Disclaimer: This short love story is losely based on charakters and events that do not belong to me. Comments are always welcome and may preferable be send to b9erikar@ulmo.stud.slu.se .
In the land of the dead!
by Erik Karlsson
This is Mount Amaro, It's snowing and the wind is cold. There go men with Roman armours, hurrying back to their logements, away from the coldness and death. There are two wodden crosses erected from the cold ground. Two women are nailed to the crossed. Their heads are bent, their eyes are closed. The snow is piling up on their motionless bodies. There stands a man before them. His face is pale, his clothes are black. The icy wind does not seem to bother him. In his eyes can nothing be seen. His arms are outstretched in a welcoming, almost friendly gesture.
'It is time now.' he says.
This is a girl with no name. Her eyes are laughing, so is the rest of her. Why should she not laugh? All that is is good, and here is she in the middle of it. Her golden hair is flowing in the warm breeze. She is not tired, she is not hungry. She is not sad or hurt or lonely. She is happy. All that is is good.
This is a girl with no name. Her eyes are filled with tears. Tears of anger, tears of hatred, tears of mourning for long lost friends. Her black hair is hanging like lumps of tar from her wary face. She tries to control her breathing, tries to relax her tensed muscles. She knows that they might be back any minute. Those who plague and torture her, all those shadows from the past. They give her no rest. Now she sees something. She looks with doubt written in her face. She sees a glint of light in all the darkness that surrounds her.
Idle she gets to her feet. She laughs when she sees a leaf falling from a tree. She claps her hands in joy when she smells the fresh air. She sings together with the birds. She walks in a beautiful garden. There is something new and exciting to see behind every corner. Oh, what a pleasure there is in mere exciting, in walking and breathing.
But wait, what is that? A darkness delves in the light. It is not big, just big enough for a human to pass through. It is not frightening, because the girl with no name does not know fright. It is something new, something that has not been in her garden before. The girl with no name walks towards the darkness. In her green eyes its reflection is growing bigger.
She is standing before the light now. The girl with no name hesitates. Darkness she knows. Light she does not. Light is new for her. But it does not seem to threaten her. That is not usual here where everything contains a threat. She raises her arm to touch the light. And stops. She can see a face before her.
She can see a face before her. A face with blue eyes and a mouth opened in surprise. She can not see that the face is weary because she does not know weary. She can not see that the eyes are sad because she does not know sad. But in the face before her she can see something that is not joy and that is not happiness. What is it that she sees? Is it as bittersweet she sees what is bitter? Is it as thoughtfulness she sees what is regret? All that is is good. She raises her arm.
The face is smiling. Smiling with warmth that is not burning, with happiness that is not hurting. There is no regret, no sorrow, no pain in it. The girl with no name stares at the face as bewitched. She can not understand what she sees, can not explain the warmth that glows before her. But what she can not put into words, her unconscious knows far better. A mighty river of emotions is moving inside the girl with no name. She wants to be with that other face, share its light and see what it sees and nothing else. For ever. She rises her arm again.
Their hands meet.
Hand in hand they stand. One is light and one is darkness, but still they are so much like one another. The girl with no name does not laugh any more. In her heart is a new emotion, stronger and more wonderful than anything she has ever felt before. But yet she feels that the new emotion is a serious one and nothing to laugh or smile about. This strange and glorious feeling was not there before, and in a dept of her soul the girl with no name did not knew excited she can feel that it one day, if not treated right, also can disappear. Yet she is happy for it. More happy than for anything else.
A single tear trickles down her face. A tear not of fear and not of hatred and not of sorrow. Nor is it of happiness, because the girl with no name does not know happiness. This tear is one she have never shed before. It is a tear of relief, the tear she sheds who has been lost with no hope of ever coming home again, but then one day finds herself in safety. The girl with no name touches her face with a gentle hand, wipes the tear away and look in wonders at the glittering wet spot on her fingers. Her hand moves to the face before her once again. Her fingers are slowly caressing its tense features. The girl with no name closes her eyes and in this single moment she knows what happiness is.
Her heart whispers about another feeling, a deeper, bigger emotion. A mighty ocean of glory and wonder, so big that it cannot be contained in one single body. It takes two.
The girl in front of her smiles. She knows it too.
Together they stand, embracing each other, cuddling, kissing. Faces and bodies lost in one another. She knows it now, what it is like to have and maybe to loose. And she knows it now too, what it is like to never have had and never have had risked to lose. Love is bigger than any of them, but together the are bigger than love. Together they are not lost in their emotions, but in one another. In the warm, soft and loving embrace of their lover. Around them is neither darkness nor light, but both.
The end