Embrace
An Apocalyptic Love Story
......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.....
I lay on the floor of a fall out shelter
In an unknown, un-named 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 face,
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 jobs descriptions,
And forced to do them behind the closed doors
Of small but efficent 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 annihilations
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 occurance 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 my 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
"No." 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 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 awoke 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 in their eyes
There were not many 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 held there
As bombs fell on our city
Locked beneath the ground we were
With our lives in the hands
Of strangers who we did not know, but 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 some of us in sorrow wondered
What we would go home to.
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, un-glued
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 any way.
"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 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 untouched hearts
That found that 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
