From the Prologue
When I was a boy, my eyes were open to the magic that fills this world. I knew that if I jumped high enough, I could touch the sun, the moon, and the stars. They belonged to me and I loved them. I was a daydreamer and I exasperated my teachers. My report cards were laced with poor grades and expressions of faculty frustration. “Does not pay attention in class.” “Does not come to class prepared.” “Fails to use time wisely.” “This student,” one teacher wrote, “isn’t living up to his potential.”
 I’d like to say that I bravely defied their calls for conformity, but I was weak. A child’s imagination is no match for adults armed with good intentions. They convinced me that my sun was a blast furnace, my moon a cold, dead rock, and that the stars lay far beyond my reach. I was cleansed of my childish errors. The magic disappeared.
Ultimately, I embraced their faith in the majesty of science, and as converts often do, I became a fanatic. I earned a bachelor of science degree in biology, summa cum laude, and then a medical degree from Harvard. As a young physician, I believed that science could conquer all. Every corner of the human body, every crevice of the Earth, even the farthest reaches of the cosmos would yield their secrets to the scientific method, I was sure of this. The only real question was how long it would take.
This carefully constructed confidence is gone now. Shattered. Washed away. My wife Jude and I had anticipated productive but commonplace lives when we married. Instead, we were torn from this world and transported by forces beyond our understanding to and from a place where the magic I knew as a child still lives in people’s hearts. Our old life, the people we were, the person I was taught to be—all of that is gone. I can not say that I am sorry.
No scientist will ever be able to explain the journey we made. There is no rational argument that can be stretched to fit such extraordinary facts. We entered, lived in for a year, and learned to love a land called Kallimos. We trod its paths, worked its soil, breathed its air, and drank its water. The desire to return to Kallimos has burned in our hearts since the night we left its shores. We want what we cannot have.
How we were chosen to visit this secret land, we do not know. I now understand, though, why we were sent there. The gentle souls of Kallimos gave us what we needed most, instruction in the art of repairing the world. They opened our hearts, our minds and our eyes. They showed us how to live. Upon returning to this world, we continued to follow their example. Our successful but sterile careers as experts in the field of aging were abandoned and we threw ourselves into the far more fulfilling work of building a better world for our elders—and ourselves.
What about you, gentle reader? Have you ever hoped, ever dreamed, of something more than a job? Do days, weeks, and months of hard, and too often unrewarding, effort stretch out before you? Does your heart of hearts still cherish a dream of changing the world?
Perhaps better than anyone else, we can assure you that there is still magic in the world. We have lived in it, tasted it, and touched it. Even more importantly, it has touched us. We can show you where to find it and how to use it. But first, you must hear our story.
In the early years after our return from Kallimos, we were often reluctant to speak of what happened there. In particular, I feared that those who heard me would dismiss the story of Kallimos as a fraud. For some, our tale will always be more fiction than fact, a narrative easily dismissed as the product of an overheated imagination. I have great sympathy for these doubters. Ten years ago, I too would have rejected the reality of Kallimos. After all, very few grownups are willing to make time for, or take seriously, the value hidden within magic, adventure, and mystery.
Perhaps the most valuable of all the lessons we learned while living in Kallimos is that truth—that wisdom—is most easily recognized when it comes to us in the form of stories. Before our journey to and from Kallimos, Jude and I believed that the truth could be relied upon only when it was surrounded by facts and figures. We know better now. Still, only a fool would deny that numbers (and their bastard offspring—statistics) rule this world. They are valued, worshiped even, for what they can do for us; even as our addiction to them drains our hearts and souls. Despite this, no, because of this, we have decided to share the story of Kallimos with the world at large.
Wanting to tell a story and knowing how the tale is best told are two different things. The people of Kallimos make it seem so easy. I find it very hard. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve reworked our story. In early drafts, I thought it would be best if I told you about our old lives. I described the small towns where we grew up, and I introduced our parents and siblings. I even told of our first loves and heartbreaks. But all of the commonplace, perfectly normal events that made up our old lives did nothing to prepare us for what was to come. They do not explain what we have become. Ultimately, the only way to understand what Kallimos is and how it has changed our lives is to rely upon the journal that we kept during our time there.
Those who seek to understand that adventure need to know how Jude and I met and what led us to set sail together, bound for Montserrat.
|
