STORIES
TWO
John Hart shivered, opened his eyes, and pushed himself up off his knees into a standing position.
He looked down at the grave marker on the ground in front of him. It was small, almost unnoticeable. Etched onto its face were a name and an epitaph -- the epitaph written in an obscure, ancient, and for Captain John Hart, an undecipherable language of a planet eons away. Universes away.
Wil Beinert
Hodie mihi, cras tibi
An unsuccessfully stifled sob escaped his throat as he tried to blink away stinging tears.
John stared at the form and texture of the words, searing them into his memory. He shivered again. Although he was freezing cold he felt burning hot at the same time. The disjunction was strange, weird. He trembled yet felt so incredibly overheated that his skin was covered with sweat. He felt it pouring down his shoulders, back and chest.
He was naked, but somehow that didn't seem so very odd… Although it occurred to him that his nakedness might explain why he was so cold. But if so, then why was he burning up, too? His eyes, swollen and scratchy from crying, slowly tracked from the tombstone to his body: pale, slender and covered with familiar scars. Each scar had a story – its own tale of pain locked away in his memory. Pick the lock and you pick a scab – or more likely rend asunder an open wound; the psychic equivalent of third-degree burns.
John… he said to himself. You're wallowing in self-pity, John. Indulging in terminal defeatism. That's not normal, John… It's not like you, John…
The voice was insistent, annoying, grating.
"John? John? John!"
With a jolt he opened his eyes and woke up. What he saw was a vision of heaven: a beloved face with bluish-green eyes haloed by long tangled locks of red hair. The face itself displayed a definite and undeniable expression of distress.
"John?!"
"Wil!" It was more of a gasp than a spoken word.
"Are you okay?"
With an elbow he raised himself partially off the bed and blinked at her. "Yeah, I am. Whew, I guess I was having a dream."
She looked at him, worry still monopolizing her features, "That must've been some dream. You're soaking wet, John. You've soaked right through the bed linens." Wil Beinert shook her head, "And you were moaning stuff in your sleep that I couldn't quite make out."
John smiled and winked, trying to allay if not vanquish her concerns.
"You know men and their dreams."
"Yes I do," she answered as she gently wiped off some of the moisture from his brow with her fingertips, and then traced a line down his jaw to his lips. "And that was not one of those dreams, John. What's going on?"
His smile vanished as quickly as it'd formed and he shook his head. "I dreamt that I saw something, something not nice."
With her hand she gently pressed his torso back down onto the bed and then repositioned her face close to his as she began stroking his neck and shoulders. "Tell me," she whispered, "tell me about this not nice thing you saw."
He nodded almost imperceptibly. "It was a gravestone. I was standing in front of a gravestone and it had some words on it." He scowled. "I didn't understand them and I'm not absolutely certain, but I think maybe they were Latin."
"Do you remember the letters?"
He nodded and then laboriously, almost painfully, started spelling out the epitaph for her.
John hadn't even finished spelling the third word when Wil nodded her head and interrupted him. "Ah. You're correct, it is Latin."
"Well, what does it mean?"
"It's a famous old epitaph. It means literally 'It is my lot today, yours tomorrow'. Or to put it more coarsely: 'Today me, tomorrow you'. It's a warning to the living, basically, and the warning is that everybody dies. In comparison to the more gentle epitaphs like 'Requiescat in pace' or 'Rest in peace' it's considered darker… cruder… nastier… spookier. And you're right," she breathed, "it's not a very nice thing."
She looked at him levelly. "Was that all?"
Although he was tempted, John knew he couldn't lie to this woman with the hothouse green, electric turquoise and speckled gold eyes. Those eyes that peered so cleanly and effortlessly into his soul. He couldn't lie to her and in fact when it came right down to it, he didn't want to lie to her. It felt good for once to be able to be totally truthful with someone. It was a relief to not have to worry about making up lies. To not have to worry about keeping track of them. To not have to worry about what happens when the lies are discovered, the truth found out.
No, that's not all," he said.
She waited patiently.
He met her gaze and held it firmly. "Your name was inscribed above the epitaph."
Nothing in her eyes, or in fact her face, changed. But that's not saying she didn't react. Her fingers, which had been caressing his upper arm, stopped moving for the briefest moment. That was it. That was all. But he noticed it immediately. The tiniest of reactions – almost a non-reaction – but it spoke volumes.
He lifted his arm, caught her hand and pressed it first to his lips and then held it to his cheek. "It's just a dream, M'Lady," he murmured. "Nothing more."
He kissed her lightly and then kissed her again more deeply. But she pulled back from him and shook her head.
"I should've never brought you here," she said. "This place, this terrible place and this horrible, horrible, endless war. All these battered souls and shattered lives. All these worlds driven to their knees. A place where the only dreams are nightmares." She blinked back tears. "It is a dreadful place to fall in love."
He waited a tick before smiling at her; that was his way of making sure she knew he took her seriously. "There's no such thing as a bad place in this or any other universe to fall in love with you. And as long as we're together, everything is going to be all right, I promise. Now come here and let me kiss you properly."
He cupped her face between his hands and pressed his body against hers. They made love slowly, tenderly, and when they awoke several hours later, they were still embracing each other.