Then the ripples began. At first it was as though some giant god of the universe had dipped its finger into Justine’s celestial pool as concentric ripples began to radiate from one undefinable point. Then there was another the ripples crossing one another, their motion oscillating to create peaks and troughs in an array whose pattern could not quite be defined in Justine’s mind. Then there was another disturbance and another, then another, the pattern of ripples becoming more and more intricate until reality started to manifest as patches into Justine’s perception. The jigsaw of reality began to take the shape of the real world around her.
True reality finally introduced itself in the call of the ruru owl. Justine opened her eyes, and it was sitting on a low branch not far from her head. Its glowing eyes blinked. It called again and the eyes seemed to tinkle and scatter like sparks as a manifestation of the sound. Justine stayed absolutely relaxed lying prone as gradually the wild order of the night slowly returned to an everyday normalized perception. The flight that Tui had given her was coming into land and she would soon be going through immigration to the world of reality.
And as she did so, Justine thought and thought. She thought about Tui, she thought about Joshua, she thought about what they were all doing.
She thought about the friends from the city. She thought about her work. Suddenly her research, her aims and the possibilities. The order of the path forward seemed to come to her in unrealistic clarity. A feeling of impatience welled inside her to shake off these residual sensations radiating through her mind and body and take back reality and shape it to new purpose.
She thought of her mother, those books and records she read and listened to, ‘nothing is real, nothing to get hung about’. She thought about her mother’s failed quest for free love and her own sexuality. Somehow her mother’s purpose in free love had never materialized. ‘The world is still fucked up about sex as it ever was, and she was testament to that. But unlike her mother nobody has been hurt, maybe there is hope for a better future.
Her overriding thought was that everything is linked sex, economics, war, peace, love, hatred, birth death and politics. A spark in one will cause a ripple in all the others.
She sat up and spread her legs, she licked her finger and searched for her vagina. Her birth canal was still there ready to receive then give. She can give birth to babies; she can give birth to ideas, and she can nurture others with her ideas as she can do with her babies. What passes through this canal can replicate her perhaps for perpetuity. She tipped her head back and stared up at Rakau whaea, she too was a mother tree, a tree that can draw from others the nutrients of thought, process it and pass that on, for new saplings to rise up fed and healthy to become giants in their own right.
As she sat and thought about this, shafts of early morning sun began to penetrate the canopy, alighting on Tui who was blinking in the rays as she walked up the rocky path with Fleur in her arms. Above and around her fluttered three or four fantails, snatching at the tiny early morning flies of the bush that Tui had disturbed. A Disneyesque grand entrance into what may heroically become Justine’s brand-new world.
“I see you are OK Justine; I was worried about you; I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”
“I feel great, I feel as though I have arisen afresh from a long, long sleep.”
Tui handed Justine, Fleur who was giggling at her Mummy with no clothes on. Tui gathered them up then they marched determinedly down to the house, Justine still naked in the chill dewy air. Pausing at the black hewn timber front door, Justine read ‘Arwen’ carved into the lintel above the door, touching it with her fingers, then she wrenched the lever and marched into the house and into her bedroom. Turning to Tui who now had Fleur back she took both into her arms then collapsed them both onto the bed in tight and passionate embrace. “Welcome,” Tui Whispered,” Welcome home.”
*******
It was afternoon before Justine awoke in her bed, still naked in the bedclothes, blinking and shaking the cobwebs from her mind she made her way to her wardrobe to put on a dressing gown and then out into the living area. It had now clouded over outside and had become unseasonably cold. In response Tui had a fire going. Hearing Justine rising she was in the kitchen preparing tea.
When both were sitting in armchairs, pulled up to the fire they cheerily chatted about the night before which Justine found virtually unexplainable. Her voice echoed her utter awe in the experience, her mind seemed alive with the aftermath. “I could come to believe in solipsism after that experience, I mean does anything actually exist? That said nothing happened that wasn’t connected to something else. I couldn’t distinguish what I was seeing to what I was hearing for example. Everything, every thought was a segue into another sense, another world, another idea all expressed in colour, pattern and action. Nothing was autonomous, alone, existing without connection to something else.” Justine paused, “Sorry… I don’t think I have words to describe it.”