a tired voice: “¡Chicos! Pay attention! This was once the center of the Aztec empire!”
Some pretend to care. Some do. One girl scribbles furiously in a notebook, drawing the outline of the cathedral’s twin towers. Another boy drifts to the edge, gazing at the street performers dressed as feathered serpents, mesmerized by the way the drums echo off the buildings.
Time moves strangely in the Zócalo. The teens, half-bored and half-awake, don’t know they’re walking across centuries, where empires rose and fell beneath the soles of their Converse.
One stops. Looks up. Sees a hawk circling the flagpole. Doesn’t say anything. Just watches.
And in that second—between distractions, between the weight of ancient stones and the lightness of adolescence—something settles in him. A sense that this city is bigger than anything in their textbooks. That he is small, but standing at the center of something enormous.