URNotAlone

Lucy, Myself and Death..

January 9th, 2009 8:15 am MST

We sat side by side Lucy and I, holding hands high in the hills above the town where we had made a home, fleeing from the cruelties of the civilised world.....Holding hands as lovers do, bathed in the ethereal glow of the evenings twilight and  embraced by the last light of the suns rays, we sat in comfortable silence. There was no need for conversation, mere  words were not necessary between us because in each others arms we had all we needed.

Thats how it is when you are in Love.

Far below me i watched a shepherd bringing in his flock, his black and white dog bounding energetically alongside, while a car lazily traversed the winding road that wound round the valley like a snake, glittering in the fading light. It was a tranquil scene of a world at peace.

Over the distant horizon, the sun hung in the sky, a huge blood-red disc bleeding the last vestiege of it's fire across the crimson vault of heaven, before surrendering to the inevitability of night. Come tommorrow our sun would spread it's wings of light across the earth like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, to banish the darkness that had stolen it's glory.

It was a dependable cycle, one that had continued without pause for millennia, and would doubtless continue for many more, a cycle that we as human beings perhaps took for granted...Yet it could not last indefinately.... nothing lasts forever, and one day the sun must take a final bow and die too.

It would be a long process, a drawn out affair, the suns energies increasing in intensity as it began to feel the effects of it's own aging, as it fought to stave of it's own demise. Then the end would come... The sun would swell many times it's present size, expanding into a blood-red giant to fill the earths horizons; one last defiant stand before night snatched it's victory.

A earth burnt to a cinder; a lifeless dead world that would be plunged into darkness forever as the sun shrank to a tiny pinprick of light in the sky; a remnant slowly fading over a millienia. Gone.

As human beings we are still in our infancy, learning to walk, and still to reach our maturity. One day perhaps we might learn to put aside our differences, stop fighting, these futile quarrels and learn to live in peace with one another. If we could achieve this then maybe we might live to escape this fate, to reach out across the stars on wings of our imagination to find a new home, a youthful corner of the universe where our traditions might be kept alive.

Of course it would only be a temporary reprieve.... As i said, nothing is eternal and one day the universe itself must confront it's own mortality and stare it's own death in the face....One by one those pinpricks of light in the velvet fabric of night would wink out; the light slowly being extinguished, the stage of the cosmos into it's final act as the curtains on the play were finally drawn forever...

Maybe that is mankinds destiny; to wander a dying cosmos like a nomad race, seeking a safe haven, a sanctuary in denial of the finality of the end. Yet, as long as the spark of life flickered, hope would remain alive.

I felt myself shivering as i became aware of Lucy beside me, tugging at me, pulling me from my dark reverie...Darkness had descended upon the land and high above, the stars twinkled in the night sky as we sat side by side still, feeling the warmth of each others bodies.

"You were miles away" She accused me, a smile playing over her lips. It was a smile which had the power to carress my soul.

Her statement threw me. How far away is One and thirty five zeros?

" Thought i was going to have to call search and rescue..." She mocked me with that delightfull giggle that she knew had the power to enthrall me.

I grinned at her, loving her even more at that moment. I held her hand, gazing deep into her eyes. Then she threw me some more...

" I know it's a long process" She began.

Had she been reading my thoughts? I must have looked like a total berk, sitting their open mouthed in astonishment.

She smiled again, that smile that spoke more than words ever could. She continued...

" Yes, i know it's a long process but after the operation we can truly be together at last, to live out our life together as a man and wife, "

We sat for a long time in each others arms Lucy and I, gazing up at the stars that still shone with the vitality of youth. We lived for the moment, the here and now regardless of what the future might hold. We embraced the light. At the end of the day we had each other. We were in love and when all is said and done at the end of the day, that was all that really mattered.