Brutalist Stories #11

“We’ll get married then, shall we?” She whispered to him in the dark, his arm coming in around her waist and pulling her into him, his cheek touching hers, his tears rolling onto her face.

“Do we have any other choice?” He asked as she placed her head on his chest and thought for a moment if they really were doing the right thing. What else was there to do? They had to look for any flicker of joy in a world that had taken so much from them, from everyone.

“I think so,” she said softly. “You love me, don’t you?” She brought herself off up off his chest and looked at the vague silhouette in the dark room, making out the flicker of his sodden eyes in the low light, hearing the light sniffle of his sadness. “Don’t you…”

“Of course, but what does it matter now? We made it down here with the rest of them, and now we’re trapped, for how long? Eighty or a hundred years? We’ll live out our lives and die down here—

“But if we have each other, that’s enough, surely?” She took his hands and held them up to her mouth, kissing his fingers lightly. “Does anyone else matter if we’ve got each other? Does anything else matter?”

“I don’t know, I think other things matter? I don’t know if we can be as selfish as that, just us two, from everything that’s happened and might happen yet, there’s got to be something else?”

She felt his hands twitch in hers, “Yes of course, lots of other things matter, what I meant is that if we have each other, if we know we’re there for each other, we can get through it. We can live some semblance of a life down here, and maybe even help.”

“Children?” He asked.

“And why not? If we marry they’ll give us a licence, and we know we’re compatible.”

“But into this, into this container, you want to bring life into here?” He pulled his hands out of hers and wrapped his arms around her.

“There’s a chance that we’ll get out one day, not us perhaps, but our children, or even their children—

“But why?!” He suddenly shouted, pushing her away.

“Because of love, my dear.” She said, watching his shaking frame in the dark.

“Because of love?” He said looking up, searching the words, his breathing growing heavy.

“We have to believe that it will defeat all the hate up there, we have to, or they will have won, just like they think they have now. We have love, and love is enough.”

His breath went silent and he stepped back towards her, pulling his arms around her, her face into his chest, his heart into hers and he whispered, “love is enough.”

Building inspiration: Holy Redeemer Church La Laguna