Passages

Bound by chance and the intimacy of therapy, an old warrior and a fledgling psychiatrist test each other's true north.

Miko, the precocious son of a Greek fisherman, has weathered an indecisive path to adulthood in medicine and psychiatry. . . or has he? Dormant in his soul is a muse for writing and a smoldering guilt of abandoning his father. His training trajectory finds him in Tulsa, USA, of all places, where a 2 a.m. hospital admission, the aging, drunk, and potentially violent Vietnam veteran AJ becomes the young physician's patient. A metaphysical quirk awaits them.

Unwitting confidants in the quest to understand what each is missing, the two trade insights best borne from meeting the other where he is. AJ is a prisoner of the exhilarating echoes of a confusing war; Miko suppresses his own psychological turmoil while exposing that of others.

A chance meeting of their wives leads to a bond kept hidden under norms of confidentiality. Each woman finds something of themselves in the other and the moxie to withstand battles in their own marriages, on their own terms.

Why AJ was brought to the hospital by the police that night pits a sense of duty against self-destruction. Why was there but a single round in his Luger that night?

In Passages, the author takes aim at our enigmatic humanity. Each of us is the hero in his or her own life, a contrast of magnificence and flaws, navigating the complexity of principles and barriers as best one can.

At once philosophical and deeply human, Passages explores identity, trauma, loyalty, and the invisible threads that tether us to the people we least expect. With poignancy and grit, it reminds us that healing often comes not from having the answers, but from simply being seen.