The Dark Side of Enlightenment

In this eclectic collection of twelve stories Bruce E. Weber brings together humility and arrogance, spirituality and aggression, innocence and harsh lessons to illuminate the human experience, that the lighter and darker sides seldom exist in a vacuum and that serendipity and irony often play major roles in the ever-evolving landscape of human life and human interactions. A hardened Brooklyn gentleman who evokes thoughts of Jack Nicholson finds compassion and love in a McDonald’s in Nogales, Arizona; an adventurer recently returned and relaxing from an extended backpacking trip along a picturesque river witnesses an amazing act of will; a harried businessman learns peace and the value of being still from a master and repays him with mobility; a detective inadvertently solves a decades-old mystery that rocked a city; a middle-aged lothario, offered a chance to avoid embarrassing himself with a much younger woman, takes it and in so doing impresses her more than he thought possible; a young man learns humility and that some debts simply can’t be repaid; a burglary victim becomes friends with the cross-dressing burglar; a well-meaning would-be rebel strikes a blow against the gray-suits only to realize the folly of his attempt at heroism; a middle-aged man, finally able to live his dream on a 40-foot ocean-going boat discovers it’s been hauled away but receives a much greater reward for his anguish; a veteran police officer learns the hard way that perhaps he should be in another line of work, even as his rookie learns he’s perfect for the job; a felon who finds enlightenment seeks forgiveness for past sins and learns he isn’t quite as enlightened as he thought; and a young boy learns the true meaning of loyalty, responsibility, and forgiveness.