Gary Bolick

A Walking Shadow Gary Bolick

JONAS BELLIGNHAM AYRE is always looking out of his own eyes, as though seated in the last row of a movie theatre. On the screen? The outside world and the part he plays in interacting with it. Uprooted from his native South, Jonas finds himself working in Las Vegas. A college friend introduces him to his father who owns a real estate business. J. B. quickly learns the business and opens us his own clothing manufacturing plant. Great success and all its trappings soon follow.

J. B.'s success and life are short-circuited when he is involved in a psychologically horrific traffic accident. Physically untouched, but suffering from a psychological split, Jonas sells the company, divorces his wife and moves to the desert. There his shadow splits off of him, becoming a foil for his every thought and action; and an obnoxious foil, at that.

In the desert J. B. begins to translate the text of an eighth century alchemist, Jabir. The ancient text becomes a mirror held up to his own life. His time in the desert becomes an actual experiment. In Las Vegas, where he retreats from the summer heat, he sees a psychologist attempting to resolve the detachment he feels from the world.

One night, late, back in the desert, a burlap sack is thrown from a passing train. Untying it, Jonas finds a young, nearly dead, Mexican woman, Eva.

In nursing Eva back to health, reuniting her with her daughter, J. B. finds a measure of peace and redemption.