explorer

last updated: 27 March 2025

In the shower, Alice leaned her head against the blue tiles and let the warm water run down her back. The warmth was good, but her mind didn’t want to relax or empty, let alone focus. It was constantly flitting back and forth between Jack and the future of the project.
For the second morning now, Jack hadn’t been at the workout, and Larissa’s words kept haunting Alice: How can you be his friend and not know that he is totally derailed? While Tom’s voice reiterated: We set a deadline. We have a deadline. A deadline is a deadline.
Yesterday, Alice asked Jazz whether she had Jack’s new phone number.
‘Yes,’ Jazz replied. ‘But I can’t give it to you.’
‘He said that?’
‘He said not to give it to anyone.’
Not to anyone.
That meant— Alice grimaced. It could mean anything. There was no reason why it should have anything to do with her. And why would it? Jack probably hadn’t given her a single thought over the last weeks, months— He—
Alice turned off the water and ran her and through her short hair.
She should talk to Jack, find out— It was the only way to give her mind some rest, to focus on the things she needed to focus on. She should talk to him. Maybe.
Some twelve minutes later, Alice joined Leo in the kitchen.
She smiled a little. It smelled of coffee, toast and oranges.
‘Today, the sex talk meetings begin,’ Leo said, when Alice sat down at the kitchen counter. ‘That will keep you busy from ten to two. Then you have an hour before the conference meeting from three to seven. And Fran’s birthday, tonight.’
Alice shook her head, adding orange and apple pieces to her porridge plus a layer of cinnamon. ‘I can’t believe I let Fran talk me into the conference meeting — and into four days of sex talk meetings.’
‘I think Fran’s right,’ Leo said, putting a slice of tofu onto his tomato toast. ‘It’s good for everyone to focus on something positive. With the plans for the town completed, finally giving the sex talk a boost makes people at least giggle.’
Alice chuckled and took a spoonful of porridge. Mhm. So simple, so delicious.
Yesterday, Alice had an open office day. When she arrived, Fran was already waiting and with her was an Asian woman: Ice Nantakarn.
Ice Nantakarn was a new member of the Health & Care Team, a psychologist from Chalok Baan Khao on Ko Tao in Thailand. When Ice read about the sanctuary for survivors of sexual violence, in the November edition of ripples news, she contacted the project.
A few days later, Fran called Ice back, and they talked for hours about trafficking, sex tourism, wife tourism, child marriages, domestic violence, pornography, rape, forced abortions, clitoris mutilation, circumcision, child abuse, forced pregnancies, humiliations of men and women, and more.
Fran said that she and Ice knew within minutes that they wanted to work together.
Ice was a survivor of being forced to lure tourists, preferable old, fat, white men, into relationships which would see the foreigner pay considerable sums to her family in return for Ice becoming the foreigner’s plaything, housekeeper and guide. As guide Ice would arrange such things as accommodations, or translate when the foreigner wanted to do some clever business. As a consequence of her experiences, Ice became a voice for the dignity and independence of women in her country. She hoped that the work of the sanctuary could serve as a blueprint for sanctuaries worldwide, and that their work would eventually reduce the damage humans do to each other — by ensuring that those who suffered abuse could heal and would not enter or remain in an intergenerational cycle of exploitation and abuse.
Ice was a tall woman who braided her long dark hair and who had a sternness which easily matched Jazz’s.
The way Ice cared about survivors revealed that her actions weren’t motivated by kindness or by wanting to do some good. Her actions were motivated by a need to find solutions that might put an end to the devastations and disrespect people inflict upon each other.
‘None of this makes sense,’ Ice said, yesterday.
And that is interesting, Alice thought again this morning. Men are often characterised as rational. But there is nothing rational about raping, abusing, objectifying, dominating, patronising, controlling or oppressing. There is no benefit in destroying another human being or holding down their potentials. In fact mankind has stripped itself of progress, strength and prosperity by subduing their fellow humans. The rational approach is to nurture healthy relationships, healthy conduct and to reap the fruits of a multitude of amazing minds and skills. The rational approach is to rethink the irrational narratives of power and dominance, of winning and controlling, of conquering and oppressing. The rational approach is to find out what makes a human so deranged that they abuse, rape, patronise, control or exploit. And no, the devil doesn’t turn humans into abusers nor does human nature. These narratives are just excuses. Normalising such behaviours plays a role.
Ice said: ‘I sometimes wonder whether people simply don’t know what is possible.’
And Fran returned: ‘Then we need to demonstrate the benefits of healthy and empowered humans.’
And, Alice thought, we need to understand why humans embraced and suffered these narratives in the first place.
Alice added more cinnamon to her porridge and unexpectedly chuckled. Yesterday, out of the blue and in the middle of a sea of gloomy thoughts, Fran said: ‘I know what we need.’
‘A reboot of human narratives?’ Ice suggested.
‘A site for our town so we can build the sanctuary?’ Alice said.
Fran smiled. ‘That too. But right now we need to work on something that will happen, give ourselves something to look forward to, grant ourselves a win.’
Fran didn’t usually talk like an animator, but—
‘—How? What?’ Alice asked doubtfully.
‘Let’s focus on the next Easy Town conference.’
‘But that’s in May.’
‘It will do us good.’
Alice finished her porridge and asked Leo: ‘Do you think Fran has changed? I mean when I first met her, she was simply Tom’s wife and a bit reserved. But now Tom talks about the deadline while Fran beats the drums to keep us going as if she was certain that we will still be here in May for the conference.’
Leo shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s because her Research Team have the best arguments for the town, and she knows it. Maybe it’s even a bit of a competition between her and Tom.’
‘Hm.’
Leo nudged Alice. ‘Cheer up. Going by the team’s reactions, everyone is glad to have something to do apart from searching for gaps in the town plans.’
‘True,’ Alice said. ‘Can I take a look at the list of participants for the sex talk?’
Leo passed her a sheet of paper. ‘All places are taken now—’
‘—Leo, if you want to come …’
‘No, I couldn’t dedicate myself. Besides, forty-four people is already a lot. Fran and Ice will open today’s big meeting. In the following two days, meetings will be in smaller groups on different subjects, sometimes in gender-specific groups, sometimes in issue-specific groups, and there is room for spontaneous groups to tackle subjects that come up during the discussions. On Friday, it’s a big group meeting again and—’
—Jack! Jack is on the list.
Alice massaged her forehead. So Jack will be at the sex talk meeting. Not exactly an awkward-free zone, but at least I’ll get a chance to talk to him or say hello or see how he is.
‘Alice?’
‘Uh?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Oh, yes, yes. I think so. What else is on the plan?’
Leo looked a little worried. ‘Er, tomorrow afternoon is the team leader meeting, and on Thursday the Hub executives meeting. We can go over the details tonight before you go to Fran’s birthday party.’
‘Can’t. I promised to meet Heather and Glen at seven, but we could have lunch, tomorrow, between sex talk meeting and team leader meeting.’
‘Or I could drive with you to Fran’s party.’
‘Where is it again?’
‘Covent Garden. I wouldn’t mind. It’d be a good opportunity for me to visit a friend I haven’t seen in a while.’

‘Dead,’ Megan shouted against the storm and rose to her feet.
Anthony nodded as another gust of wind unbalanced him, just as some people came running towards them.
Megan saw them, too, and shouted furiously: ‘STAY AWAY! YOU FOOLS! The storm is too strong. More trees could fall. GET BACK! Get everyone to the Jellybridge House! I don’t care where they are or what they do, I want to see everyone in the hall. ASAP! And you, Seth, give us a hand with the tree. The rest of you GO! RUN!’
They did. Their bodies fighting against the storm.
Carefully, Megan, Anthony and Seth lifted the tree from the corpse and shifted it to the side.
With tears and anger in her eyes, Megan raised the dead body. As she steadied herself, Anthony and Seth leaned against her back to protect her from the storm.
‘Are you ready?’ Anthony asked.
‘Yes. Push. We need to get out of here.’
Anthony and Seth pushed Megan forward, always careful to react to the changing intensity of the storm, always one arm ready to get hold of the corpse should Megan lose her grip.
There was a moment’s relief when they left the forest, both in their minds and in the storm. But they kept hurrying on. When they reached Jellybridge House, Jordi and Zaida held the heavy entrance door open for them. In the hall, Megan put the corpse on one of the twenty desks the project used. Gregory was ready with a blanket.
The members of the town project and some of the Jellybridge staff had assembled in the hall, faces white with shock, some tears running.
Megan climbed on the table next to the covered corpse. ‘For everyone who doesn’t know me, yet, I am Megan Rhys, head of the Agriculture Team. It seems to me that I am one of the few people who grew up on a farm, and who actually knows something about coexisting with nature. Did you enjoy fantasising about building a beautiful green world where everything is all right?’ Megan shook her head in anger. ‘I should have had this talk with you months ago. Nature isn’t something that cares about you or your wishes. It just is. And when nature decides to lash the land with gusts of winds that knock you to the ground, then you run, you hide, you stay out of nature’s way, out of nature’s forces. We humans have become so bleeding superior that we think nothing can harm us. We have lost every sense of how fragile we are, and that yes, bad things happen to us, not just to others. Building, creating with nature in mind also means to know who is the stronger. It means to listen to the wind, to the creaking of the trees. It means to grasp what is happening, and where to find cover. Because unlike our fantasies, we are terribly vulnerable, and nature doesn’t spare us. We have to take care of our safety ourselves.’ Megan paused and looked at the covered corpse. ‘He did not have to die.’
Over the next two hours, Megan, Anthony, head of Building Site Security, and Gregory, the gamekeeper, drilled everyone present on how to read a storm, where to find cover, when to run, what to do if injured and more.

© Charlie Alice Raya, book 3/3, shaping, where do we go from here & decisions