The Second Coming

him long enough to feel the onset of the rigor, which started like an earthquake tremor then shook him till his teeth rattled.
    Then what will love be in the future, she wondered, lying on him cheek pressed against his, a dancing with him in the Carolina moonlight with the old world and time before you, or a cleaving to him at the world’s end, and which is better?
    â€œDon’t worry. I’ll get you back.”
    Straddling him and trying his pelvis for heft, she looked around, gauging trees and limbs for hoist points. But he could move, enough so that by rolling him and getting herself almost under him with his arm around her neck, he could help her push them up and, leaning heavily on her, walk. Staggering though she was, her eye for angles was good enough to bend at the right moment and lever him onto the bunk without hurting him. He shook like a leaf. There was nothing for her to do now but, spent, gasping, trembling, use her last strength and climb over him, cover them with the sleeping bag and hold him until she got stronger and he stopped shivering. Somehow she, they, got them undressed, his wet clothes her dry clothes off, her warm body curled around his lard-cold muscle straps and bones, spoon-nesting him, her knees coming up behind him until he was shivering less and, signaling a turn, he nested her, encircled her as if he were her cold dead planet and she his sun’s warmth.
    It was dark. There was no firelight from the stove. Flexed and enfolded she lay still, waiting for him to get warm, blinking in the dark but not thinking. Her arm went to sleep. She began to worry, about the doctor, that he might not come or that he might and find them so and that the stove fire of fat pine might go out.
    Presently he stopped shivering and went slack around her. “Ah,” he said quite himself. “You undressed me again.”
    â€œAre you all right?” she asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m getting up to fix the fire. The doctor is coming.”
    â€œHe came.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œNothing. He said my leg wasn’t bad, didn’t need a cast. He smelled me, looked in my eye, shook his head, and told me to come in tomorrow for a checkup.”
    â€œIs there something wrong with you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what were you doing out there on the ground?”
    â€œI went out to get some water and fell down.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you get up?”
    He was silent.
    â€œI mean either I am not understanding something or something is not understandable.”
    â€œI blacked out.”
    â€œIs there something serious wrong with you?”
    â€œNo. Except I tend to fall down.”
    â€œI am a good hoister.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhen you fall down, I’ll pick you up.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI have to fix the fire.”
    She got up naked but not shivering. The pine had gone out, but it was so fat, a new fire could be started with a match. Atop the blazing kindling she laid two short green maple logs and a heavy hunk of chestnut to press them down. She left the door to the firebox open. When she started to climb over him, she discovered that he had moved to make room. As she turned to nest again, he held her shoulder and she came down facing him. But he was bent a little away from her. She bent too. They seemed to be looking at each other through their eyebrows. The wind picked up and pressed against the greenhouse. The metal frame creaked. There was a fine sifting against the glass. At first she thought it was blown pine needles. The sound grew heavier. It was sleet.
    Winter had come.
    His hand was in the hollow of her back, pressing her against him. She came against him, willingly. It was a marvel to her this yielding and flowing against him, amazing that I was made so and is this it then (whatever it is) and what will happen to myself (do I altogether like the yielding despite myself and the smiling at it like smiling when your knee jerks when Dr. Duk hits it with his rubber hammer) and will I for the first time in my life get away from my everlasting self sick of itself to be with another self and is that what it is and if not then what? He kissed her on the lips. Ah then it is that too after all, the dancing adream in the Carolina moonlight except that it was sleeting and it was firelight not moonlight on the glass.
    â€œOh my,” she said. “Imagine.”
    â€œImagine what?”
    â€œImagine