In Our Dreams And after the end of the world, we walk through the streets. You lead me always, taking my hand when I stumble, drawing me close to the shade when the burning magenta sun rolls into view and obliterates the sky. We walk, not knowing if it’s day or night. All we understand are the times when the sky burns and we run for cover and the other times, when there is only darkness. If anyone else still lived, what would I tell them? Nothing. All I would say was that the sky turned and burnt the world alive. All buildings, all animals and every man and woman. All except us. The last two people left on earth. But we won’t meet anyone, ever again. That’s what makes it perfect. We walk until we need to rest. There are no buildings now, no roof for shelter, and no bed to rest. Instead we lay together, in amongst the rubble, on bricks and under stars. No houses and no cities, just your hand in mine. We lay until we dream and we wake, we are safe in each other’s arms. Then there is only your breath on my neck, which gives me the strength to keep moving. It is all I will ever need. We walk the rubble where the markets used to be. I stop and place my hand on the rocks, where sacks of fruit used to sit. I imagine their voices calling out, people moving, coins in their hands, reaching out for contact. But now it is just ash under my nails, the fruit and the sellers all together and powder. When I look up you are watching me, the map in your hand. You wait for me to recover, the same as I wait when you finds something familiar and stops, closes your eyes and imagines it one last time before moving on. We walk forever, my hand in yours hand, clamouring in and out of the sun that’s chases us. For hours we are silent, so there is nothing but the sound of another piece of a building collapsing onto the ground. When the silence gets too much for us, we take it in turns to speak. I always talk of the past and you always talk of your dreams. Both things we can change to suit ourselves. Both things no-one can ever take away from us, even now. Today you talks of the first snow, honey and the way your mother used to press flowers between the pages of an old cooking book. When you talks like this, I could listen forever. When it is over, you offer me your hand to me and I hold it tight, like a child. My heart beats faster now than when the world died all that time ago. We step through the tattered streets, the glass, the overturned cars and buses. On the main street open suitcases spill out, as if this new world bleeds paper and files. We stoop down and grab some of them; reports for businesses’, all numbers and lines and a hasty signature at the bottom of each page. Nothing personal, nothing to be remembered by. Just facts and figures and letters that no one will ever read. The city is behind us and we stop walking for a while. The sun rolls into the sky and we bury ourselves in a cave of junk until it passes us. We watch as the heat scorches all there is on the ground. Dirt turns red and then orange before crumbling to ash. A motorbike turns white hot before falling away into nothingness. Everything trembles and then is taken away until there is only smoke. Smoke that rises and rises until it finally blocks out the rampaging sun. We wait until it simmers and cools and then roll back onto the street. The air is thick with ash and smog and I am blind again until you reach to lead me on once more. The broken buildings run out into nothing and we stand on the border, looking to the map. We step onto the long path. You look back to me, eyes dark and wide. A smile even now. And I forget pain, I forget hunger, fear, just to see you this way. Gently, we march onto the path, the last few sparks of the dead at our backs as we walk down into the darkness of the path. The path is uneven but it doesn’t stop us. The dying trees give us shelter from the smoke. When the sun rolls over us, igniting the trees branches and leaves, we throw ourselves into the walls of mud and watch as the heat sears the ground before us into fragments. I look from the fire to your face, seeing the world burn in her eyes. You hold tight to my arm, so as not to slip forward, though I know you are drawn to what you see. We wait until everything is scorched and unrecognizable and then we begin again. There are skeletons underfoot as we walk the others who tried to escape and were touched by the sun. The earth is full of upturned boned palms, begging to us both. There is no sound but for our footsteps, breaking the bones of the dead below our feet. We don’t have time to think of who they were, but each time something crunches against my foot I listen to your breath. I follow as you struggle, gasp and settle, leading me all the while. We, who walk over the countless lost lovers in the dirt. We tear through dead thorns, our speed up, drawing blood from us. They cut across our bare arms and into our exposed cheeks. I feel the blood trickle to the corners of my mouth, then down onto the bones. The sun chases us, but each time we are quick enough to escape its touch. Each time we throw ourselves down, we hold the map to our chest, protected, almost as important as our own flesh. We sit in a cove and I I kiss the blood from your skin, dirty jewels that I swallow. You reach for me and hold my face in your hand and your touch is stronger than the sun. We sink into the trail, the dark and the roots, all the while the magenta heat bearing down. Our fingers press tightly against each other, our nails drawing more blood than the thorns ever could. We walk until the trail breaks and the dead trees clear. All the bloated vines and roots fall away. We stand in the shelter for a moment, both of us reading the map before us. We are home. It is a simple clearing. It is the last water, plants and leaves left in the world, for all we know. We stand side by side, together and barely breathing. We stand before a pool of water, impossibly clear to my eyes. Around us, grass that still pulses and reaches for the sky. You crouch and tilt your head to a flower. A flower that still breathes along with the two of us. I hear you choke back tears as you run your finger across the petals. For a second you look younger, how you were before all this happened. In the distance, behind the pool, a single, massive tree that still lives. Its branches are sagging but still green and the bark has not yet hardened to fall away. All of this untouched and all will die within a half day under this murderous sun. But we are these hours. We are now. You take the clothes from our bodies, mine and then yours. They peel away like skin, having been on us so long. Under the canopy of the tree, the grasses, the stirring water, my skin comes alive. You crouch down and gently float the map into the water. Immediately, it curls and dies away in the wet. This place will be ours and ours alone. No-one will ever find us. We walk into the water, flinching as our toes touch the ripples, prickling our skin. It feels like nothing else. We walk deeper and deeper, our legs caught against the gentle current, making us weak after walking against nothing but destruction for so long. Still we push on until we are immersed up to our throats, the tips of the leaves almost within our reach, our bodies almost within each other’s grasp. The water breaking us apart and then drawing us together. We force ourselves against the lapping water until we are in reach of each other. Our hands find each other, as our pale skin rises with our blood, the water and our touch. We become darkness in the pure water, as we kiss. We hold each other as we draw ourselves inside and close, the water becoming a part of us as I hold your hair between my fingers with all I have. We rise from the water to lie down amongst the blades of grass. As your body draws up, we rock and cradle each other time after time. You look into my eye and hold me there, even as our hands move, our bodies writhe, I cannot look away from your eyes. It is there you keep me. It is there we will live forever, inside our love. We settle on the grass, the water trickling onto our feet. After all we have done, we now lie still. Around us the clearing sits and looks to us in awe. I place a petal onto your chest, as we regain our breathing. You run water over my ribs, where your nails have left their mark. We both have scars, a fresh map, borne from our hunger. We lay together in the clearing and we see the first signs of the sun bearing down on us. The tree begins to sag, its leaves curling with the distant flicker of the heat. The branches begin to fall to the earth, each turning brown as they slip away and die. You turn away from me and look to the flower. The petals begin to tighten in the haze; the stem weakens with the thickness of the air. You do not reach out for it, to protect it as instinct tells you to. Instead you force yourself to look away and come back into my arms. It all begins to die. The sky rolls away and the first wave of heat bears down from above. But it has not found us, not yet. We do not look to escape, we do not run. We are unafraid. Instead, we lie inside each other’s arms; my palm resting on your cheek, your tears on my fingertip. The last tears you will ever shed, the last I will ever carry. The heat increases as I run them to the grasses, pass it over to the earth. Your tears, the sweat from our skin, our spittle and our blood. All of it, we pass over onto the ground, the dirt; the small perfect clearing that has become our last home. We do this and we watch it spread as the sun chases us ever closer. We watch as the flower blooms once more, energised by what we have given to the petals. You kiss my palm and I touch the flower and we watch as the petals flash into life once again, even against the raging heat. The grasses rebuild as they brush against our skin, the tree rears its branches as we reach out to touch its weathered leaves. And all around us, everything dies, even as we make it live again with our love. The world is dead. But we are alive. I look down as we take each other one final time. We lock in an embrace and I see every part of you; your black hair, run through with fresh water, a furious storm at my fingertips. Your eyes, the long path and our home, your breath on my neck, the world and its seasons. I look to your body, the tips of your fingers and your lips. Two hearts beating, drumming and merging into one. Our heart that is untouchable. And the magenta sun that is upon our backs, flaying us where we lie, is nothing to us now. The flames that light on our spine are nothing compared to the heat of our bodies, the flame of our kiss. The power of your heart, my heart, roaring as one as we hold each other and ignite together, pushing back the sun with such force that it retreats from us, fearing us, leaving us free. Free from life, from death, fear and suffering. So there is only hope and longing lit inside of us. We kiss and our movement peels the sun back further, until it is nothing but a timid shell that will never hurt anyone, anything, again. Our fingers link and the skies turn over, no longer glowing or dying, but white, pure white, unwritten and at peace. The cities settle, the dust no longer choking, the buildings no longer rusting. Instead there is only quiet. Our skin merges, tattoo on tattoo, scar on scar and everything that is broken and rotted slows and stills, until all that is left is the two of us and the clearing that we have made our home. And everything else is gone and laid to rest and all that remains is your breath on my neck and the fire of our skin. The fire inside that sears away the magenta sun, the destruction of the cities, the world, until there is nothing, nothing but our bodies, burning into the next world and accelerating with freedom. Your hand in mine, our ribs pressed together. My chest close to yours, your cheek on my cheek. You whisper to me the last few words the world with ever hear. Then, at last, our one heart burns and explodes, leaving this old world behind, in awe.
Copyright © 2010 Christian Loche |