The Rink of Dreams

The stories we choose to tell (and re-tell) not only reveal what we want others to see in us, but what we wish to see in ourselves. These vignettes, often relayed in brief summary, possess a certain magic. They hit upon the highlights, the “best of” reel of our real life. Their brevity, however, demands the tale be spun in a crisp black-and-white fashion rather than the nuanced shades-of-gray more suitable for the novel form. It’s how we select to reduce those ambiguous shades of gray to the stark black and white where we (and others) discover our true inner nature. Does it matter that these short-cuts skirt the definitive facts? Philosophers (and psychologists) may say truth lies more in perception than reality. That might be hard for a Group IV major like me to swallow, but, I must admit, it does make for a very compelling narrative.

“The Rink of Dreams” represents just one such tale. It captures both the myth and the actuality of The CTO, a group which simultaneously existed and didn’t exist. (There, now that sounds like someone trained in quantum physics.) This superposition of states applies to The CTO as much as it applies to Schrödinger’s cat, and for reasons even we (or anyone else) at the time didn’t realize.

But you won’t know why until you’ve finished reading “The Rink of Dreams.”

Warning: This is an e-book presented in a “flip-book” format familiar to those who read on-line magazines. It’s like a real book. Just point your cursor in the lower corner of the “page” to turn it. If you’ve got your volume on, you’ll even hear the page turning. To enlarge the book to full-screen mode, click the 4-arrow icon (third from the right).