Rudi: The Final Moments

by Stuart Perrin

The Final Moments contains two novellas linked together by a common thread. They are both rite-of-passage stories in which the deaths of a parent and of a teacher force the young protagonists to re-examine their inner lives. The Final Moments The story, “Rudi The Final Moments” is an in-depth study of perhaps the most sacred marriage on earth — the union of a spiritual teacher and his disciple. It is a transcendental love story that could only find its inspiration in the human heart. It was an ordinary afternoon in late February 1973. Rudi, two students of his, and I, took off from Teeterboro airport around 5:00 PM. The sky was clear and I could see the sun setting in the West. We were headed to Glens Falls — a small town near Albany. The story moves from the past to the present, from my thoughts to Rudi’s dictation, from a clear sky to a fog so dense one can’t see ten feet out the window. A simple voyage in a four-seat Cessna airplane becomes an allegorical journey into a world of wisdom so profound it borders on sacred truths. Out of darkness comes light, out of death comes rebirth, and out of tragedy a new sense of purpose; and by the end of this fateful journey, nothing in my world remained the same. The Dancing Man The South Bronx is the setting for this allegorical tale of a college student who returns home to discover that his father is dying. It is a tale woven from an accumulation of dreams about an almost mythic figure called the Dancing Man, who guides the college student, Joshua, into a transformative world that unifies both life and death. The story takes place on the South Bronx streets of my childhood, but its surreal nature could only be conceived in the feverish mind of a writer. It’s a love story and a street-smarts story that plumbs the deepest levels of human consciousness to discover how life’s mysteries are passed on from generation to generation.

172 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2011