FROM THE PREFACE

This is a story about a man.

He is just an ordinary man, no different from you and me.

But he finds himself in a predicament.

And as our story begins, he happens to find himself in a prison cell.

However, due to the nature of his story, he might as well be in his living room, or somewhere out on the street.

Still, he finds himself held captive but he is no less free than you and me are right now.

And all that he ever wished for was to be free and happy.

Isn't that what we all wish for?

If freedom and happiness are what he wished for - how did this man manage to end up in a prison cell?

He seems to have succeeded in doing the exact opposite of what he wanted. He can't be very clever then.

But let's not be too hasty.

The lofty peaks he wanted to climb were easy to see from the foot of the mountain, but the road was winding.

The simplest things in life are the most important ones and they come quickly to mind, yet even when the story of our life is reaching its final chapters we can still see how far we've gone astray and how we'll never reach them in our lifetime. Yet we've professed during our entire lifetime that those were the only things we really wanted. The only things that we really needed. How is it that we've gone so far astray?

Oh, we will have an abundance of excuses. But in our final moments, we will remember. We will remember our regrets. We will remember our dreams that we've forgotten to pursue, but it will be too late then.

So we hope that in death - we will find them there.

And maybe we will.

And maybe we won't.

But this man whose story we are about to tell - he did get what he wished for.

Not in the way he thought he would, though - but he did get what he wished for. But that is life - it happens regardless of when and how we want it to happen. We all have our own stories and the lives we would like to live. And then we have the lives that we actually live. And these two things are rarely one and the same story.

But sometimes they are.

And that is exactly what happened to the man we are about to meet.

This is his story.