A Walking Shadow

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.