The Lovers

The light bulbs pop and crackle as the earth trembles from another blast. They are getting closer. Soon they will be here. Savages roaming free through our streets, tearing down schools and playgrounds and churches until nothing is left standing. Our beautiful city, our boisterous but loving home forced down to its knees by those animals. But they won't take us, he won't let them take us, he has a way out, I'm sure of it. Yes, I must be strong and not show my nerves. It's the least I can do. He has given me the world, made it reachable, worth living in and now, now he is going to grace me with the highest and noblest gift a man can bestow upon a woman. And I shall not let him down. I have let him down in the past but nevermore.

Let those cowardly bombs hail down endlessly from our skies, it will be but the trumpets and church organs blaring as we walk down the aisle. The shaking and bristling ceiling will be the confetti thrown our way and what better way to end the biggest ceremony the world has ever seen than the sky alive and burning up with a million fireworks. Oh how he loves me my treasure. When he runs his finger along the lines of my palm, his little eyelashes fluttering shut and then we fall asleep together, dreaming of each other. Yes, he loves me and now he is finally able to show it to the world.

There is a knock. Martin comes in and says that the Guide is waiting for me in the map room. It is time. This is happening. There is not enough air in the room to fill my lungs. My heart keeps rattling against my rib cage, hoping to escape. Breathe, I must breathe. We make our way down the narrow steel corridor, our steps echoing away behind us. Martin stops before a cold heavy door and knocks three times in well timed intervals. He knocks firmly but respectfully, his hand trembling ever so slightly. A muffled response comes from inside and the door opens.

And there he is, beautiful and true. Come to me Eva he says quietly. And I do as he says, taking my rightful place by his side. Leave us he orders. A chorus of yes my guide goes up as everyone hustles out the room except the priest. Yes, a queen I will be, beautiful and kind, loved by all. Yes, yes, all my dreams have come true.

* * * * *

Now, we shall simply do it. Quick and painless. She deserves to not fall into her grave as a whore but to drift off to sleep beside me, taking my hand in matrimony and thus our names will thunder through the centuries together. And when this diseased planet has fallen flat on its nose, the stench from its rotting limbs unbearable and all beg for someone to rise up and chop them off, then they will remember. When it is too late and the body already festering with pus, then they will think of me fondly, blaming their weak forefathers for the unraveling of mankind.

The priest is stumbling over his sentences. A young fool, undeserving to to take part in a moment of this magnitude. The winds on this earth blow in all directions and thus often raise chaff to momentary mystifying heights. But they never last. They rely on winds which blow away as swiftly as they come-- but never on their own two feet. Their toes are not bloodied from all the weight one has to put on them to rise above the heads of others in order to see. They don't deserve me. I laugh, oh I laugh at the men hiding underneath dining tables, crying for their plump mothers as fire rains down from the sky. They were never worthy of my vision to begin with. This is the price of weakness, of failure. And their women, mothers of worms. They deserve everything that is coming too.

Eva says I do, staring at me with hope and love. There is an old stooped man standing in her blue eyes. A weakened man whose body will soon betray him. A man whose face once so familiar is beginning to look strange and deformed with each passing day. Time is a sneering demon, stealing and robbing you like the jew, bit by bit so it only stings a little every time he visits, until one fine morning you wake up and find yourself robbed of your entire arsenal. And then the looting begins.