Ushi smiled with a sense of satisfaction, and continued without a comment.

      "Failing this," she said, "you might want to say that Heather can't stay in the house, because there might be sexual intimacies that would surely result, if they hadn't happened already. But, Peter, if you brought this argument up, playing the role of your wife, I would ask you if you were referring to the kind of sexual intimacies that we have with each other twice a week, like most adult human beings. I would ask you if you suggest that it is possible for one human being to be a lesser human being, of lesser value, less worthy of affection, and less worthy of love, than another human being. I would ask you, why love, and whatever intimacies may be a part of it, should apply profoundly, and richly, in an overflowing manner to one human being, and not at all to another. I can't think of an excuse that an honest human being could bring up to counter that kind of argument. The bottom line is, your wife wouldn't have been able to counter this argument either, against Heather coming into your house. This option simply wouldn't have been available."

      I nodded again. All that I could do is nod. She was right. How could any honest human being argue with that? "The tragedy of the world is that we have played those games of divide and isolate, for so long that we don't know anymore how not to play them," I said. "Being divided and isolated has become our state of civilization, as we call it. Is it any wonder then that we created a culture in which people steal from one another in this multiply divided world, and make war to steal some more? If we weren't facing the return of the Ice Age, I would say that we could live with that tragedy and go on suffering the consequences. But this option is no longer open, is it. That's no longer possible, is it? It's now a crime against the future, and a crime against humanity. That's what we called this in Russia. The division and isolation has to stop. But that's easier said than done, Ushi, isn't it?"

      "Of course you might say that Heather can't stay in the house for reasons of adultery," said Ushi, "since having sexual relationships with any other person in the world, except one's spouse, is immoral, illegal, rotten, filthy, swinish, ugly, a terrible disgrace even, because it is ugly stuff! If you were to say that," Ushi grinned, "I would ask you, why it is that you like to engage in sexual intimacies yourself, twice a week or whatever the case may be, if it is such an ugly thing that it must be kept hidden behind closed doors, and be contained within the smallest possible sphere within the family. I would ask, if this were to be so, why would anyone want to risk such 'filth' spoiling their marriage, by being sexually active. Why not keep sex far outside of it? Why not keep it as far away from the home as possible? But all people embrace it, from kings to beggars? So, what's the problem with sex? Can you answer that?

      "Of course you may answer me," Ushi continued, "that sex is only ugly with another person, who isn't specifically licensed to engage in procreation. In this case, I would ask why we have sex so regularly, and with the kind of passion that is associated with it, if one needs sex only twice in a person's lifetime, to procreate the species. Sylvia may argue against that, that the intimacy of sex in a relationship between only two people, makes it so special that it draws people closer together. In this case I would ask you, why anyone would want to impose restrictive barriers at all, which encumber an element of our humanity that draws people more powerfully together than any other human aspect. Why would we want to turn sex, which naturally unites people, into an instrument for division that isolates the whole society from one-another? Does that make sense? It doesn't make sense to me. Neither would it make sense to Sylvia.

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