Excerpts
from Book:
Introduction
How
often we exist in the land of memory. Wistful and misty
is this place, yet how full of meaning it is! And these
memories can be sweet, nostalgic, sad or painful - or all
these at once.
Many
live a great portion of their lives in memory's landscape,
and some suppress memory, but few can escape it altogether.
It is a terrain we are thrust into, like it or not, at a
moment's notice by the power and mystery of the mind and
heart.
Our
protagonist, Benjamin Kraft, finds himself dealing, with
a recurring memory, a daydream of sorts, as so many of us
do. Yet something is different about his experience of this
dream on the day during which our story takes place.
Somehow
on this day, his memory comes more clearly into focus, and
he comes to find the true meaning of the dream. Benjamin
Kraft immerses himself in the memory and is given a great
gift: a grand epiphany for himself, for all dreamers, and
for the reader.
Enjoy!
The author
From
the story...
Benjamin
Kraft was dreaming, daydreaming at his desk. He was thirty
years old and sat very neatly at his workspace in the navy
blazer and tie he had carefully chosen before leaving home
this morning. Perched over a large pile of papers filled
with figures calling out to be checked, he knew what awaited
him. All of these had to be examined with a fine-tooth comb.
They had to be moved quickly to the "taken care of"
pile on his tidy desk. It was what successful, young accountants
did.
And
yet, somehow he could not bring himself to do it.
"What
is wrong with me this morning?" he thought and then
suddenly knew the answer.
It
was the song.
Whether
he liked it or not, he was in the land of memory, and it
was all because of that song. It was one of the costs of
being an accountant with the heart of a poet. Accountants
could ignore things like songs. Poets could not.
Benjamin
sighed, and thought of how this morning had begun.
On
the way to work, he had smoothly steered the very clean
and quiet automobile, just as he always did. All was calm,
just as he liked it. It was then that he had made the mistake
of turning on the radio and spinning the dial, which seemed
at the time an innocuous enough action. Nothing had appealed
to him, and then there it was. It was that song.
Which
song was it? What was so important about this particular
bit of music?
It
was nothing special, really. It should be no big deal, and
not too much of a distraction. It was, after all just a
little song from the past, from his childhood, to listen
to as he drove to work, right?
He
knew he should have turned the dial but he did not. He had
listened to it, and now he was paying the price.
It
was a lovely song, indeed, but it had always haunted him.
It was associated with a recurring memory or daydream, and
whenever he heard its melody or thought of it, he was pulled
into the dream, right into the land of memory. The song
and memory seemed to have some significance, something which
he could not quite put his finger on, and this vexed him.
The land of memory is that sort of place, fraught with elusive
meaning, compelling and enthralling all at once.
Benjamin
sat at his desk. He thought of the song, and its refrain
began in his mind. But this thought was interrupted by the
knock of his secretary who came in to hand him some more
figures to check. He smiled, took the paper, and tried to
look busy. He wasn't getting much done so far this morning,
but he didn't think she needed to know this!
His
secretary left the room, sufficiently fooled, he hoped.
He looked at the paper she had given him. It was still in
his hand and called out to be dealt with.
Benjamin
Kraft tried to concentrate, and then there it was again.
©2005,
Michael D. Purvis
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