Balance of Water and Fire

Chapter 1

Marcus told his wife, "This is not working out. I know that's how you feel."

"That's not just how I feel, it's just an objective fact!" she shot back.

"If we just wait, though," returned Marcus.

"Like you waited for me? Remember that time on the plane?" she chided in response.

"That was different," he said, as he stood up, and started walking toward her.

"Nope, I'm good. I'm done! We're over, Marcus," she said, as she walked backwards to avoid him. She accidentally knocked a snow globe off of their kitchen counter, and it crashed onto the floor. It shattered and dented the hardwood.

Marcus looked at it. The hardwood looked a lot more damaged than he thought it would have been. His wife looked at it too, now. The hole started to spread, and get deeper. Then it fell through, and they were looking into their basement. Suddenly their problems seemed less important. The remains of the globe hit the concrete below, and it cracked, too. They looked at each other for a second, terror in both of their eyes, and then back to the nightmare in the basement. That hole, too, started to spread, and get deeper. It fell through, then, into blackness. They gazed as the chunks of concrete, glass, and wood fell, unimpeded, into nothingness. Now their problems were utterly meaningless.

Marcus woke up and looked around. Where was he? It was warm, he could tell from the heat on his face, but his body was cold. What was happening? He sat up and looked around, again. He understood, now, why he was cold but his face, and the surrounding air were warm: the morning dew had clung to his clothing, and hadn't evaporated yet, despite the sun being in the sky now.

He started to wake up fully, and come back to himself. He smiled, and stretched. It was weird to wake up in a park, but he was starting to be okay with it. He'd been collecting money by pan handling in the mornings and afternoons during rush hour. A lot of people just passed him by, or eyed him with disgust, but some would pity him, and toss some change, or a bill his way. Usually men, as most women seemed to be too disgusted by him to even slow down.

In the evenings he went to the grocery store and bought food, and sometimes a bottle of wine. Sometimes the clerks would treat him suspiciously, as if he was a thief, due to his appearance, but he usually didn't have a problem. Today, he felt like relaxing, so he rolled up his sleeping mat and secured it to his pack, and walked out into the park proper. There he found a bench, and sat down with the Chuang Tzu. He read for a little while, and then decided to get up and do some yoga.

He walked into the grass, and laid out his mat, and started doing Surya Namaskar. Then he sat in meditation for an hour, while morning joggers and dog walkers went by. Finally, he went back to the bench, where he'd left his book, and started reading again. He pulled out a bottle of water, and drank while he read. He got to the part where Chuang Tzu explains how to be useless, and why that's the best way to live:

Nan Po Tzu Chi, wandering in the mountains of

Shang, happened upon a large and unusual tree, so large, it could shelter a thousand chariots, and all would be covered.

Tzu Chi said, "What kind of a tree is this? It is certainly a most wondrous piece of wood!"

However, when

he looked up, it was clear that the smaller branches were

so twisted and rough that they could not be used to make rafters and boards; and looking down at the trunk, he could tell that it

was warped and gnarled, and would not be useful to construct coffins.

He licked one of its leaves and his mouth felt scratched and

sore. He sniffed it and it nearly drove him crazy, as if he had

been drunk for three days.

"This tree is certainly not good for anything at all!," said Tzu Chi.

"This is why it has grown so huge. Ah-ha! This is the sort of

uselessness that sages live by."

Marcus laughed as he read it. This part was one of the ones that always made him laugh when he read this book.

"What's so funny?"

Marcus jumped, and then looked over to see a beautiful brown woman sitting next to him. He was at a loss for words. He'd been staying in this park for some time now, and not a single person had spoken to him. He was confident that his disheveled appearance would keep anyone at bay. He had rumpled clothing that was a bit dirty, a thick beard, flecked with white, and his hair on his head was overgrown and crazy, and he assumed he probably even stank! So, now he couldn't understand why in the world a smooth skinned, naturally busty woman with big hips, dark, silky black hair and gentle, large brown eyes would be sitting next to him.

She arched her eyebrows, and looked at him, waiting for him to respond.

"I'm reading Chuang Tzu, and he's explaining how to be useless," he finally managed to say.

"Why would anyone want to be useless?" she asked, as she turned more toward him, crossed her legs, and leaned on her elbow against the bench. "Isn't the whole thing about the joy of being an oyster supposed to prove that trying to actually do something is better?"

Marcus laughed again. "I mean, Socrates certainly thought so, and I am inclined to agree, however, I can also get into all kinds of trouble in my life, and oysters cannot!"

She laughed now, and then said, "You've got a point, old man! Where did you learn yoga? Your form is perfect. I've seen you out here every morning this week, and I'm impressed!"

Marcus thought maybe he was still dreaming, but decided to treat her seriously, just in case he was wrong. "I learned from a lot of different people, and then just started doing what felt right, and the form kind of just fell into place. That's another thing Chuang Tzu says: "Fish seem not to be afraid of nets, they only seem to fear

pelicans. Get rid of your petty knowledge and allow great

wisdom to enlighten you. Get rid of goodness, and

goodness will spring up on its own."

She smiled brightly, and said, "So, letting yourself flow naturally is what makes your yoga perfect?" He just smiled warmly at her, crinkling up his eyes. She went on, "Would you come and teach my friends and I?"

Marcus was taken aback, but it was starting to make sense. She thought he was some kind of hippy professional yoga instructor, or a guru. He didn't see himself that way, but he certainly knew enough to teach, so he said, "Sure."

She sat up straight, and said, "What do you charge per hour?"

"I don't have any kind of set rate for explaining the Tao to people," he said, honestly.

"Well, do you live around here? What would make it worth your while to make the trip to my loft?" she inquired, not wanting to lose what seemed like a rare opportunity to be trained by a master.

"I'm currently traveling between homes, with as little as possible," he said, bobbling his head from side to side.

"Well, what if you stayed with my friends and I as payment for teaching us? Room and board, and you can use one of our old cell phones, if you need to." she asked.

"Deal." he said.

Chapter 2

In the car on the way to her loft, she said, "I'm Mila, and I have a loft downtown where I live with my four roommates, Lupe, Amrita, Marta, and Julieta."

"Nectar of the gods," said Marcus, almost to himself.

"Of course you'd know that," she said, looking over at him in the passenger seat, for a moment before returning her eyes to the road.

Marcus realized he was probably inadvertently reenforcing her idea that he was a guru by knowing the Hindi translation of her friend's name. "I'm Marcus, I look forward to meeting your loft mates." he said.

After a twenty minute drive they pulled onto a car lined street, and she led him down the sidewalk, and through a key code locked door. From there they took an elevator up, and finally entered the door to her loft. Immediately Marcus could see why she needed so many roommates to afford the place: it was enormous. There were several wide, open rooms that the women had converted into living spaces, there was a massive kitchen, and many smaller rooms. The main areas all had concrete floors that the women had laid colorful rugs over in places, and the walls were brick.

Marcus started to worry that he might stink horribly, and asked, "Do you have any incense? If you could burn it, that would be good." He hoped to mask his funk developed from living outside. Then he asked where the bathroom was. She pointed it out to him, and he went in and changed his clothes, and washed up in the sink.

When he came back out, she was burning sandalwood, and had pushed the couches aside, and placed five yoga mats out. Marcus looked around, and saw that there were now five women. Her roommates, he assumed. They were all sitting on the couches, waiting for him. He didn't want to seem like an amateur, or a hack, so he grabbed his mat from his pack, and unrolled it in front of all of their mats.

"Hello ladies. My name is Marcus. Mila has asked me to train you in the Tao, and Yoga." He waited, the women simply smiled at him. They were all voluptuous and stunning. "What are your names, please, and anything you'd like to share about your journey on the path?" Each woman told him her name, and that they'd learned a little yoga from the internet, or from the gym, and so on. As they spoke, he tried to figure out anything else he could by guessing. Lupe had light brown skin, and dark hair, and something about her told him she was probably from Spain. Amrita was a light brown Indian, with striking blue eyes that accented her skin and black hair, and a lilting, gentle Indian accent. Marta was from Colombia, judging by her accent, and Julieta looked to be from somewhere around the Mediterranean. He figured Mila, who had silky, darker skin, might be Indian, too.

He'd been to enough temples, and taken enough yoga classes that he was able to let them keep believing that he was a professional. He didn't see any harm in it, since he never lied, and there was no risk, since he did have enough expertise to properly instruct them. "Okay, let's start with Surya Namaskar." he said, and guided them through all of the poses several times. He corrected them here and there when they erred, and coaxed them to breathe deeply, and properly. Once they were finished with a final set, he gave them a talk on the Tao, and enlightenment, and the words of several ancient masters. Then, he sat down and crossed his legs, and said, "Okay, now let's finish with a deep meditation." He took a deep breath, and then said, "Do we need instruction, here, ladies?" A general shaking of heads went around the room, and all shut their eyes and meditated for an hour.

When Marcus opened his eyes, he noticed several of the women were nodding off, and slumping. He decided to have some fun with them, so he clapped loudly, and stood up. They all snapped their eyes open.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I was asleep!" said Amrita.

"Quite all right! Everyone nods off sometimes. Sometimes I ask myself if I had a really deep meditation, or if I was asleep, too!" he reassured her. "Okay, I think that's class dismissed for today!" he concluded, with a big smile.

The women all rolled up their mats, and went off about their business. Mila stayed behind, though, and he and she discussed his living arrangements. She informed him that there was an unused room he could use as his bedroom, and that he could otherwise do as he pleased. He was a little puzzled by her blind trust in him, considering he was a complete stranger that she met in the park. Though, he reminded himself, again, about the fact that she clearly thought he was a professional yoga instructor-guru type. Naïve as it was, there was a hole in most people's logic for assuming certain people were safe if they seemed mystical. Then again, he considered, he was safe, so maybe she just had a good sense for judging character.

Marcus got up after their discussion, and went to his new room. He tossed his pack in, and then went into the bathroom. He wasn't sure what this place had been before, but assumed it had been some kind of office building, or something, because the bathroom had stalls, and several showers. He got into one of them, and took his first hot shower in two weeks. Afterwards he stood in front of the mirror. He wanted to shave, but wondered if that would ruin his guru look. He did it anyway. The bushy beard was itching him, and it had to go. After shaving he styled his hair with a part along the side, and brushed it over to the opposite side, exposing his forehead. He dressed again, and went back out, into the living room. The women were all sitting, and talking.

He sat down in an armchair, and looked at them, smiling. Several of them blushed, and they all gave each other sidelong glances.

"Can I ask, how old are you?" asked Amrita. Mila elbowed her hard in the ribs, and Amrita winced.

"Old enough to know when to answer a question, or when to ask one in turn." he said, playfully.

"I'm sorry." replied Amrita, blushing, and rounding her shoulders.

Marcus leaned forward in his chair, and grinned. "Don't be, I'm not offended. How old do you think I am?"

"Well, I would have guessed in your fifties, but now that you've shaved and done your hair, and all the gray was in your beard, you look more like early to mid-thirties." she replied.

Marcus leaned back and laughed, holding his stomach. Then he said, "I wouldn't have gotten carded to buy wine earlier today, and now I might."

Amrita laughed, and the other women relaxed, and chuckled along with her, now.

"And I'm guessing you are each in your early thirties, am I right?" said Marcus.

"Wow! Yeah, you are! Good eye." said Amrita.

"So, what made you all want to learn the path?" asked Marcus.

Lupe said, "For me, it was all that I've gone through. I've tried to rely on so many things that, while they made sense at the time, turned out to be hollow, and pointless. At some point, I heard some quote that really resonated with me, and made me want to learn something bigger, something deeper than myself, and all I knew. It was something like, "Happiness comes from inside, don't try to look in the outside, it-" she stumbled, and stopped, and then added, "I'm not sure what the rest of it is."

Marcus chimed in, "Happiness comes from within, do not seek it without."

Lupe smiled brightly.

They discussed things further as a group, then.

At one point, Marcus thought it made sense to try to figure out why he was suddenly so easily living in a nice loft downtown with five gorgeous women, instead of the park. He was now totally given up on the idea that he was dreaming, so he wanted an answer. "Have you consulted with any other instructors before me?" he prodded, gently.

"We spoke with a few at different yoga and meditation centers, but they all seemed to be either faking it, only in it for the money, or acted like they were too busy to really give good instruction," began Mila. "That's why we came up with the idea of having someone come here to teach us. When you said you were traveling, I thought since we wanted an in house teacher anyway once a day, why not just have you stay here in lieu of payment." Marcus smiled and simply watched her. She misunderstood his gaze, and said, with an embarrassed look on her face, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry, we can pay you, too!"

"Not at all. I don't need much," said Marcus. "As Epicurus said: "The things you truly need are not many, and they are easy to come by, but the things you can imagine you need are never ending, and you will never be satisfied."

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking, and getting to know each other. The women turned out to be very sweet, and Marcus learned that each one had been through some kind of relationship trauma, and was now celibate. He informed them that was exactly where he was in life, too, though he used the word "abstaining" instead of "celibate". He didn't go into detail, as he didn't want to freak them out.

His marriage had collapsed almost as quickly as it began. He had met his wife on his first day of work, and they'd had sex in a broom closet. From there, they'd spent more and more time together, and fallen in love, rapidly. They got married in their second month together, but her jealousy had driven them apart, until it got so bad that she demanded a divorce by their third month together, and that was that. He had become so depressed, and couldn't bear to see her at work, that he'd quit his job, and wandered off.

That night, after all of the women had gone to bed, Marcus sat in the living room, with his feet up on the couch. He was simply enjoying civility. He was in a home, where it was warm, clean, and safe. He got himself a glass of water, and sat back down, and watched some tv. When he got sleepy, he went off to bed.

In the night he woke up thirsty. This was a routine for him when he had lived with his wife. He had never liked keeping food and drink in his bedroom, so when he woke up thirsty, he'd trek out to the living room and drink his water, before going back to bed, every night. He got up and stumbled down the hall to the living room, grabbed his water, and drank it all. It struck him that once the chlorine evaporated from unfiltered tap water it has a slightly different taste. He and his wife had always kept a high quality filter on their tap which removed the chlorine. He went back to bed, and knew nothing again until morning.

Chapter 3

In the morning Marcus got up and found the women had all gone to their jobs. He sat in the kitchen and ate a lazy breakfast of what he could find in the fridge and pantries. He came up with fried eggs, oatmeal, and yogurt with blueberries. It beat the hell out of the crap he had been eating in the park. That all had to be non-perishables like canned goods, crackers and such. It was so nice to eat real food again. He noticed that the oatmeal tasted so much better when cooked in a pot than it did when he had just added cold water to instant oatmeal from the grocery store. There was a distinct difference in how it puffed up, and became more goopy, in a very pleasant way.

He then went for a walk, and returned home afterwards for a shower. Lunch was a similar event of finding random foods around the house. He wondered who was going to be asking where their food went, so he tried to eat only things that were present in large volumes. He found some turkey, bread, and cheese, and made a pretty decent sandwich. This tasted different than in his homeless life, as well as different from his previous home. Everything here was different, and he loved it! He thought they must go to a deli for fresher turkey, and cheese, whereas he had always bought more processed and preserved lunch meat.

The women returned home in the afternoon from their various places of work, and he gave them another yoga lesson. They spent the evening together, again, laughing, talking about their lives, and generally enjoying each other's company. He got the feeling that him being celibate had really sold them on his status as a bona fide guru. They were very open with him. He didn't clarify that his abstinence was of the Taoist type, in that it was only abstaining from orgasming, and didn't necessarily preclude sex as their celibacy did. He figured that would have muddied the waters, and he didn't want sex to mess his life up, again, so he just let it be.

Over the next few weeks they all did their yoga class every day, and spent time together in the evenings. Marcus started to truly love each and every one of them. They all had wonderful personalities, and were bright, thoughtful women. They appreciated all that he had to teach them, and he enjoyed sharing his wisdom and time with them. He felt that they were falling in love with him, too. It was strange, though, considering it was purely platonic, and he'd never been in such a relationship with a woman, let alone five women, before. He pondered at how this was even happening. The strain of sexual tension didn't seem to be building up, though, and he was grateful for that.