Monkey Business: A story of Soulmates and Primates
A promise and their eternal love brings to light a dark secret.
Twenty-seven-year old Estelle Goldstein is sent on an assignment to investigate the devastation of AIDS in South Africa.
There she encounters Doctor Mabunda, a once-esteemed virologist, now an alcoholic harbouring the guilt of a dark past. Dismissing his slurred rants, Estelle returns home to her family and its offbeat dynamics: eccentric, animal liberationist, clairvoyant grandmother; pharmaceutical exec father. Rushed to hospital from her father’s mansion, Estelle finds herself suspended between life and death. From a series of foreboding dreams that act as a warning of impending danger, Estelle awakens to a new-found awareness. When the good-looking Afro-Aussie, Ryan Knight, enters her room, Estelle experiences an awakening of a different kind. Their fated encounter unravels over time to bring to light a dark secret.
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Suspense
A shadowy figure beckoned her. Trustingly she moved towards him. He handed her a sharp, shiny object protruding from a rolled newspaper. His eyes immediately changed. She had to get away. Walking fast, then faster and faster, she escaped into a long, dark tunnel. Loud, heavy footsteps followed, and breathing, becoming louder and louder. She ran. The tunnel led to a dark pool of water. A figure lay drowning, face down, as blood foamed out into a river.
Romance
With the surrender of daylight, the mysteries of the night would soon be revealed, bursting into uncensored pleasure beneath a blanket of stars.
Together in their loving embrace, they danced the gentle sway of the universe, and in the silent moment of their soul’s breath they were again united as one. It was as if they had always been one, only to rediscover it in their moments of love. Finally they’d come to understand how their soul’s true ecstasy was in constant renewal of their own self-discovery in each other’s eyes.
Estelle drew a breath and closed her eyes to the movie reel still playing in her mind. She was both her own private audience and participant as she returned to the moments she’d never leave, the tangible images so real, her heart pierced with the pleasure and pain of knowing too much tenderness and the sweet agony of longing for more. She was held captive by two sovereign masters—the master of loving and the master of longing—so very deeply they each infused her every sense as they swam through her veins.
Spirituality
With all lights out, Estelle lay awake contemplating her life. She felt solid, grounded, present, and eager to re-integrate more fully with normality. It seemed as if all her perceptions, choices and actions thus far had been the artistry of her inner self expressed on a blank canvas. Her internal expressions reflected back to her as external manifestations. She felt both powerful and fragile in her newfound awareness of how she could never escape herself. The realisation hit her like a thunderbolt. She, alone, was fully responsible for herself. Estelle was able to finally make sense of karma.
Paradoxically she also conceded that she was being governed by some greater destiny over which she had little control. Feeling her vulnerability, she resolved to be more fully responsible for those elements she could control: and what she could control were both attitudes and choices; her attitudes being the springboard of the sum total of her choices.
