EMBRACE

EMBRACE An Apocalyptic Love Story that I dreamed in its entirety

Embrace

An Apocalyptic Love Story

(subtitled Alien Love)

a song heard on a radio in the dream

I dreamed on the morning of May 7, 2011)

I hope this write can do the dream justice

Here then, is the dream in prose form.....

                               Part One

I lay on the floor of a fall out shelter

In an unknown, unnamed city

It was dimly lit and noisy, full of people all in turmoil,

Babies crying, palpable fear, 

Uncertainty and terror.

I lay on a mat of old clothes and rags,

Covering myself with a blanket

With my head cradled upon a soft white pillow

That seemed too fresh for that place

(Perhaps I had brought it from home.)

The sirens had sounded in the midnight hour

And all of us had rushed from our apartments

Either all fully clothed or partially dressed

As for me, a gown and a robe and a coat

And still I felt quite naked.

I was lying with my back turned to a man just my age

I did not know him

And had only glanced at him once

As I tried to make myself comfortable

In a situation that would never be that.

He lay asleep on a grayish pillow,

His hands folded under his head,

Long dark hair falling around his broad shoulders

Concealing part of a quite handsome face.

One look, albeit, a long look

And I scooted as far away as I could

Giving both of us our privacy here

Which meant nothing there

But even in chaos, still meant much to me.

As the lights were turned off, one by one

I heard stern men urging us to be quiet and to sleep

I heard an old man praying off in the corner

As he clutched an old book to his blue shirted chest

And asked God to protect us and let us see tomorrow.

I could not sleep, how could I, in that awful place?

I was used to my feather bed and my quiet apartment

To staying indoors and living alone 

As were we all, in these martial law days

And endless ever lasting scenarios of war.

How long we had survived in that setting, 

I can't say

I only knew that it had been life as usual

For a very long time, and very few of us

Remembered any other way of life.

We were assigned numbers for names,

Told our job descriptions, 

And forced to do them behind the closed doors

Of small but efficient four room living quarters

Equipped with computers and cameras with zooms.

Life was very lonely

There were hardly any families around,

Few couples, no friends, and certainly no lovers

And all that we knew or were allowed to know

Was that if you do not work, you do not eat.

And then the raids had begun,

The takeovers, the bombings, the annilhilations

The armies marching throughout the earth

With covered faces and evil eyes

And with death in their competent hands.

The 3D- HD-LED curved screens 

Had projected these scenes at us on a now daily basis

Until we had all but blanked them out of our minds

Though some of us still fell to the floor when they came

And scurried away into dark corners in fright.

And now, the virtual had become reality 

Now it had come to my part of the world

No longer a movie to switch off in my brain

But an occurrence to endure and a delaying of work

Until the sirens went off and my life could resume.

And so tonight I found myself in this shelter under ground

With people I had never met and didn't want to know

Men and women, running there with families and babies

Outcasts, hidden from the law

Till the bombs drove them inside.

The night was long and stifling there

I tossed and turned, not sleeping

I couldn't breathe among other folk

And their breathing was so loud

Removing my coat, I stretched my legs and at last began to doze.

In the near cool darkness, after a time I cannot tell,

I became aware of a presence behind my back

It breathed quietly on my hair,

Touched me with a warmth of body heat I had never felt

And stirred me in a way I should not say.

I wanted to move away but I did not

In that drowsy state, I thought it to be a dream

But I knew it wasn't

For I'd had dreams I'd known were dreams

But this one was so real.

In his sleep, the man had moved

And lay very close beside me 

And I couldn't fault him for I'd also moved,

Kicked the coat off of my legs

Toward the old woman on my right.

I pulled the blanket up to my throat and snuggled ever deeper

Enjoying the feeling of another's form

Against my untouched back

With nothing between us but a gown and a robe

And the thrill of the unknown.

A breath. A sigh. A ragged whisper

Breathed into my ear

"Are you awake?" a soft voice asked

And I lay still and stunned

"Yes." I whispered into the dark and then forgot to breathe.

"Are you afraid?" he murmured low

And I felt his fear reach out

"I guess." I said, "But what can we do

But wait till it's all over?"

"And what if it's really over, what will we do then?"

I didn't know how to answer that

So I lay quiet and trembling

Waiting for his voice to come and stir me once again

But it did not come again and I lay there filled with wanting

Something strange and terrifying that poured out of my soul.

If time stands still, it stood still then

As I waited in his silence

He didn't speak and so I said, 

"Then our lives have had no meaning."

"If it's really over, I mean, and our lives come to an end." 

And after a while, I felt him inch

His body closer to me

His chest against my back, his legs against my own

He threw my blanket over us both

And I thought my heart would stop.

For hours we lay there in that place

With a secret, seething fever

Electric charges running down and up and over us

His warm breath over my shoulder, soft,

And a pounding in his chest.

We touched, and yet, we did not touch

Except with our desire

Inching closer, ever closer, his body and then mine

Until the tears ran down my face

As we burned there in that fire.

"I need to hold you." he said at last, "I need to feel alive."

"I know." I whispered, "I know. I know."

"But I don't know how to hold you."

And he pulled me hard against him then

And his arm went round my waist.

Outside, we heard the bombs of war

Beyond the war, inside

 "It's alright, be quiet." we heard someone say

As the babies woke with the noises

"Go back to sleep, no need to fear, you'll all be safe in here." 

But they would not quiet down

And they would not stop crying

No matter how they hushed them

Until they turned on the radio

And a song began to play.

And all of us with our scared hearts 

Listened to the music

The man, with his hand holding mine

And his lips near my ear

"That's "Alien Love," a woman cried, "I've heard that song before!"

Long ago when music played

And the people danced to music

Long ago when people loved and it wasn't an alien thing

Long ago before love was outlawed

And became something that nobody practiced.

"I'd like to love before I die."

He said, pulling me closer

"I'd like to know just how it feels to have someone love me."

And the music stopped and the babies slept

And the night grew quiet again.

"So would I but I'm afraid." I said, turning my face

And he pulled my hair aside and kissed

My cheek and then my throat

A groaning in him became a growl

And in fright, I pulled away.

"I'm sorry." he whispered intensely, yet

I didn't think he was

"I don't know what's come over me and I don't know what to do."

And neither did I but I caught the eye 
Of the old woman next to me.

"Are you in love?" she smiled at me

In the dusky dim lit darkness

"I was in love when I was young before they took him away."

And she gave a sob and closed her eyes 

And fell back into grateful slumber.

"Hold me!" I said and slid my body back

Wondering if I too, had gone mad

And his arms pulled me tightly against his wild heart

Curving softly together

Like two spoons in a drawer.

"So this is love," I thought to myself

"This crazy alien feeling."

I let the joy wash over me like a madness in the brain

Wishing the morning would never come

When I would be lonely again.

I gasped when his hand ran up my thigh,

The heat melting through my clothes

As though I wore no gown and robe, as though I lay exposed

But I made no objection, no, I did not

For I was drowning in the feeling.

Then I was jolted to my senses

When his hand to my breast moved

"We're not alone!" I scolded him and pushed his hand away

No hand had ever touched me there

In fact, no hand had ever touched me.

"Forgive me!" he said as he righted himself

"My hand seems to have a mind of it's own.

It's never touched so soft a rose

Or a beautiful thing, like a woman."

And we lay there and marvelled at that, lost in the mystery of love.

At last we slept, in each other's arms

Till the lights came on in the morning

"What's this?" they shouted, "Are you two married?

Then you shouldn't be over here!"

"If you're not married, then you're in trouble for this is not allowed!"

I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and looked up at the shouters

"I'm sorry, I am not awake."  And I didn't know what to do

"Yes, we're married." I heard him say as I hid my astonished face

"Alright," they grumbled, drawing a crowd, 

"But you're on the wrong side of the room!"

They moved us to the opposite side and made us share our blanket

The married people looked at us with bewilderment 

There were not many of them and not many children

But they seemed to know one another
 But they knew not us and nor did we, 
 Not even each other's names.

For days and nights, we were sheltered there

As bombs fell on our city

Locked beneath the ground we were

With our lives there in the hands

Of strangers that we did not know, who gave us daily bread.

We slept with my coat jammed between us

For we were afraid to touch

We kept our eyes downcast and cold

So they wouldn't see the sparks

And every night we yearned to breach that barrier in the dark.

After many days of living that way

They said the war was over

They said that soon they'd let us go

And we cried aloud in joy

But all of us in sorrow wondered 
 What we would go home to.

Part Two

One day I woke to find the shelter

Emptied of the families,

The little children I had tended

And so had come to love

The elderly had gone then too and all the sick and lame.

"Come, my love!" my new love said

And reached to pull me upwards

"It's time to go, go see the world, or what is left of it."

And hurriedly I put on my coat and scanned the still full shelter

"Goodbye, my friends. I wish you luck." and they took us to the door.

The sunlight was so bright to us

Our eyes could barely see it

We stumbled over sticks and bricks

And stones and bones and men

We made our way as best we could till we could see again.

The city lay in shambles

The buildings lay in ruins

Holes in every thing we saw

The trees, the ground, unglued

Black smoke rising up to the sky that was no longer blue.

An old man crying on the street raised his fists to us

"Test tube babies, you've killed us all!"

"There's no God in you to trust!"

And my companion pulled me away 

As the old man fell down dead.

I turned to see his book fall out

And see it's pages flutter

In the growing wind that smelled like sulphur

That made me catch my breath

"Holy Bible" the title read and then it blew away.

"I don't understand." I said to the man

"Please tell me what is happening.

I'm a test tube baby, are you one, too? But why blame us for this?"

And the man looked down at the blackened ground

And shook his head at me.

And then we saw the babies

And then we saw the wives

The husbands and the children

Who had just given their lives

Every where that our eyes looked, the dead lay all around.

And then the poison in the air

Began to fill our lungs

We covered our mouths with handkerchiefs

And coughed and began to run

But where to go, we did not know but we ran anyway.

"I think I know why they let us go." 

The man stopped in his tracks

"And it's my fault, my God, forgive me! How you must hate me now!"

"Because you told them we were married?" I said

And he nodded and we saw the truth.

"They're building a new world out of the ashes of this,

With all of the old values gone

All of the families, the babies, true born,

The lovers, the believers, the old

Who remember the life, remember the love

Before hearts of men grew so cold."

"How much time.....?" I began to say

And he stopped me with his kiss

"I do not know but this much I know,

That I will not die like this."

And he grabbed my hand and away we ran

To the beach and it's dirty sand.

Coughing, stumbling, we ran and ran

Toward the sea with it's filthy water

Filled with rotting fish and fowl

And the screams of dying dolphins

Till we found a tiny makeshift shack

And we ran inside, exhausted.

There was a cot there on the floor

And he threw his coat upon it,

Stripped himself of all his clothes,

And fell upon the bed

Reaching his arms out to me, I barely hesitated

Threw my clothes off as I ran 

And fell into his arms.

"Before I die, I want to know the feel of flesh on flesh

I want to know your silken skin and what it is to love

All of my life, I've been alone, just working for my keeping

I've never touched another's hand

Or been a true--born man."

And oh, how wonderful it was

As we melted there together

His heart against my heart 
 And his hand gently in my hair

His legs entwined, tangled up with mine

And all the wonders we found there.

I'd never known my parents

I'd never had a friend

I'd never known what life was like

Till it came to an end

I'd never known the world before

That would never be again.

"I just want to hold you."

He said with eyes of love

And my tears fell upon his face

"I swear to God above."

And I held him and he held me

And that was more than enough.

The poison wind swept through the shack

Like a demon, howling now

My eyes stayed fastened on his face

My heart holding on somehow

"I love you." I said with dying lips

And smoothed his furrowed brow.

And then his lover's eyes turned dark

And the light in them was gone

And I clung to his arms and cried

Afraid to be alone

Then death flew in upon that wind

And took my breath from me

And life and love was the very last thing

My eyes would ever see.

And there we lay in each other's arms

Till to dust our bones did fall

Married forever in our child-like hearts

That found some true love after all

Locked in embrace, in eternal embrace

All too human in need of the flesh upon flesh

Yet still so unsullied in that defiled world of man

Not even God could begrudge it.

©by Voo

May 10, 2011

2:44 a.m.