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An Absent Mind
by Eric Rill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A riveting new
novel from Eric Rill, author of Pinnacle of Deceit and The Innocent Traitor, is
about a race against time. The ticking time bomb is Saul Reimer’s sanity. His
Alzheimer’s is going to be the catalyst that will either bring his family
together or tear it apart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saul:
My Last Place on Earth
It’s all
unraveling.
Last night, I
found myself somewhere on Monkland Avenue. I had no idea how I got there. I
looked in a store window and saw my reflection. It took me a bit to figure it
all out—like that the person in the window was a man, and that the man was me.
I didn’t know what
to do. I glanced down at the bracelet on my wrist and everything— well, not
everything, but the gist of it all came back to me. I am Saul Reimer, formerly
a healthy, intelligent man, married to the same woman for many years, and the
father of two children he loves more than anything in the world.
The key word is formerly, as I am sure you’ve already
figured out. Because today—and I have no idea what day it is, other than it is
really cold and I wish I had a jacket on—I am nothing, not a real man, that’s
for sure. I mean, how can you be a real man when you don’t even know where you
are half the time, and when you do know, more often than not, you can’t grasp
the concept of your surroundings?
I felt in my
pocket for my wallet, but it wasn’t there. All I had was my bank card. I spotted
an ATM machine at the corner. But when I got there, I couldn’t figure out how
to work it. A woman walked up from behind. I gestured for her to go in front of
me. She smiled and said she was in no rush. I looked at the machine, with all
the words flashing across the screen. My hands were getting slimy, and beads of
that wet stuff covered my forehead. Why couldn’t she just go first?
Then suddenly, it
all made sense. I followed the directions, but it took me a few tries to get
the card into the machine with the strip the right way. I looked behind me
again. The woman was fidgeting with her purse strap. Then the machine asked me
for a personal identification number. The good news is, I knew I had one. The
bad news is, I had no idea what it was. My brain is like a shortwave radio,
mostly static that occasionally finds the station, but even then the sound
isn’t always clear.
In a way, it will
be a blessing when my mind is totally gone, when I am a vegetable, slouched in
a wheelchair. Like many Alzheimer’s patients on Montreal’s West Side, I’ll
probably make a pit stop at Manoir Laurier. Then, when Manoir Laurier can’t
cope with me, or we can’t afford it anymore, they’ll ship me off to Belfrage
Hospital, my final stop on this beloved earth. I’ll be there, incontinent,
drooling, and incoherent—that is, if I can even manage to get a word through my
blistered lips. And when it’s all over—when my heart finally gives out, or I
contract pneumonia, and my family says, “Let Saul go; he deserves some
peace”—when that happens, they’ll take me down to the autopsy room, cut my
skull open, and find the tangles and plaques on my brain. Then they will be
able to say with 100 percent certainty that Saul Reimer had Alzheimer’s.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric
Rill was born in Montreal and graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor
of Arts, and from UCLA with an MBA. He held several executive positions in the
hospitality industry, including president of a global hotel group. His hobbies
include trekking, scuba diving, and collecting antique carpets. Eric has two sons and divides his time
between his residence in Panama and international travel. You can reach him at
his website at: www.ericrill.com
Buy
Links:
Barnes
& Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-absent-mind-eric-rill/1118627870?ean=9780991014408
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Absent-Mind-Eric-Rill-ebook/dp/B00IQJQ4A2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395880163&sr=8-1&keywords=eric+rill
Definitely a story that will suck you in! Hope you have a great tour!
ReplyDeleteHope you have a great tour. Allana Angel
ReplyDelete