Love Among the Ruins

Love Among the Ruins

    I gaze down upon the twisted ruins of the once great metropolis. I see the remnants of humanity wandering, dazed through the wreckage.  The yellow dust hovering in the air is so thick I almost choke.  The tall buildings stand cracked and fallen in the pale sunlight.
    I swoop down in my ultra light aircraft and descend, floating like a leaf downward into the city.  As I settle down onto the broken asphalt I see a young woman digging in a trash heap and pulling out moldy bread and cans of food.  I call out to her offering to share my meager rations with her. She screams in response.
    I feel sorrow, and crouch down next to her holding her scab covered hand and looking into her frightened eyes.  I hand her an energy pill from my pocket and she holds it in the palm of her hand looking at it.  
    I tell her “It’s alright.  Take it.”  I crush some crystallized water in the plastic pouch and immediately it fills with water.  After sticking a straw in it, I hand it to her.  She swallows the energy pill and follows it with a sip of water.  She smiles at me hesitantly and I know I have built some level of trust with her.  
    I feel an affinity with this ragged young woman. I lead her down the street whose skeleton ruins smolder quietly. Smoky funeral wreaths settle like winter snow across desolate streets. Awash in sacred silence she and I hold hands walking together.
    Calcified relics shine in noon sunburn. Effigies of humanity haunt the daylight. Ravens perch on steel husks. Petroleum fed insects lie in repose. A salamander suns on the pearly marble steps. A centipede crawls cautiously over laminated tiles.
    I gaze into her kaleidoscope eyes. They reflect the haunted fear of abysmal nights spent in desolate alleys. I am determined to find her a place to rest tonight.
    Her tattered dress hangs from her shoulders with torn holes exposing sores on her tender skin. Her hair is disheveled and her voice is a whisper of desolation. We rest on the granite steps of the capitol building now fallen like the government which convened there in ages past. I leaf through a book which lays there.
    Then I take out a tube of ointment from my travel satchel. I spread the healing cream on her sores starting with her face and working down to her arms and legs. The tears in her dress expose her lingerie. I work the cream in along the lace edges of her bra and panties. I reach between her inner thighs to apply the ointment on her infections. On the verge of tears she pleads, “Please.”
    I pull the thin strip of fabric aside. I look down upon her nether world. Her feminine rose is pink and healthy. I say “I see no sign of infection.”
    However, she begs me with the refrain, “Please sir. I hurt very bad in my soul. I need love. Soothe my wounded flower.” I am hesitant to touch her petals. Her tears persuade me. She says “Talk to me.”
    I say, “In the beginning there was yearning. Lust brought forth life. Worlds burst from the Goddess’ loins.” My words subside leaving the language of touch. I place my hand in the nucleus of her chest feeling her heart pulse with each of her sacred breaths. As I draw closer to her face, the mist of her life’s breath blows against my cheek. She timidly reaches out in wonder and places her palm at the hub of my life’s blood. A smile illuminates her face. Her dark eyes glow with hunger as I gaze into the limitless ocean of her soul. I see my face reflected in the mirror of her iris. My hand flows down to her solar plexus where I feel her diaphragm expand and contract.  
    I dip my fingers in the healing lotion. I finger trace a line with rain drop tenderness sweeping with feather soft artistry under the crevasse of her moons. There I pause oh so tantalizingly on her pea aperture.
    Her thighs clench as she writhes against my hand.  She presses my hand into her pink Rorschach like a leaf pressed in her book of life. The heat is palpable with her fevered skin dappled with body dew.
    She glances up with bird movement. Again, I anoint her folds with healing cream. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply. I clasp the core of her chakra galaxy, her fragile rosehip berry. Her chest heaves as I roam her female sacristy. I knead her crux into plump fullness.
    She clasps my hand against her pink dawn with
her hips pumping like a zealot on fire with God. Her tears become veins of passion and sorrow which trickle down her golden face. Her source of divinity glows like Orion’s nebula. A deep resonance of pleasure howls from the chambers of her body.
    She says, “I felt your spirit move through me like a warm river through my hips falling like gentle ocean waves into my pelvis.  Spiral patterns, the seeds of flowers and stars, germinated in my ovaries.” Our lips touch in unison of one being within the Goddess.  Her orchid glistens like a dewy morning flower. Once more her face takes on a rosy luster as fresh as April.
    “It has been so long since I was touched by a man” she exclaims. “You don’t know what this means to me” she says. Her gratefulness absolves me of guilt. I don’t fancy being a lecher.
    She sits there quivering like a sparrow. Then a tentative smile forms on her face only to submerge into a frown once more. I embrace her with a bear hug. “You’ll be ok” I tell her. “I’ll take care of you” I say. I have no idea of how to save myself much less her.
    I help her up and we proceeded down the road to nowhere. A brown paper bag cart wheels on the asphalt. A Bible is laid open to the ravages of nature. Gospel scraps whirl in vortex. Golden words swirl playfully with wisdom strewn like confetti on oil stained sidewalks.
    She follows me like a guru in this city lost in dreams. I put my arm around her waist to comfort her cankered body. What more can I do to ease her passage down these graveyards of humanity?
    She stops to look up at the façade of a once intact library building. She leads me into the repository of books which molder under the roof of sky. She leans down and picks up a decaying copy of the Bible. She says “I used to believe in things. When everyone disappeared I lost all faith. I guess you could say I’m an atheist now.”
    I say “The past is dead. Religion is meaningless. Like Nietzsche said we must become our own God now.”
   She weeps. “I want God to fix things. I want the world back the way it was.”
    I embrace and her hold her in her grief. I mourn for my wasted life and my family whom I’d lost in the chaos of calamity. I love this woman as if she was the wife I’d lost so long ago. I never thought I’d feel for another person so deeply again.
    We walk on, two pilgrims, searching for a way home. We arrive at the asylum where her eyes sparkle with tears of gratitude. I introduce her to the house mistress. With much regret I leave her there having been smitten by her.
    Burnt umber hue eddies in autumn leaf textures paint the sky. Tainted mist rises in conch shell swirls.  Stained glass colors blossom in the evening sky.  Sorrowful clouds gather on the western horizon. I sleep in the ruins of a church on the altar once reserved for sacred ceremony. The next morning I take to the air in my butterfly aero plane seeking the remnants of humanity among the ruins of earth.