Boy Interrupted

Imagine you are five years old. You haven't started kindergarten, and your only knowledge of the outside world are those trips to the park where your nanny, Bella, lets you swing as high as you want and teeter-totter and jungle gym to your little heart's content. Or when your sweet mother shows up by surprise and spirits you away to the ice cream shop for your favorite cone—very berry strawberry cherry, thank you very much—or, better still, when she takes you to the movies for one of those fantastical adventures on that gigantic screen. Man, that Darth Vader is one scary dude! At home you are ensconced in the space they call your bedroom, but to you, it is the universe. You designed it, and in it you are the master of all. There, you line up your army of soldiers and battle the Pteranodon, while every stuffed critter under your watch spies it all from the edge of your bed. Your imagination is king, and all is well with the world, until one night... The assault had been brutal, pure physical torture. It had shocked you to the core, left you breathless and stunned. Witless. Took you weeks to recover. But that was only your body. Where does a five-year-old take such a thing? To whom do you speak? How do you even wrap your head around such cruelty? Such pain. Such betrayal. Daddy...

Picture by Lance Fairchild Photography A Man finds a despondent and brutally abused eight-year-old boy in a garden and although he is on the verge of suicide, the Man is able to convey that he cares for the boy. After that initial meeting, the Man and the boy begin a series of dialogues. He helps the boy become a child of God, and He encourages him to always be child like as he gains enlightenment. As the boy acquires wisdom, he learns to listen with his heart, mind, and soul. Using the messages in the Bible, the Man teaches the boy truths about life's greatest mysteries, including, physics, cosmology, the arts, and human nature. Over the course of their discussions, the boy grows from a miserable eight-year-old to a well-rounded nineteen-year-old. The Man becomes his teacher, friend, and spiritual father. With the Man's guidance, the boy solves his problems and becomes strong. Find out how the heavens and the earth are tied together, examine the nature of faith, and celebrate the power of good over evil in The Man and a Boy.

Annie's inner conflict was spiraling out of control by her constant struggle with the memories of her past, her unceasing battle with her present, and ever looming dread and fear for her future. How could she find peace with all three? Each night, her dream always started out the same way. She was driving, and it was night. It was pitch black. They drove into the dark and depressing night, its blackness pressing in on them, surrounding and suffocating them until it felt as if there was no air left to breath. They were running from the piercing black that threatened to swallow them both. Then, without warning, the car in which Annie was driving was speeding up, and Annie couldn't stop it. She frantically stepped on the brake, but it only caused the car to dash faster and faster into the night. Then, she and the child and the car were falling into a black abyss, and Annie was reaching out for the small hand of the frightened child next to her. She groped around in the dark, touching the small fingers, but was never able to grasp them. And each time the dream or haunting occurred, Annie's nightmare brought with it more and more dread with an oncoming feeling of doom lurking in the shadows, until Annie found it as hard to be awake as it was to be asleep. And her terror mounted with each passing dream, until finally her past and her present collided, bringing to Annie something she never expected.