Her Destiny is Change Page 3

  The evening before the Split, as Ike was walking home, he saw a man he knew committing an unspeakable horror. Ike ran closer and saw a woman acquaintance of his beneath the man. Ike would not, could not watch this horror occur — even if it was legal and merely in poor taste to force a woman to commit such acts in public. Ike jumped and shoved the man off the woman. The man, at the height of the rage he was releasing in the woman, fought blindly with Ike. The rage of one was matched by the rage of the other. Ike lost his eye that evening, but he had a vision. The next day his vision bonded with the Great Split. One–Eyed Ike’s role in the lives of the women and in the Realm was clear and he took his place with them.

  While Jane Double D was with

  Dward, Ike was sitting in his priestly quarters. One– Eyed Ike had climbed into the Green Shrine of Deep Thought. He lit the blue purple haze and sat on the mitlin seat to begin his meditation. Sitting on his wooden mitlin, Ike was able to contemplate the Powers of All Around. Ike is the Priestness of the Women’s Domain. He has been with the women in their most fearful moments, their moments of utter uncertainty. His senses have become deeper and more in tune to the women of the Realm over the years. He and Jane have a long-time connection that seems to get deeper with each passing year. Ike knows that his old friend Jane is in a very difficult situation, meeting with her old-world love and friend, Dward. It has been put within Ike to meditate on Jane. Ike can feel the pull of Jane’s situation and is called into a meditative trance. It is now his function to see Jane’s thoughts and to be with Jane. Jane Double D feels her resolve strengthen. She knows she has the strength of the Realm within her. She knows that the women are counting on her to deal with all that was put forth. Her confidence provides her with even more power.

  One–Eyed Ike was an old soul. Some believed it was his old soul’s experience that allowed him to reach back and gain strength from more than a thousand years of understanding. His methods of meditation certainly encompassed years of

  experience and practice, much before the current years, the years of the Great Split. Contemplating the Powers of All Around was indeed a concept that many believed best left with the ancients, with the far and distant past. While the Green Shrine of Deep Thought was still a respected place of meditation, very few entered the shrine and even less believed in the powers of their own meditation.

  But One-Eyed Ike was different. It was a wellknown fact that he could, when left alone in his meditation, do wondrous things to those he meditated on and for. It is believed that he could influence the thought and actions of individuals who were light years away. It is believed that he could affect the actions of leaders and the outcomes of battles, conferences and jurisdiction. It was believed — and it was so. Ike’s meditations were simple words, sentences — mantras — repeated in his mind as he focused on the subject. Eventually the mantras and the subject became one and the same.

  *** The Light will shine on your countenance and form. You are guarded.

  You know your way.

  You will become the peace that surrounds you. Indeed, many feared One-Eyed Ike’s perceived

  powers and the fact that he chose to remain and support the Women’s Forward Movement was questioned and deemed suspect by many of the women in the higher ranks and Upper Status. There were those within the Daily Deed, the hard-working daily workers of the Women’s Forward Movement, who spent much time arguing and debating OneEyed Ike’s sincerity and motivation. But time and time again, One–Eyed Ike proved himself an asset to the women. He was able to penetrate the thickness of the Men’s League and help keep their violent outbreaks aimed at the Women to a minimum. Even the Daily Deed, the women who comprised the workforce of the Women’s Forward Movement, had to admit that after the Upper Stratus of the Women’s Forward Movement made a meditative request of One-Eyed Ike, most every volatile situation with the men would seem to calm and even dissipate into a foggy, soft conversation.

  *** Undeniably, as Jane Double D and Dward begin their talk, Jane can feel a warm wave of softness enter her mind. Dward, Commander-inChief of the Men’s League, would never admit any such softening of the heart and spirit. He would rather chalk the whole of his mood and actions to be the result of Jane’s sexual magnitude and his own growing restraint. But the fact is, he too is mellowed and softened to the very deepest of his gut as a result of the deep and solitary old-way meditation of One– Eyed Ike.

  *** One–Eyed Ike sits and rocks slightly back and forth. As he sits, a low deep hum can be heard coming from the Green Shrine of Deep Thought. One-Eyed Ike would remain in his trance for as long as is needed, The Powers of All Around keeping him focused and peaceful and absorbed. He sits in the Green Shrine of Deep Thought, focused on Jane and on Dward. He is focused on Senshii Jane Double D and Chief Commander Dward. He focuses and he empowers Jane with his thoughts and to Dward he doesn’t just send reasoning and patience, One-Eyed Ike becomes a part of the air, of the spirit of that which envelopes both Jane and Dward. One-Eyed Ike does all of this without a word spoken to anyone…He does all this with a drive that he feels deep inside…A drive that he knew had come as a gift from his beloved Anna.

  After Anna’s death, One-Eyed Ike’s devotion to his daughters, and the women, grew even deeper. The path away from the Wideness was clear. What wasn’t clear was what Ike’s life would be like in the Realm. The only man to follow the Women’s Forward Movement without a wife by his side, leading him on; Ike went with the WFM because he knew it was the right thing to do for his daughters. He knew that this was what Anna would have wanted. He knew it was the only choice he could make. It was the right thing to do and so he did.

  Albeit well respected and outwardly satisfied with his life, Ike was lonely. His daughters felt themselves incredibly lucky to have their father around and they spent much of their free time with him. Their father was completely devoted to them and their lives and this was all that they had ever known. They didn’t quite take him for granted, but they also could not quite see their father being anywhere else, or acting in any other way.

  But Ike was lonely. At night when his daughters were each in her own quarters and the activities and tasks for the day were done, Ike would sit on his mattress, reach for a book and lie down, resting the closed book on his chest. Ike had been a fierce reader back in the Wideness. He loved novels and stories of epic proportion; he loved to look at books that explained how to do this and that. He loved most every book he could catch in his large paw-like hands. Here in the Realm, Ike collected books. The walls of his rooms were lined with books of every kind, but here in the Realm, Ike could not bring himself to read. He wanted to — indeed his daughters were sure that he spent his nights reading himself to sleep. Every time they came by and happened by his bed, there was another book or two resting on the covers. But Ike could not bring himself to read, or delve into any of his previously loved pleasures. Ike was lonely and devoid of any outside pleasure, save that of the time he spent with his daughters.

  Ike believed that his problem was not that he was lonely, in as much as he was in the Realm with his daughters, living with them the life as he and Anna had believed life should be. The problem — here in the Realm — was that he was without Anna. And Anna’s absence could not overcome anything else. So Ike continued his days, devoted to

  meditation. Gradually, he spent more and more time in the Green Shrine of Deep Thought. He spent more and more time contemplating the Powers of All Around. In time, Ike’s effect changed. His appearance became almost luminous. As time went on, Ike became like no other being in either the Wideness or the Realm. His focus, his meditations on the Powers of All Around, became so intense that even when Ike was not in the Green Shrine of Deep Thought, his meditations had such an effect on his soul that Ike’s appearance began to change even more. It was as if Ike’s meditation became an energy of its own and this energy took over. Ike became part of the Powers of All Around.

  Back to the Intersex Meet

  As Jane Double D and Dwa
rd finally settle into their proper discussions and One-Eyed Ike is absorbed in meditation, the men and women of both worlds begin to discuss the “situation.” As is with all peoples born with any degree of freedom of thought, each individual old enough to be aware of the crises began his or her own mental journey guessing and discussing and assuming where things would lead.

  This guessing and assuming grew stronger and stronger with each passing minute and day. The discussions that came about were of no solace and could have easily led to civil unrest and possibly violence — something not seen in such excess since before the Great Split. If it wasn’t for One-Eyed Ike’s deep and all-consuming meditation, beyond any doubt, this advanced form of gossiping would have definitely taken on a life of its own and formed its own reality and perhaps formed its own new reality — one not necessarily better than the one existing now.

  Luckily for all, One-Eyed Ike had become so intensely of strong mind and soul, so closely bound with the Powers of All Around, his meditation was capable of reeling in those whose out-of-control minds became actively panicked, both in the women’s world and the Men’s League. The men of the Men’s League — that is, the Extreme of the Men’s League — began to thrash and boggle. It was mostly because of Ike’s meditations that these thrashings and bogglings remained verbal and internal, never leaving the walls of the leader’s headquarters.

  The Men’s League Upper Echelon had been so convinced by the Bad Air — they could not rid themselves of their absolute conviction that this Bad Air did indeed come from the Women’s Forward Movement. As a matter of pure fact, the Men’s League and most, if not all, of the men, believed that this Bad Air was sent purposely to the men’s side as a means of punishment and attack.

  *** Our ShElder comes suddenly back to the present. As she looks around, she sees the intent stares of those listening. She understands the importance of knowing shestory. Forgetting the past, the sessions of long ago is how shestory repeats and replicates into the future. The replication, the recurrence, is mostly of the bad, the horrific and the painful.

  Looking back as I tell this tale, I believe that some shestory, as well as the facts of the lives of those living in this new world after the Great Split, will make this current crisis easier to understand. My dilemma is whether to go back in time to before the Great Split or to explain life after the Great Split. I think that I will let logic dictate — something that I usually do not do — and tell this story from the beginning. Yes, I know…we already started the story somewhere in the middle… Well, sometimes my logic comes to me later rather than sooner…but better late than not at all. Don’t you all agree?

  Part 2

  Life Before the Great Split Gabrielle, First Cowander-in-Chief

  Where should I begin? With Jane? With Gabrielle, Dally Blyth? Certainly not with any of the men. The men in this story, the men who lived to tell the tales and live the life in the Realm were there solely due to the hard decisiveness of the Women, strong determined women who realized that their world would only change if they made the change.

  Yes, I will begin with Gabrielle. There is just so much to tell about her. Cowander-in-Chief Gabrielle was one of the strongest, most decisive, as well as dark and fiercely devoted to all of ‘her’ women. Yes, in the time immediately following the Great Split and generations after, we all remain Gabrielle’s women.

  Even before the trouble, when Gabrielle was just born, her parents and all who saw her said that there was something different about her. Her spirit, her aura, her breath — something very special shone from her tiny body. She glowed like the white of the moon on dark summer nights. Her very presence in a room would bring a warmth and calm that was normally saved for those visions of angels at prayer. For everyone who entered her chambers, her presence could not only be seen but also felt very deeply. There had always been a sacred strength embodying her.

  It wasn’t until after the Great Split, when we were all in the Realm, that Cowander-in-Chief Gabrielle found her purpose, and understood her destiny. But her divine essence came with a price. Gabrielle knew that she had a reason for being and becoming who she was. She knew that her purpose was singular in its direction and that her true self could only exist if she was both true and focused in her mind as well as her body.

  Long before the Great Split, Gabrielle had been a student of Jane Double D. While she was not Jane’s equal on the mat, her sense of what it was to be a Senshii was clear and true and she quickly reached Shihan. Even then, she conducted herself with a dignity and focus rare in one so young. While Jane was her mentor on the mat, Gabrielle became an instant friend to Jane Double D both on and off the mat and they would practice together for hours into the night. Soon Gabrielle became a teacher of Jane Double D’s methods. Her following, while not as great in number as Jane’s, was just as intense and true. By the standards of the Wideness, during those times, Gabrielle should have been married off by then — but no man would have her for more than one night. Her essence, which quickly became known as no less than divine, was too strong for their simple demands and her very presence scared those who would seek to control her — owning Gabrielle was not possible, so marriage was not to be an issue.

  Gabrielle belonged to no one. Gabrielle belonged to destiny and that destiny was change.

  *** Gabrielle lived with several other women who also lived on the fringes of male acceptance and for one reason or another were also considered not suitable to wed. Together they worked and played and laughed secretly about the men who had tried but failed to catch them.

  When the time came for the women to leave the Wideness, Gabrielle was already in her mid-ripe years. While she was younger than the rest of the women leaders and members of the Daily Deed, she was mature and confident, sure in a way that baffled the women around her.

  Immediately following the Great Split, there was a void in the leadership; Defense of the Women was not assured. While Jane Double D’s words were wise and true, she lacked the ability to connect her ideas with widespread practice and was short on charm. Jane knew that she was not a leader of the masses. She knew that she lacked the charisma a great leader needed to bring her people comfort and surety.

  Gabrielle, however, understood Jane and knew her teaching well. She believed deeply in the ways of defense she had studied under her mentor. She was able to take from Jane that sense of urgency and (use?) her own divine spirit and inner strength to take Jane’s ideas and practices and make them a dogma, a code of behavior and practice that the women of the Realm both needed and understood. She encouraged Jane to modify the Way of

  Gentleness. Together they combined their efforts and worked it into a doctrine that could be followed and integrated into their daily lives.

  And thus, soon after the Great Split, as the Women began to form their governing standards and choose those who would run the land and defend the Women, Gabrielle’s leadership was recognized. The Upper Stratus and the Daily Deed agreed…

  Gabrielle’s position as First Cowander-in-Chief was declared and fully supported by her friend and onetime mentor, Jane Double D. If there were any doubts as to her abilities, or any questions raised by any of the women, one meeting with First Cowanderin-Chief Gabrielle was enough to quiet all

  uncertainty.

  Life Before the Great Split Jane Double D

  It was another dreary morning and Jane Double D woke to the shrill moan of her alarm. She lay in bed a few extra minutes and then rolled out from under the warm covers, putting her bare feet on the cold floor. Jane briefly glanced over to the other side of the bed, which she had occasionally shared with various partners, and which was now empty. The latest of her lovers, Dward, had left last night…

  *** Dward believed that he actually loved Jane. He wanted to marry and marry Jane. He had proposed to Jane during dinner but Jane saw through to his proposal and recognized the ruse that her life would become if she accepted. Jane knew that Dward’s professed love was for the woman he wanted her to be — not for the
woman she was. She knew that Dward wanted more than a partner in bed and someone to share his lonely evenings. He wanted a woman of strong standing by his side as he climbed the political ladder of the Wideness. He wanted, Jane was sure, a woman who would ‘follow’ him to the top of the leadership and let him lead, publicly agreeing and supporting his words, bringing the women’s acquiescence along with their marriage. He claimed that he wanted a strong woman with her own opinions — but in reality, he wanted a strong woman whose opinions were his! In those days, this is what marriage meant for a woman, a total eradication of herself, her opinions. And this is what was expected of all women.

  Typical of the self-assured and cocky man he was, Dward was certain that Jane would agree. Of course Jane Double D loved to spar with him on various topics relating to his actions and his politics in private — but he was sure that publicly she would join him and willingly agree to this full-on

  partnership to promote his political career, while putting her own opinions and options quietly to rest or melding her own opinions into some

  bastardization of his. Dward, like most men before the Great Split, did not believe that any woman had the possibility of being fulfilled without a man. Indeed, the laws and customs of the Wideness supported this concept and it was in fact both the cause of their way of life and the reason for its wide acceptability, both by men and many of the women. This is how they lived. This is how they grew up and this is the world that was their home.