The rock I rest upon
It was a beautiful morning. The sun crested a horizon rising and falling with low, lightly forested hills looking fat and satisfied with a comfortable night’s rest. Warm, dark shadows stretched towards home as if longing for one last caress before the sun stole away their nocturnal embrace. The grasses were green, the leaves a thousand similar shades. The flowers, yellow, pink and white were doing their damnedest to blind any eye to the lush nature of the multitude of bursting green – it was too close to call.
“Honey…?” I called from the bathroom… No response… I called again… A grumbling, neutral acknowledgement to my polite enquiry. “Might I have a little toilet paper?” Well, it was better than waddling around with my trousers trying to trip me. A roll of paper bounced off two walls and come to a rolling stop just out of reach… “Thanks, honey.”
The smell of a good breakfast can go a long way to exciting you for the day to come; the sizzling temptation of bacon, the musky attraction of mushrooms, the acidic tingle of tomatoes and the rich demand of toasting bread, can blend into an inspiring drive (beware overdoing such delights though, for all too easily they can reset all that tantalizing excitement).
It was a little difficult to tell which was the more eager: my angel or my dog… they both yearned, driven too far into anticipation to relax. Each managed to enlarge their eyes in such a way Nietzsche might well have simply have leapty into such an appealing abyss, and if there was a small bowl positioned beneath their mouths one might well not have to use the taps for a day or more.
I just couldn’t deny them a moment longer… Angel came first, of course, but both snapped up the crispy titbit of bacon I cast their way. They vanished in an instant and a moment later the same looks remerged, and now an added element of innocence crept into the corner of their eyes, as if the previous little taster had never occurred…
We were wandering along winding roads doing little but chatting about inconsequential things. In good old English fashion, the roads weren’t straight, the pavements weren’t new, the houses weren’t uniform and in a similar light our conversation wandered across a hundred subjects without really resolving onto any in particular.
Every time we crossed the road my eyes scanned the roads, every time we reached a new pavement haven I slid to the outside. It wasn’t something particularly conscious, though I was fully aware I was doing it. it wasn’t because for some reason I felt you incapable of navigating the path without stumbling into the road, and it really wasn’t some nagging suspicious a car would bump the pavement and run you down – let’s face it, if that were going to happen it probably wouldn’t matter who was standing on the outside… it was simply a protective instinct I felt all the time and this was one of the myriad examples of being absolutely incapable of ignoring the imperative… I wonder if you notice…
“Behind you!” I warned, ignoring the undead snapping at my own heels as I pumped an entire clip into the ravening monsters snapping frothing jaws as they attempted to surround you.
You managed to slip out of the ambush and training your guns in my direction darted past me taking the heads right off the zombies intent on tasting my flesh. While I was grateful for the save I must admit the liberal spattering of zombie brains splashing my hair and clothes wasn’t exactly the look I was going for.
“Get to the door!” Your ordered, so I immediately swung a tight arc; firing from the hip I just managed to clear enough space to slip through the horde and sprinting tried to catch up. You’d procured the key from somewhere and were working on the door as I arrived…
I spun, went down on one knee to steady the trembling in my hands and made every bullet a head shot giving you enough time to get the door open before we were overwhelmed. There were arms and hands clawing and snatching at us as we managed to slam the door shut.
For a moment there was absolute silence. The dark almost as oppressive… we caught our breath as our eyes adjusted to the new, dim environment… that’s when the moaning began…
As everyone clearly recognizes men get far sicker than women. When a man catches a cold it ravages him like some dreaded plague or deadly virus. When a woman catches a cold the gems are so terrified of upsetting her they quickly make their humble, obeisant apologies and leave by the first available exit.
This time I was completely convinced Death would come striding through the door at any moment, his scythe would glitter in the sickly air for a moment and then the last experience I would know would be the slither of razor metal slicing through the rotten atmosphere to end my misery in a mixture of terror and relief…
It was your poor misfortune to have to live with this certainty! While I knew relief was soon to descend at the piercing point of a farmer’s tool turned weapon, you had to hear all about it…
Despite my absolute lack of gratitude – well, why should a dying man in extreme suffering be grateful for a little homemade chicken broth (although it really was quite delicious – the way you added just a little red spicy pepper…)? I mean I didn’t entirely despise the cold compresses you regularly replaced on my sweaty forehead, the way you rushed to pass me the remote control – admittedly lying only two feet away, and the tender concern emanating from your eyes with every worried glance…
Ah well, it was the glances that got me in the end… fine… I got up and went back to work… still, it really was a rotten old cold…
It was the weekend. I’d had my usual hard week and like any normal person I would have been lying in bed rejuvenating my energies, but then when were we like normal people? I crept into the kitchen, cleaned what I must, stole what was available from the fridge and set to work… in a few minutes I had a few bits of bacon, a spicy omelette, and a couple of fried tomatoes on a plate. I knew the trouble I’d have waking you so before I began the process of moaning, duvet snatching and verging on rude grunts, I watched you sleep for a little while… not so long as I bore dreadfully easily and the food would be cold, but just long enough to appreciate what I had… to gaze upon the most valuable of treasures and to know that in a minute or so, after the above mentioned grumbles, I’d steal a kiss and watch you devour about half of the plate of food – then probably return to sleep…
I’d been in the gym and had tortured any muscles about as much as I could be bothered for the time being. Wandering home, I popped into the supermarket and a bunch of pale yellow white roses caught my eye. I snatched them up and then decided I was on a mission so sought out some tasty biscuits and a seafood sort of soup thing which would probably turn my stomach if I was forced to gobble the nasty dish, but then in the immortal words of my hero, Hume “There’s no accounting for taste.”
I might have had a few drinks or ten… let’s face it, it was a great many more than ten, and I decided it was time to pop on a little music – ah, I’m a real favourite with the neighbours! I grabbed you around the waist and in the explosive bubble of my ecstatic joy I whirled you in circles. We danced together, tripping over floor weights and yoga mats, and finally fell into a heap – a convenient heap with my head on your lap looking up at your still dancing eyes… it doesn’t get much better than this…
We stood atop a mountain, freezing hands gripped together, and surveyed the world stretched out before us… “and Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer…” We’d climbed for an eternity and we’d no plans to stop. Beneath our feet pure, pristine white snow glittered in the intense sunlight, beyond and below jagged grey rock testified to the challenge of the climb. Further out deep, dark pine forests carpeted the mountain and surrounding hills and far to the south a great lake or sea sparkled with reflected wishes.
To climb the peak, we’d pulled each other over the treacherous landscape, we’d shouted instructions to each other, followed orders, saved one another from fatal falls, shivered, wrapped in each other through bitter nights and marveled at the ferocious beauty of the brutal realm.
There wasn’t another soul in this universe, but then there was no need for together we were complete; together there was nothing of need, but that the body demanded, and even those whims were of little consequence when being absorbed by the eyes of the other.
There was nothing of sentimentality in this recognition of the other, and that was just another reason for its perfection…
