The Mayan Legacy Quotes

“Chuck skipped through the rest of the preamble to the actual examples
Spaceguard had chronicled:
“On March 23rd, 1989, an asteroid designated Asteroid 1989FC missed
hitting the Earth by six hours. This little jewel packed the energy of
roughly a thousand of the most powerful nuclear bombs, and the human
race became aware of it shortly after its closest approach. Had this celestial
baseball been only six hours later most of the population of the Earth
would have been eliminated with zero warning.”
“In October of 1990, an asteroid that would have been considered
very small, struck the Pacific Ocean. This little fellow only packed the
energy of a small atomic bomb, about the same as the one that flattened
Hiroshima, and if it had arrived a few hours later or earlier it could have
easily struck a city rather than making a relatively harmless splash into
the center of the ocean. Remember, relatively here, is just a comparative
term.”   ”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“Yeah, you almost got yourself killed, you idiot,” she said smiling. She
was well aware of his daredevil tendencies and to the extent possible,
comfortable with them.
“No, it was something stranger than that. When I was underwater,
my life did flash before my eyes. You know, just like everyone says it
does. But there was . . . something else . . . something that wasn’t part
of my life. It was like it was stuck right there at the end, just before I
popped to the surface, and I can’t imagine what it was.”
Val slowly turned her head back toward the road then asked, “Well,
what was it you saw?”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“Since that night a couple of weeks ago when Valerie had stayed with
him, they had barely separated. The stories of Rabbit’s Revenge droned
on and on talking of the impending doom of the planet and the international
scientific community’s various attempts to determine a course of
action to prevent it.
For Jeremy, however, each passing day left him feeling more and
more certain he was missing something. It was just a nagging little sensation
that lingered like an itch on the back of his neck. With Valerie
now firmly implanted in his life, it was a wonder he even thought about
it at all, but during his quiet moments and when he awoke in the mornings
or even during his more intense workouts, the sensation crept back
up on him. It seemed to center around the experience of having his life
pass before his eyes, but beyond that it was just nebulous.
And annoying.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“Maybe it won’t come as too much of a surprise that a certain amount
of alcohol was involved with this Darwin Award candidate of an idea,
and though someone must have considered it ahead of time or the parachute
and camera wouldn’t be there, it’s still pretty certain that the onset
of this little adventure was preceded by something similar to the above
mentioned collegiate death sentence:
“Hey man, watch this!”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“What is it, Val? What are you watch . . .” His word trailed off as his
eyes landed on the TV screen. The headline looming at the bottom of
the screen said it all—
“Planet Killer Aimed at Earth”
Wordlessly, Jeremy moved around the couch and plopped down
beside Valerie, whose eyes were glued to the screen. After moments of
watching, he turned to look at her, and her mouth was sagging open. It
was only then he realized his was too. He closed it with an audible click,
returning his attention to the screen. The narrator continued on about
the details of the new discovery until he got to the scientific name for
the asteroid and the new media moniker; Rabbit’s Revenge. Something
clicked in the back of his mind. Some little sensation of recognition
sparked at the name, but for the life of him Jeremy couldn’t place why.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“The thought that the Mayan culture managed to calculate the Earth’s
passing through the plane of the Milky Way galaxy never failed to fascinate
Chuck. It was December of 2012 that had marked the end of the
Mayan calendar and also saw the Earth pass through that plane, the winter
equinox of 2012, to be precise. Of course, that exact date had been
disproved. The Mayans hadn’t accounted for leap year.
How could an ancient culture have calculated such a complex 26,000
year celestial cycle yet not figure in leap year? Yet another puzzle. Maybe
it was this rare event that accounted for the appearance of his comet.
His comet. Maybe he could be the one to officially make the discovery.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“An interesting note to this novel is the fact that not only are a number
of the experiences related herein ones to which I am intimately familiar,
one is particularly unusual.
I wracked my brain for quite some time to come up with a suitable
near-death experience to use in the opening scene. As it turns out I had
an “AHA” moment, or more appropriately a “DUH” moment when it
occurred to me that I had actually survived the perfect experience to use.
As a result, the first scene and the near-death experience described here
was drawn, almost in its entirety from my OWN life, and I still retain
the scar.
I guess sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“Valerie watched him pull away before turning to go inside. Her feelings
were a painful contradiction. On the one hand, she was deathly afraid
of a man whom she was so attracted to as to barely be able to maintain
control when she was around him, on the other hand, that very attraction
and loss of control signaled what she had longed for her whole life,
someone she could fall irretrievably in love with. She was delicately balanced
on the tightrope of some of her most basic personality traits and
her deepest desires. It was a precarious trap for her, and one she wasn’t
going to be able to easily resolve. Unfortunately, the result for Jeremy
was a seesaw of her reactions to him.
What the hell am I thinking, she asked herself as she slowly closed her
apartment door. For now, her fears were winning the battle against her
heart.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“As a place to start, let us use a model to explain precisely
what this ‘Great Year’ actually is. The year 2012 is the year
that marked the end of a 26,000-year cycle, ending in a
great galactic alignment that was calculated on the Mayan
calendar and results in the calendar ending on the winter
solstice (December 21st) of 2012. But what exactly is this
galactic alignment?”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“Save the world. What a thought. Was this asteroid really speeding
toward Earth on a collision course? Would it really wipe out everything?
Could humans really do anything to stop it? It was just too incredible.
As she considered the circumstances of her life right now, she felt like
she’d just stuck her face into the middle of a tornado. But Jeremy wasn’t
the tornado. He was an anchor for her heart, and a piece of her she knew
she had been missing all her life. He was the kind of guy little girls dream
of when they wish to grow up and marry a wonderful prince— strong,
sensitive, smart, kind, the list just went on.
She smiled at herself. It seems that it’s difficult to focus on the end of the
world when you’ve just found love.    ”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“The endless void of space stretched out before it. Millennia had passed
as it roared through the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. The awesome
ellipse of its original path was continually altered by intermittent proximity
to myriad stars.
It gave off minute bits of itself as it rocketed silently through the
vacuum of space, but still, after all these millennia it was counted large
as such things were measured, and the fact that it had never collided
with anything else after such a tremendous interval of travel was a mute
testimony to the vastness and comparative emptiness of the universe.
Much as humans, on a molecular level, are comprised mostly of space
not of matter, so the universe, for all its galaxies and solar systems, is
comprised primarily of interconnecting emptiness.
Dark, colossal, mindless, and mighty in its mass and velocity, it came
on and on through space. The great alignment had set it on a new path.
Now, one last nudge from the Red Giant in the previous solar system
had fixed its new course, on a fateful rendezvous. Though it was oblivious
to its own destination and nothing in the universe with awareness
had yet detected it . . . Its path was set.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“When Val opened the door Jeremy almost had to catch his breath. She
was in a quintessential “little black dress”. This particular one left one
shoulder bare and with her hair swept to the opposite side, the geometry
of it gave the sensation of her being much more exposed than she actually
was. Still, it wasn’t even the flattering attire that nearly left Jeremy
breathless. It was the look in her eyes. That sparkle of joy at seeing him
was unmistakable, and truly the only clue Jeremy typically got of her
feelings for him.
It was said that in ancient Egyptian times the peddlers in the market
could determine a customer’s interest in their wares by the eyes. When
the eye beholds something it desires, the pupils dilate. On some level
everyone knows this, but in the case of the peddlers, if the pupils dilated,
the prices went up. And whether Jeremy knew it consciously or not, her
pupils dilated as she beheld him. All he knew for sure was that that look
told him Valerie was very glad to see him.
Then he saw her eyes slip down to his neck”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy