I have finished Chapter 12 of this latest story. Unplanned, the story took a strange twist in Chapter 9 which I have decided to bring forward here. What was surprising was the shift into a nude alter-reality, a mythological setting with a Turkish god and goddess.
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“You need to follow me,” Zuhre told Meghan and Bruce.
As she took a step through the moon gate, Bruce saw the framed space begin to shimmer in the darkness. Meghan followed Zuhre while Bruce hesitated. He saw Meghan shimmer and then disappear. Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself forward using the crutches.
He felt a tingling and found himself in a dark space where he couldn’t feel the crutches in his hands. Discomfited, he looked at his hands and found them empty. The crutches had disappeared. He looked down as he felt his feet contact the surface. Though he couldn’t see his feet, he knew that his cast and his shoe had disappeared. A tendril of fear had him pause for a moment. Yet knowing that Meghan had gone ahead, he was more concerned about hurrying forward in case she needed him.
There was a change in the darkness. Bruce was able to see. The black had shifted to a rich, deep blue that was iridescent. It was as if he had emerged into a pocket of air beneath the surface of a sea. That thought was challenged as he saw a shoreline with water lapping at the edges. Hearing his name, he turned and saw Meghan.
“Bruce! I’m over here. Where are we? And where is your cast? You are walking as if you never had broken your leg.”
Bruce answered, “I don’t have a clue. Where is Zuhre?”
Almost at the same moment they saw a beautiful young woman who was nude. She looked as though she was a fairy without wings. The cast of her skin was bluish, likely having to do with the iridescent blue light that filled the space.
“Welcome. I am Su Ana, the goddess of water. My consort, Su Ata will be here shortly. My father sent you to us. There are lessons to be learned. Welcome to my world, Meghan and Bruce.”
“She’s naked!” Meghan exclaimed to Bruce in a whisper that was meant not to be overheard.
“Yes, I am without clothing,” Su Ana remarked, telling both Meghan and Bruce that there would be no secrets in this world. “The world of water does not agree with clothing. You will see that you are unclothed as well. This allows us to move fluidly in the water.”
Meghan and Bruce looked at themselves and at each other. Su Ana was right. Neither of them had on any clothing, not even a thin veil to protect modesty and decency. Both immediately covered their genital region which appeared to be shaven of even the finest down of hair. The hair on their heads was the only body hair that remained.
“This is my world,” Su Ana said. “Here there is no false modesty, no shame. There is no authority or social morality other than transparent honesty. The core of who you are is all that is allowed to exist here.”
“But what if someone should see me undressed,” Meghan protested.
“There is no someone to see you and remark upon your state of undress, Meghan. In this space, the camouflage of clothing would quickly put you at risk of being isolated and removed. Here there is no reason to hide.”
Su Ana’s words did not do much to alleviate the sense of vulnerability and unease that both Bruce and Meghan felt at finding themselves nude. Bruce made it a point not to stare at Meghan, a favour that she reciprocated. Both focused on the goddess that spoke to them.
“My mate will be here momentarily. Together we will take you on a journey through our realm.”
Almost as soon as those words were spoken, a nude male appeared approaching Su Ana. He was unlike what Bruce assumed a god would look like. Su Ata had the body of a male, but his head had the strange look of a frog. It was jarring to say the least. Bruce then noticed the god’s feet which were wide and webbed. Curious, Bruce looked at the goddesses’ feet and noticed they were webbed, though not as evident.
“Ah,” Su Ata spoke, with a smile lighting up his face. “I see you have taken note of my appearance, my feet and my face. Like my feet, my hands are also webbed. Both are necessary for ease of movement in our realm. As for the anura features of my face, that too serves a purpose in the world of water.”
Bruce caught the reference with Ata’s use of anura, the scientific name for the amphibian family of frogs and toads, a word that states that these amphibians lacked a tail.
Su Ana then spoke, “Let us begin. Follow me.”
She led them to the shoreline and entered the water. Her movements were graceful, as if she had been walking through water to reach the water. Both Meghan and Bruce found themselves feeling the resistance which caused them to move the same way. Without her body disappearing below the surface of the water, which would have been natural once in the water, Ana began to swim.
“Bruce!” exclaimed Meghan. “The shoreline is an illusion. We’ve been under water the whole time. How is that possible? How can we breathe under water?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted. “But I do see that we both now have webbed feet and hands.”
They followed the goddess and god further into their realm. The appearance of life in the watery depths was gradual. As they appeared to ascend into a paler blue world, the varieties and numbers of life forms multiplied. It was as though each life form was paired with mates moving within each others’ orbits. It reminded Bruce of the image of two koi fish circling each other in an eternal mating dance.
“This is amazing, Bruce. Everything is paired. And the closer to the surface we get, the closer to the light, the more pairs we see.”
The goddess swam toward the two guests.
“Not everything in the water realm is like this. There are solitary monsters deeper in the depths where it is darker. It is not the purpose of this small journey into our realm to teach you about the dangers lurking in the depths. The task is to show you the relationship between opposites who are yet the same, the union of masculine and feminine energies. And you are correct, Bruce, in your comparison with the koi fish, a yin-yang symbol in your world.”
‘Even the water, considered to be feminine energy, itself teaches us that two separate entities must dance together, hydrogen and oxygen – hydrogen as feminine energy and oxygen and masculine energy,” added the water god, Su Ata. “The two elements bind together to be the source of life, while still unable to fully become one element.”
“None of this is new,” Meghan was quick to state, feeling as though the god was talking down to her. “If this is what we are supposed to learn coming here, it has been a complete waste of time.” Meghan did have issues in listening, especially when it came to men.
Su Ana quickly picked up on Meghan’s irritation which was making it impossible to learn, to hear, to understand.
“Watch those two,” the goddess said, while pointing out two strange creatures swimming alongside each other.
As Meghan and Bruce watched, the two creatures separated and came back together from opposite directions, separated again to be side-by-side while going in the same direction. They then took turns swimming one above the other. Then at one point, it was obvious that the two, for an instant became one in some sort of intimate moment. Within moments, one of the two expelled what appeared to be eggs. New life had been created. Two had become one, though the two were still trapped within their original forms.
“These are our children,” the goddess proclaimed. “In our children, we become one. It is that thirst for each other which sparks desire, which in turn fills us with a need for each other.”
“I understand!” exclaimed Bruce, “Life force, libido.”
~
With those words spoken, it was as if a spell had been broken. Bruce found himself back in his garden beside Meghan. His crutches were on the ground beside him. He expected to see Zuhre, though he wasn’t sure why he had that expectation. Turning to face Meghan, he could see confusion on her face.
“Bruce, what are we doing in your backyard?”
Bruce didn’t have an answer. Zuhre spoke, drawing attention to her presence. “And there is the constellation for Pisces. Now, let’s go back inside where it is warm. Hot chocolate?”