A TIME TO LOVE
BY DON HOWARD DONNELL
Clark stretched his eighteen year old body luxuriously, rippling the splendid muscles he had acquired from a vigorous, outdoor life. He surveyed himself critically. He had just bathed in the icy lake nearby, and the water droplets glistened in the soft mid-morning sun. Standing there, as he felt the breeze dry him, he drank in the beauty of his surroundings. As the sun plucked the moisture from his bronzed skin, he listened attentively to the mocking birds nearby. The birds seemed unaffected by the happenings of the past few years, and sang their song so joyfully that Clark forgot for one happy moment, before memory crept stealthily back into his forcibly matured mind. Slowly he put on his ragged blue jeans, and settled down beneath an oak tree, losing himself in observation of the countryside. The ever present, ever beautiful grass marched stolidly, like long rows of soldiers.... No. Grass does not kill, it must not be compared with soldiers, ever. Yet it marched, rhythmically, in time to something.... Clark pushed the nearly blond, sun-bleached hair out of his youthful, yet hard face, and played with the sickle bladed grass. He pulled one and examined it closely. There was a ladybug on it; he maneuvered it to his finger. A half-forgotten rhyme came to his lips and bubbled into spoken verse:
"Ladybug, ladybug, fly away...." What came next? He thought hard, back, back to his childhood to when everything was....
He nearly cried.
The hills came up from the morning mist, rough hewn and uneven, reminiscent of a buzzsaw, yet, a buzzsaw did not accurately describe them. They were a deep resplendent purple, streaked with white cold veins. Behind them, gradually building up in the distance, were icy mountains of majestic clouds. And all in all there were the bobbing, bending wild flowers, in numbers and colors too numerous and vivid to describe, with wild-honey honey bees like black buzzing dots, floating from the daisy to the dandelion, pollenating, and birds darting across the deep expanse of turquoise blue that was the sky. The warm, active, late spring day tended to create a sense of security, no matter how false, and his head fell to his chest, and he slept.
At first, it was only a subtle sensation, creeping from his thighs up his body to the nerve centers of his brain. It was the vague feeling of warmth, the kind that can only come from...! He was wide awake and sat upright in the next second, looking into the heaven that was her face....
"Well," she said in the voice that only she could possess, "am Ithatugly?" Badly off-balance, he stuttered around for something to say.
"Why ... or hardly. I mean...." He broke off as she started laughing. "Am I that funny?" he said.
"Yes, silly," he giggled, "You should have seen the look on your face. You didn't know what to say, did you?" He snorted and sat up.
"There's nothing to laugh about, girly. Wake a follow out of a sound—" The last word was silenced for she leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth. When he was sufficiently recovered he spoke:
"You work fast, don't you?" She cocked her head prettily, pushing the brown chestnut hair out of her long oval face, and smiled a smile that Venus herself would envy.
"Maybe you work slow," she said, not too seriously. She had finished tying her hair behind her head, and her long, discriminately tanned arms matched the extremely delicate, yet beautiful legs that showed from the short, skirt-like affair that she wore. Her small mouth was gently outlined by a light shaded lipstick which he knew to taste good. It was the only cosmetic she wore, or needed to. He licked his lips subconsciously. Her eyes were deep, large and colored to match the wonderfully long hair that was tied in back. His appraising gaze soon became a stare and she said:
"Do you like me?"
"Being no fool, little girl, I'll say I do, and it's not quite a fair question, I don't even know your name."
"Dianne, if it will make you feel any better," she said softly as she rose to a standing position.
Clark did mental somersaults. She couldn't be much more than sixteen, yet her breasts bore the full aura of a woman, rising and falling, graceful and full. The trim contours of her young body were sleek, lithe lines of feminine muscle that were attractive, outlined through the thin material of her clothes. He felt quite a lump in his throat, the reason for this being that she filled out that age old form that had enchanted the male from the time of the much maligned Adam to Clark's furiously pounding heart.
"Damned if you're not pretty," he breathed in an undertone that was more than complimentary.
"Thanks," she said in the high prim voice of a girl, and cocking her head again, added; "and I still don't know your name."
"Clark, if it'll help any," he said. "How come ... uh, er. How did you happen to find me?"
"I didn't find you, Clark, so deflate your ego a little. You just happened to be here when I came."
"Come here every day, eh?" She smiled a deep pretty smile. Clark noticed she had dimples.
"Every day," she said.
"Suddenly I begin to grow attached to this spot," he said softly, "very attached." He looked at her for a long time, silent, then he said:
"Where do you live, Dianne?" Now it was she who became silent, and didn't answer for a long interval. Clark became sober too, guessing the reason for her silence.
"Bad memories?"
"Uh huh," she said in a subdued tone. "62 Blitz."
"My horror was the first Bomb. I saw the people around me cut to ribbons by flying glass." The birds and the wind through the trees were the only sounds, until, suddenly, she was in his arms, crying. He put his arms around her, pressing her close, comforting himself as well as her.
"Why? Why did it happen...? Oh Clark...." The bitterness of perhaps many years flowed out in a flood of tears that seemed ceaseless. Silently, Clark listened to her story. And it wasn't an unfamiliar one, in fact commonplace, tragically commonplace.
Dianne, as many other countless millions of girls, had been ordinary; the typical American maiden. (Clark could disagree with that.) She has been living in Los Angeles when the war came and disturbed the routine, the everyday life of everybody. Her parents had died in that murderous '62 blitz, and left her homeless when she was about ten. When civilization had crumbled, her own world gone, she found herself one of the tearful few left, living in the hills around the devastated cities. One of the very few. She had lived, just as Clark had, on Nature, and had found it to be ... pleasant. Once in a while, she obtained luxuries, such as cosmetics, soap and good clothing from one of the deserted houses among the hills. It was an old story ... tragically old.
Dianne dried her eyes and looked beautiful, which wasn't hard. "I'm a cry baby," she said bitterly.
"How long has it been since you've been with another person?"
Dianne sniffled. "About four years. I can't remember exactly."
"You're no cry baby kid, you've got a right to cry, and cry a helluva lot." He put a finger under her chin, raised her face, and kissed her lightly. "Hell! I haven't seen a girl in three years." She laughed.
"What about you, Romeo," she said. "How did the war affect your life?" He sort of grinned, and leaned back against the tree, pulling her with him.
"You know, I think it affected my life for the better. If it weren't for the war, I night not have met you. It seems that I'm falling in love with you already."
Dianne frowned. "Don't say that.... Don't say that you wanted the war, think of the people that died ... your folks ... mine."
"It was coming, I didn't realize then, but it had to come. Man was too far apart from Nature and Nature wanted him back...."
"That's silly."
"No, Dianne, no, it's not silly. Man lived in his concrete skyscraper, above the earth ... complex, not simple. He lost his sense of good and decency; he depended upon someone else for his food and well being. He became soft. It had to come."
"Maybe you're right Clark, maybe," Dianne whispered, nestling close to him warmly.
"I know I am," he said. He was aware of her in the crook of his arm, and, he added, almost too softly to be heard, "I know."
"How about when you were little?" she softly enquired.
"Oh, nothing really. The only thing I remember clearly was the Huntington Park Bomb that dropped on my tenth birthday."
"Birthday?"
"Yeah. Had a party going full blast when it hit. I remember it as a sort of a thunder-clap and a bright flash in the sky. Then, amid the screams of my playmates, came a wave of heat that prickled my skin while flying glass cut everybody around me. I don't remember anything very clear after that; guess I was in a state of shock or something. After that, I wandered around, living and growing up with Nature. It's been very pleasant ... though I haven't met many people until I saw you, lucky day." She grinned.
"You've been through a lot," she said simply.
"We've all been through a lot. Maybe a lot more. Who knows? There's always a few lunatics and degenerates wandering around after the war ... ever been bothered by them?" Suddenly, she cringed, wrinkling her face with revulsion, then swallowed hard.
"When I was about twelve...." She was nearly ready to cry again. She pressed closer to Clark....
"Never mind," said Clark, "It's over now, don't think about it." Again she was pouring out the sadness of many years of loneliness.
"I love you," said Clark. It was later in the day and they were still in the same position. "I think I love you too," she said leaning back on him. "It's strange," he breathed.
"A few years ago they'd call it puppy love. I'm sure this isn't. It can't be, Dianne. The war has changed things. Before I met you, I used to lay on the grass, staring up at stars thinking. Maybe that civilization was finished, but man wasn't. He's a tough animal to kill off. The future may lie in us, Dianne."
"You're being dramatic, Clark, we're not the only ones left; there are plenty more people. In fact," she said suspiciously, "I am beginning to doubt your intentions. My name is Dianne, not Eve."
"And mine's Clark, glad to know you." They laughed and settled down to watch the sunset. "Where are you living?" asked Clark a little later.
"It's a cave over near the Santa Monica mountains."
"There? That's infested with a lot of renegades?" Dianne smiled.
"They're too stupid to look under their own noses." She sat up and stretched. "Come up, I'll show you." She sprang up and began running, her long hair streaming out behind her. Clark bounded after, at a pace only youth and vigor could maintain. He soon caught her and they both rested, laughingly. When the shadows were deep, they continued, silently. Within an hour, they were at the cave.
"Well, I'll be damned!"
"It's cozy."
"No doubt. Now I begin to doubt your intentions, young lady." She smiled and squelched him.
"I hope you're used to the hard cold ground, because that's where you're sleeping. There is only one bed. Or you can go outside."
"Never mind, I've got a tough back. But allow me this; this cave's pretty well concealed." The last was true. The cave was situated so that it was invisible and nearly impregnable. A dense growth foliage covered the entrance while the passage-way into the main chamber twisted and turned so that light and smoke were diffused perfectly.
"Where ... how did you find it?" Dianne sat down on a makeshift bed and began to braid her hair. She raised her eyes and said:
"When I was a little girl, my family came up here on Sundays to visit my uncle. I used to play around in the hills while they were so engrossed in their deep adult conversation. One day I just found it. I didn't tell anybody about it, and used it for a secret hideaway ... when the war came, I remembered it. Once in a while I go to my uncle's house just over the rise for things I need, but most of the time I've been here." She finished braiding her hair and leaned back on the bed.
"I lived in the open," Clark said moodily. "With the grass for a mattress and the sky for cover." He glanced around, "I think I'll like it here, better." Dianne raised an eyebrow.
"Keep the gleam out of your eyes or else you'll be roughing it again," she said jokingly. He laughed and sat down beside her.
"Where did you get the candles?" Clark motioned to several wax lumps scattered about.
"Uncle liked them, so...."
"Yeah," she yawned. "Tired?" he asked.
"Very." There was a silence.
"Ever read the Bible?"
"Some."
"I remember a verse that I read a long time ago ... it sort of stuck in my mind."
"Tell it to me, Clark, please."
"Sure." Clark licked his lips and recited his favorite verse into the murky stillness of the room:
"To everything there is a season; and a time to every purpose under the heavens;
"A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
"A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace...."
"Hmmm," she said lazily, "Where did you get that from?"
"Ecclesiastes."
"Nice." There was a long silence.
"Dianne?" There was no answer. He stood over the bed and saw that she slept. He stood there a long time, just watching her, drinking in her beauty. She was something he couldn't tear his eyes from. He scratched his youthful stubble, and was aware that the candles were low, casting a ruddy glow, deepening the shadows on her face, creasing her ankles and thighs, accenting everything that needed to be accented, and perfectly. Her breasts rose and fell to the even tempo of her breathing. He walked over and blew out the candles, thoughtfully.
Clark stretched out full length on the rough floor of the cave using his hands for pillows, staring straight into the blackness of the ceiling. The ground felt good against his back. He grinned. Something ran through his mind over and over again.
A time to love.... A time to love.... A time to love....
Soon, he slept.
The End