Enlightenment is a fictitious story about a battered woman who finds enlightenment during bouts of unconsciousness. She goes to a special world to heal her wounds. Lets read Zoie’s story.

I quietly stand and await the moment of impact. The moment his fist will connect with my face. I see it coming this time and I know it’s going to be bad. All I can do is brace myself. I set my jaw and plant my feet and await my fate. And then it happens…


Wham!


Before I lose consciousness, I hear my back teeth disconnect from their sockets; the warm, salty taste of blood feels my mouth. The pain is explosive and my knees weaken and then…blackness.

I see her lying in a field and I carefully approach her. She sleeps.

She is dressed in all white. A sarong covers her breasts. It is tied in the back and the extra fabric extends down to her thighs. Her shoulders, arms and stomach are exposed and I am in awe at the smoothness of her skin. The goddess. She is truly beautiful. She wears a long white skirt and her hair is wrapped with white fabric. Her caramel skin is flawless from head to toe. Her feet, waist and wrists are adorned with vines of small white flowers. The leaves from the vines are the deepest color of green I have ever seen. As I look at her face, I am overwhelmed by her beauty. She has to be the physical manifestation of love. She looks to be about 25 years of age but I know that she is much older. I inhale and take her in. I can smell her, she smells of rain. And I can feel the coolness of her. I exhale. I wonder what she dreams of. I myself never dream. My nightmares are my reality. I lower my head in shame as I drop to my knees. I reach out to touch her. I hesitate. I fear the consequences without permission. I bend down to whisper into her ear, “May I enter?” Without a moment of hesitation, she turns and opens her eyes. I fear her but I can not deny my need for her. Lightening flashes and I feel myself being pulled from this plane of existence. All I can ever remember are her eyes. In her eyes, I see a thousand galaxies being born. I see super novas, universes and stars that will forever remain unnamed. Her eyes shimmer like fish scales in water and I lose existence. I let myself be taken and then…blackness.

I open my eyes and at once the rest of my senses are overwhelmed with a need for detection. I smell sweetness, so strong that I can almost taste it on my tongue. I sit up and realize I had been lying in a rolling field of grass and honeysuckles. God, they’re everywhere. I pull a seedling from one of the pedals and I touch it to my tongue. I am immediately reminded of my childhood, back when things were still good. I lower the seedling to my lap as I look to the west I can see and hear a massive waterfall spew water down a cliff into a small river.

That is where I will meet him…my confidant, my strength, my hero.

I stand to my feet. The earth is still warm where I… she had been sleeping. I close my eyes and dig my bare feet into the earth. I smile and immediately open my eyes! I scream as if a child would, “I could stay here forever!” But of course he never lets me.

I spring into a leap toward the water fall. I am running full stride and I can’t wait to feel the cold wetness from the river on my body. I’m elated. As I run, I look to what I can only call the sky and notice that as always there are two suns here. The first rises in the west and sets in the south. It looks just as our sun does. But the other sun, defies all explanation. Its light is darkness. It’s more massive than the other sun and it rises in the east and sets in the north. Each day here there is an eclipse of these suns as they cross each other in the sky.

The sky, as I call it for lack of a better word, isn’t really a sky at all but a reflection of some sort. Not a reflection of the ground, no, world, on which I stand but a reflection from some unknown reality. As I look up into this place and I see what appears to be a never-ending sea of water and just above this I can see clouds and above the clouds is where the two suns are beaming their truths down deep past the reality above me to the reality below where I stand. Parallel worlds separated by two fires. I begin to get dizzy and I immediately look away. From the first moment I set foot in this place, I knew immediately that I was no longer on earth, as a matter of fact, no longer in our solar system or even our galaxy!

Where I am now? I have no idea. I have asked him several times to tell me where I am and he always says, “You are where you are.” I always flood him with questions for clarity, “This planet must be half of another and the suns rotate through these planets?” “Or maybe the planet is at a tilt and one of the suns rotates around this planet?” “And maybe this planet rotates around another sun?” “But this place could be a sun?” I stop thinking, it doesn’t make much sense to me but I don’t think I was meant to understand the answers now.

As I approach the waterfall I begin to feel the cool, spray of water misting my face. The sound of the waterfall is more audible and I increase my stride. And as expected…I see him.

He is as he always is; bare chest and his only article of clothing are loose fitted white trousers that tie at the waist. The god. He is as flawless as she except for a scar that runs across his chest, from under arm to groin. I always wonder, how does one live through a wound of that magnitude? As she, he is also beautiful. He appears to be about 40 years of age, but as with her I know he is much older. He is kneeling down at the bank of the river and his long locks are touching the ground. A few have even fallen into the river. He’s strong and muscular and as he moves his hands through the water, I see his muscles tense and relax in his back. A look into his eyes is terrifying and calming all at once and still he always requires me to meet his gaze directly.

As I approach, he stands to his feet and turns around. I feel weak and immediately begin to tremble. I close my eyes and listen for his approach. He reaches me and I inhale. I smell him. He smells of earth…his essence is intoxicating and the smell is so strong I can almost feel the warmth of earth and him. He reaches me and touches my face gently and my knees go weak. I feel myself begin to drop but he grabs me around the waist and brings me close.

“You again?” I hear him ask.

“Open your eyes”. he gently commands.

I look into his eyes, and…Fire! Love! Thunder! The roar of a thousand oceans! A lion! A whisper, “You enter in darkness, I find you in light.” My body erupts with goose bumps. I tremble and he smiles as he holds me tight. I lay my head against his chest and I can hear his heart beat. Strength! Courage! Knowledge! Rebirth! Death! A whisper, “I am that I am”. I wrap my arms around him and he squeezes me tighter. My knees go weak again and I feel myself begin to drop again but this time he picks me up and carries me. I look up at him and he looks ahead. He is walking toward the river. I close my eyes and rest my head once again on his chest to hear his heart beat and let myself be carried.

He makes me feel like a child. I feel his power and gentleness at the same time. He is also a physical manifestation of love. I feel secure with him. He gives me strength in darkness that I can never have in light.

I feel him bending down and I open my eyes to look into his eyes. Calm. As he bends down his long locks, which reach to the backs of his knees, touch my arms as he lies me down on the bank of the river. There is concern in his eyes and I sit up slightly and rest on my elbows. I place one of my feet into the river and the coldness of the water is lovely. I smile. I’ll stay a little longer this time.

He sits Indian style next to me and speaks.

“Zoie, I want you to hear me. This will be your last visit here.” I begin to speak but he speaks to me with out words. Silence.

“You are at a cross roads and tonight your fate will be decided. You will either live or die. There will no longer be an in between. You have a higher purpose and its not being fulfilled because you fear action. He’s gone now. He waits for you to awaken. When he returns, if you stay, he will kill you as sure as there is a tomorrow. We have allowed your visitations because of your purpose. But tonight it must end, tonight is your destiny. You will live or you will die. The choice is yours.”

He reaches for me to sit up and I let myself be guided up from my elbows. We sit on the banks of the river looking into each others eyes. I hold my head down so that I may speak.

“I fear him. Everything that I am he has taken from me. The only joy I have is here. If I die will I live here? Why can’t I just stay here? Why…”

I feel him touch my chin and he gently lifts my head. My eyes are closed. He moves his hand up to my cheek and I know what he wants. I open my eyes.

“Zoie.” He removes his hand from my cheek and places it on my bare stomach. When he touches me there I feel a rush of heat and goose bumps cover my flesh. “A life grows here now. He is to be the father of nations. He is the beginning to and end. If you lose your life tonight, he loses his. You will go back to that from which you are from and you will be no more. You can not exist here. You occupy a space in time on this plane that is only temporary. You come here because you are lost. You exist here between worlds. You and your sons life are of the utmost important in your world. You don’t have long, a few moments in fact, before it’s all over. For better or worse, the choice rests with you Zoie.”

“I hear you but I can’t. I have no power…”

He rises to his feet so fast it appears he is moving in slow motion, but I know he is moving at the speed of light. Without touching me I feel myself be lifted to mines with the same voracity. His eyes flash and his voice roars “You must!”

I feel myself begin to separate from her, from here. What’s happening? I’m not ready to return. A whisper from a female voice, “Aaron”. Another whisper, from him, “Adaya, my love”. My body jerks and I am one with her again. I don’t have time to think. I find myself looking into his eyes and he reaches for me to bring me closer. I attempt to think but everything is happening so fast. What just happened? He speaks to me again.

“Zoie. You are stronger than you think. Your universe knows it but when will you? Why do you allow this monster to beat the life from your soul? Why do you accept nothingness when you are everything? You must be strong. You will be strong for yourself and for your son. He needs your strength now.”

He brings me even closer to him and he begins to penetrate my mind. I feel his hands at the small of my back and I feel his strength and I take it into myself. He’s as old as existence itself. He is the shepherd of the lost. And I begin to realize why I could never come back here. If I die its obvious why I won’t return but if I live through this night, I will no longer be lost. If I live tonight, I would have finally found the courage that has existed within. The courage that I allowed that monster to deny myself for 20 years. I don’t even know what freedom feels like.

He gently interrupts my thoughts and says “Freedom isn’t a feeling Zoie. It’s a choice.”

Immediately I realize, this is my moment of enlightenment and I feel ashamed for having been so weak. I have universes that realize my strength and courage and I don’t. How does that happen? I think about my unborn son and touch my stomach. A rush of warmth fills my body and I smile. A father of nations he says. My son…a father of nations. That bastard wants to take our lives tonight. How would I have known that tonight I’d die if I didn’t come here in my bouts of unconsciousness? Life is such a fragile thing. Not only have I allowed it to be abused but I have also abused it by allowing my souls imprisonment. I’ll never take another moment for granted. I chose life but still I doubt my strength. I want to live though. We must live…we have to.

“Zoie. You must go. But before you do, we have a gift for you. The gift that you have been quietly asking for with each visit here. Tonight we will give it to you. That and so much more. Will you accept?”

I whisper softly. “Yes”. I close my eyes to receive what I have so longed for. A kiss, just a kiss. Love in the physical.

He leans down to kiss me and I know I’ll never be the same when he does. I close my eyes a split second before his lips touch mine and I lose all sense of time and existence. My body quivers and I feel his hands once again at the small of my back. My skin begins to break out in goose bumps and I tense at his touch. He begins to pull away and I pull him closer…no she pulls him closer. I want this, no I need this. I let this event consume me. I don’t think. I am only this moment. We no longer exist as we are. He pulls me closer and then…light. We are surrounded in a circle of blue fire. Our circle gyrates and then shoots out in all four corners of this world out into the heavens and beyond. I have no idea what is happening but I know that it must.

His lips touch mines and an explosion of some sort begins to destroy parts of me. I attempt to remember the thoughts before they are lost forever. The time he hit me so hard in my chest that he broke my chest plate and I…erased. He kicked our new born kitten against the wall and I have to…erased. He rapes me for not…erased. An old guy friend of mind shakes my hand at a party and when I get home he beats me beyond recognition and my own…erased. I begin to feel a burden lifted from my shoulders. I feel liberated. But before that feeling completely consumes me, the memories are being replaced. And all I see and feel is his anger, deceitfulness, evilness and hate and I want to tear him apart!

I release myself from his embrace and I scream, a scream I have never heard from me myself. It’s animalistic. My battle cry. A mother’s cry. The warrior reborn. I grab for him and he pulls me close and as I do so I feel myself separate from this existence for the last time. I separate from him, from her, and I am one with myself again. As I turn to leave, I see them still embraced in a kiss. The god and goddess embraced in the love of blue fire. I smile and take a moment to admire the love they share. But I must go, I have one last battle to fight and I pray I live, we live through the night.

I awaken to an excruciating pain and I scream! And tears of agony escape my eyes. I attempt to rise to my feet and the pain intensifies. This motherfucker! I want to wait until he gets back to kill his ass but I know if I do its over for me…for us. I find some strength and I rise completely to my feet with the help of the kitchen counter. I rush to the bedroom to get the car keys. I look on the dresser where I’d last left them. Gone! Damn! A whisper, “Zoie you must hurry”. I limp back down to the hallway and when I do so I catch a reflection of myself in the mirror and I stop. I take a step backward to look at myself and I do not know the person that looks back.


Her jaw has swollen and a goose egg has formed. She raises her hand to touch the growth and pain shoots down my entire body. I feel my teeth resting under my tongue and she reaches into her mouth and takes them out, one by one, a total of 3, and puts them into my pocket. This motherfucker! I scream and cry at the same time. I bust out the hallway mirror with the side of my fist.


Motherfucker! I grab my bag from the hallway table and I head for the door, I open the door but before I do I have to do some damage. I slam the door back and I limp quickly to the living room and I pick up the fire poker and I bust out the glass of that big ass TV.


“Fuck high def!”


“The shit looks just like a regular TV you dumb motherfucker!”


I hit that idiot box over and over and blue sparks fly and I laugh through my pain and a fresh spray of blood feels my mouth. I spit out the blood on the carpet and throw down the fire poker.


“Fix that!!” I scream, laugh and cry hysterically. More blood gushes from my mouth and falls down to the carpet. I use my shirt to wipe the blood from my mouth as to not leave a trail and…


That moment of anger may have just saved my life. I hear the rocks and dirt crunch underneath the tires of a car approaching the house. I pick up my bag from the floor and fly towards the backdoor. I close the door behind me and I run towards the woods. I am immediately engulfed by darkness and the woods and I am NOT afraid. I stand for a while and just cry. I did it! Zoie you did it!


I hear an all too familiar yell, “BITCH, if you still in this house youre DEAAAAAD!”


“Sorry you bastard. I’m dead but I’m definitely not in that house!”. I take out my cell phone and its fully charged with all five bars. Thank God! I navigate to the D’s. And I select the entry for “Dry Cleaner’s”. The phone rings and I hear a woman say, “Woman’s Outreach Center. How may I help you?” I smile. Everything is going to be alright. I walk deeper into the forest and look to the heavens and whisper, Thank you. I begin to tell the woman my story of pain and fear and finally of redemption and she listens.