“Love: an Epic History”
By Fiver


Part one:
“The Monument”

The winter had been long; a thousand years long but the winds had ripped away the snow that covered the great glacier as it moved almost imperceptibly over what would, much later be known as “the land of sweet waters” and sometime after that; the state of Michigan. A pale, younger sun had been out for some months, melting the ice in layers and at noon, the sunlight shown down, penetrating several square yards of the top most ice and reflecting off a layer of crystal snow preserved some forty feet below which rendered the area between almost perfectly transparent. Two figures could be seen clearly incased in the pale blue green crystal depths. A man and woman, naked, embracing with legs entwined, still looking into each others eyes. Bonded together by the tribal shaman only a week before; they had been swimming together when a freak storm caught them both without warning. The same storm had frozen great, Woolley Mammoths as they ate on the plains, their trunks still clutching the succulent grasses; stopped half way to their open mouths. Both were dead before they knew what was happening. This was plain to be seen by the expressions on their faces as the sunlight danced around them for the first time in millennia. Joy. Joy with purity unrecognizable by modern Homo sapiens. Perfect ecstasy frozen in ice. The first monument to human love; erected by fate, dedicated by irony and witnessed by none.

Part two: The Beetle
Five millennia passed and the great glaciers had long since receded leaving rolling barrows and deep, spring fed lakes in their wake. The land was divided by lush forests of pine and birch to the north and prairie to the south. A tiny beetle sat motionless on a flat rock hidden in the tall prairie grass. It was male, barely three millimeters in length with a black body and legs and an almost perfectly hemispherical shell colored a bright red. The beetle was a sub species of Coccinellidae which were common to the area but the beetle itself was now as uncommon as possible. It felt the sun on its back, the breeze, which lifted its shell just slightly rustling the wings underneath and loneliness so deep that it was almost on a genetic level. It knew with a powerful certainty that it was the last of its kind. Far to the south in an area of grasslands that would later become northwestern Ohio, there had once been millions of red shelled Coccinellidae. They were benevolent as far as predators go, leaving no mark upon the land and preying only on other insects that did. They were driven by a homing instinct which brought them back each year to the same windswept veldt where they would feast on aphid, sawfly larva and paper wasps and lay their eggs on the stalks of tall grass. This instinct had sealed their doom as huge brush fires that spanned hundreds of miles engulfed the veldt wiping out the nurseries and killing all who lived there save one. The beetle had been chasing an umbrella wasp for miles before subduing it and upon returning had been blasted by the stifling heat of the fires and pushed upward, high into the thermals which had born it away, far to the north. It sat now, without movement or purpose. The meaning of its existence had been procreation, every aspect of its life leading it to the act of mating before surrendering itself to death. The beetle had come home and begun to feast, building up its strength for the mass mating at the end of September but it had not found a mate and now it was miles away in a place that smelled strange and inhospitable. It was the last of its kind, it had not mated and so its life was over. It was alone in a way that few living things ever are…All it could do was wait for death. The beetle had fallen into a state of near trance, so it did not notice when the other beetle arrived. She had noticed the tiny shock of red in the center of the flat rock as she flew overhead and had come to investigate. The beetle, finally catching her scent, stirred and turned to look at her. She was also a sub species of Coccinellidae and looked very like the red shelled beetle save that her shell was jet black. The beetle knew instinctively that she was not his species and therefore made no move to couple or even communicate but only stared listlessly back for a while before turning away to return to its fugue state . The other beetle could sense the red shell’s resignation and somehow it moved her. She carefully approached and peered into the red shell’s eyes while making overtures with her tiny feelers. She touched and stroked his face and mandibles, a gesture unheard of for a female of his species without the proper courtship rituals. She moved closer and exuded her pheromone to entice him and he reacted in spite of himself. The beetle did not understand at first. He was finished, without purpose or hope of one. He was utterly alone. Why was she courting him? What did she hope to gain? …and then the scent of her was clearing his thoughts and stirring something deeper than the instincts that had brought him back to the mating grounds year after year. He was alone in the world but she had noticed him. He was the last of his kind and utterly different from her but she wanted him. She could be with any of a million of her own kind but she was offering herself to him. The beetle lifted a feeler and touched her tiny face, met her gaze and knew that what she offered him was not pity, she offered him something he had never imagined; something completely new and unique. She offered him herself and life and a new purpose …and for that, he loved her.

The next year as the black shelled Coccinellidae arrived at their mating grounds they found in their midst, several beetles that were very different but who’s scent was familiar enough to accept without incident. These beetles had bright red shells dotted with black spots.


Part three: “The Rabbit”

As the centuries passed, the wind and rain slowly eroded the soil around the flat stone where the beetle had landed to reveal a large white limestone boulder amidst a series of smaller boulders forming a shallow gully. A rabbit was huddled in a small depression at its base. The rabbit was a doe and closer to a hare in physiology but none the less a direct ancestor of what would one day be a North American Cottontail. Her fur was matted, her feet bloody and her breathing shallow but steady. She was completely spent having endured a journey that few rabbits would ever consider. She had come from a forested area to the south east of where she had finally collapsed. She had left after losing everything she had, following no instinct that she understood but only a light in her mind that had led her here. She had been part of a warren that lived on the constant edge of survival, for there were many predators in the forest where she was born. She had been feeding with her mate, a large buck who had won her by defeating three other bucks when she had come of age. He was very attentive and protective of her; So much so that when he caught the wolverine’s scent before she had, he stamped a warning which had cost him his life. She had frozen where she was in the supernatural way that rabbits can, becoming so still that they cannot be distinguished from their surroundings and listened as the brutish predator had set upon her mate who fought frantically. She heard his growling and snarling climb higher in pitch until he was screaming. When it was over and she was certain the menace had gone, she made her way cautiously back toward the nest where her litter of ten kittens were hidden only to find a young fox digging them out as she approached. She had already birthed three litters in her short lifetime and had protected them often. She drove off a corn snake that had been big enough to crush her in its endless coils. She had killed a full grown crow as it attempted to raid her nest…but this was a fox, and small as it was, she knew she was no match for it. Instinct had overcome her and she had sat motionless, downwind and watched as the fox, with no more regard than a domestic dog standing at a bowl of kibble, ate her children one by one. She did not look away or try to move off but listened to their tiny squeals and felt their horror and pain. It was all she could do for them; so she endured until it was over. The fox licked the blood of her kittens off its crooked lips, defecated on what was left of the nest and trotted off without a backward glance.

Rabbits run. It goes beyond instinct for them. They live and die running. They never question it, never second guess it; never doubt it. When they aren't eating, sleeping, mating or digging, they are either waiting or running. If a situation arises that is too much to bare, they run. They do not consider fighting, or cowardice or the opinion of any other creature on the planet...They simply run and never look back. Every rabbit knows instinctively that looking back is fatal. The doe ran. She ran out of the forest and on to the plains and kept running. She stopped only to evade a predator. She ate only enough to keep running. She had run for days, weeks perhaps when she found the limestone boulder and collapsed. When she had caught what was left of her breath, she had dragged herself into a depression in the rock and huddled there, eyes closed, waiting for a long sleep. Only short fitful ones had come and she grew even wearier.

The buck had noticed the rabbit huddled in the limestone grotto as he came over the ridge of the gully looking for early coltsfoot or chervil. He had immediately started scenting for disease. If he smelled any, he would drive the rabbit off for the sake of his warren’s health but all he could make out was the feint sent of blood from the doe’s raw feet. As he moved closer he could smell dirt and exhaustion. He knew from her scent that the rabbit was a doe not yet ovulating. He could smell distance and adrenalin and pain as well but what was most profound was the subtle yet permeating scent of deep seated grief. He made his way to her cautiously and, after sniffing for several minutes touched her nose delicately with his own. When she did not respond he considered leaving her but the grief hanging in the air about her had touched him deeply and he could not move away. So, he lay down beside her, feet tucked under as rabbits often do insulating her between his own body and the wall of the grotto where she lay huddled. After a while she was warm and slept; if a little fitfully. He stayed with her through the night and in the morning when she stirred and then stretched and then yawned and finally shaken herself thoroughly, he led her slowly, for her feet were very tender, to a field of tall dandelions which she began to nibble steadily. As she ate, he began to clean her. He cleaned the dirt from her face and long, slender ears, groomed the fleas from her matted pelt and licked her raw feet until she could walk without difficulty. When she had eaten her fill, he led her back to his warren amidst several limestone boulders half buried in the earth. The rabbits had dug in between the boulders and created a series of scrapes and runs that were well hidden and easily defended. The landscape carried sound and scent well so there was always advanced warning for predators or inclement weather and the rabbits here had flourished. The other does in the warren ran up to the new doe, who smelled of loss and horror. Some of them began to growl nervously but the buck stamped and cuffed at them until they withdrew. He stayed by her side for days until the other rabbits knew scent and accepted her. During that time, the doe began to return to herself. Memory for a rabbit is like a physical sense, perhaps even a form of time travel. A rabbit’s memory does not come at any distance from it and is perceived much more as a part of the moment. The doe, eyes closed; struggled with her memories and always when she opened them, the buck was there; sometimes nose to nose with her. It took a year for her to come into heat again but when she did, the buck was there for her; always patient, always attentive. She bore him seven litters and their children were strong and clever and happy. She lived for five years, far longer than most rabbits and the buck was always with her. He never strayed more than three feet from her during their entire lives accept once when he had scented a coltsfoot over the ridge near the white limestone boulder and, it being his favorite had hopped off for a moment to happily rip it from the ground and chew it slowly. He had come back to find the does body resting peacefully where he had found her so many years ago. He lay beside her and stayed there until the same long sleep took him off to where she waited for him.

Part four: “The Couple”

Several thousand years later; the white limestone boulder had been worn down by the weather and was no bigger than a man. It had most recently been adorned with a bronze plaque dedicated to the women’s auxiliary. Some yards away from it, a man and woman sat at a picnic table in a small meadow just outside of a visitor center located at a rest stop on Interstate 69 in south central Michigan. Although they had only just met, they were a couple. Although they were both in their late forties, their demeanor was that of a much younger couple. Although it was the end of their first trip together, they knew it was the beginning of a life together.
They had met only virtually and knew each other through Face Book and Gmail and Skype but after a short while they knew each other beyond any boundaries, as though they were the same person. The man was from Michigan, the woman from Ohio. Both were committed to others but were loveless where they were; Prisoners of obligation and resignation. Both longed to escape and find themselves again. It was the woman who suggested they do it together and the man, who held a good road trip as the best thing in life, had agreed without hesitation. She came for him on a Monday morning and let him drive to Toledo where neither had friends or family. They walked together hand in hand, stole kisses in doorways and talked of nothing and everything. They asked local strangers where to find good restaurants, they watched the sun set in a parking lot and pretended to be married when they booked a room for the night. Once inside they nibbled leftovers, gave each other presents and finally without words, they undressed each other and shared their final secrets. They left the lights on and worshipped each other all night; often so overcome that they shed tears. In the morning, the man made a pot of coffee and brought a cup to the woman who had beamed at him because no one had ever done such a thing for her in her lifetime. The man beamed back because it was nothing for him and he relished idea of taking care of her. Too soon they were up and dressed. Too soon where they out of the hotel and back in the car. Too soon they were on the way back to Michigan. They had spoken very little that morning; not because they had run out of things to say or were morose about parting but because they were happy like they had never been before and there were no words to convey it and no need to do so had there been. The trip had been effortless and thrilling and perfect. It was as though the universe had laid everything that they wanted or needed reverently at their feet so when they began to see road signs for the man’s hometown, they had pulled into a rest stop that seemed to appear in just the right place. The woman had gone in the visitors center to use the bathroom while the man smoked his last cigarette, finding it too fitting that the pack he’d bought before leaving had lasted him the whole trip. He looked over to see the woman beckoning him from inside, had crushed out his smoke and gone to her side. She held his hand and led him to the rear of the center and pointed out into a little clearing with a picnic table. Just beyond that was a trail marked “Dog Walk” where two rabbits were nibbling at a dandelion that had gone to seed. They watched each other, the couple and the rabbits and it felt to them like the best of omens. They walked together then, out to the picnic table and sat with their arms around one another. Although it was early October, the day was summer perfect and dazzling bright. Throngs of ladybugs flew through the air and lit on their cloths and faces and the rabbits, who had moved off a bit, still peered at them from the undergrowth a few yards away. The woman took photos of secret things; the empty cigarette box in the trash; a ladybug on the man’s cheek and they both sat and marveled at the feeling they had. A deep knowing that the moment was theirs, that they belonged together and that they belonged here at this moment. Each felt the same without words to express it. Each knew that out of every wonderful thing that had happened; this was the moment together that they would always remember. A moment and a place that seemed to have been waiting for them, that belonged to them alone. A perfect understanding; an unspoken promise that although it was the end of their first trip together, it was the beginning of a life together.