Helen began to laugh. "That's a tough one to break, Peter, isn't it?" She continued gently. "It is the toughest think that I have encountered, to get us to accept our universal humanity. We recognize the principle of that universality that supports our unity in being. We even say we understand it, and we do understand it. We even have proof of it, as your dreams illustrate, and still we deny ourselves. We have lived like that for a very long time, Peter."

      "The truth is," I replied to her, and the laughter faded then, "you are as much a star in the heavens of our humanity, as a woman, than my wife is as a woman, or any other woman I have ever met. At this higher level where we are all one, as we truly are. We reflect and share a common humanity. As you say, there is no difference."

       "I never said there is no difference," Helen replied immediately. "You said this. But I can tell you this; we are both more profoundly and deeply married to each other, you and I, as human beings, than the marriage division that you put so much emphasis on, isolates us. Our marriage as human beings is rooted in truth. It is a part of the reality of our being. What isolates us, in comparison, is artificial."

      I was stunned. I didn't know what to reply. I had said almost the same thing to Erica earlier, but that had been theoretically spoken. Helen suggested that I be honest now and acknowledge the truth that I had long recognized to be true. That became a challenge I hadn't expected or had prepared myself for.

      "I suppose you are right," I said in reply. "We are all married to each other as human beings by the countless wonders that we share as members of the human family, that we find reflected in our common humanity. I suppose you are right also that this natural marriage goes deeper and is more profound than anything we have come up with to artificially symbolize the principle that unites us. I suppose the truth is, that we are brothers and sisters then, of the family of man, and should treat each other that way."

      I began to laugh as I said this. It seemed silly how badly we respond to what is obviously true. "Isn't it silly," I said to her, "that we find it so hard to accept what is so evidently anchored in truth? Isn't is silly that we are more inclined to see each other as enemies and treat each other that way, and to love each other for what we all share? Isn't it silly of us that we do all of this in the name of some superimposed civil arrangement that we have invented to make our life richer, but which denies the very reality that it aims to build on? Indeed, why should we deny the riches of our humanity that unite us, for something artificial? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the artificial be elevated by our commitment to embrace ever more of the wondrous reality by which we are all united as human beings?"

      Helen didn't respond with laughter. Her face did light up though, with something brighter than a smile. "I can also tell you this," she said in reply, "there are very few people who stood at this spot where you stand right now, who have made this kind of profound statement and presented it so clearly. This means that my invitation still stands, for you to be truthful with yourself, and with me, and the whole of humanity, and to acknowledge what you know to be true." As she said this, she pulled the sheets back on the side of the bed where I stood.

      My response this time was immediate, swift, and what came out of it did indeed make the air sparkle, even in the dark.



      "You came to the pub because there was something incomplete in your experience of love," she said a whole while later and began smile. "Let me fulfill what is needed."

      "You already have," I relied.

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Stories about  Love from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche