SUMMARY

The wanderers of myth sail before the wind of a small, portentous twist of fate…

Ten years married and only one need in the life of Brian and Mariko Hilliard: the child they both long for.  On the return ferry to Portland after an anniversary/baby-making long weekend in Nova Scotia, on the eve of Nine-Eleven, Brian runs into the men he learns later are the hijackers of United-11, first flight out of Boston to explode into the Twin Towers. 

Odd chance encounters were hardly a new wrinkle in Brian's life.  If so much watery strangeness hadn't already passed beneath his bridge prior to September 11th, a haunting vision and a gaze into the eyes of terror might have been just another coincidence. No fence stands tall enough to block out the world and even near-perfect lives can spread wide open for change.  The emotional weight of the encounter pushes Brian onto a path he never imagined, doing things he never dreamed he would do. 

For Mariko, the idea of Brian as leader of a religious movement is just plain stupid and not at all the life she signed on for.  Her love, her faith in Brian, are the only reasons she’ll allow him to get away with it. 

An unconventional journey toward hope through the chaos of our times, TRAVEL follows the Hilliards through that ominous weekend and beyond the uncertain turn: from a small Catholic spiritual gathering in Concord, Massachusetts, to the flashbulb birth of the Travel Guild; through public notoriety and controversy; finally, violent tragedy and self-imposed exile on a remote Bahamian island, where Brian passes the time making profound changes to the world.

The story is told as a reminiscence—one of the millions of ‘Travel Stories’ gathered and published by the Guild.  It is longtime friend and former journalist Rick Kravitz who authors the legacy of the man who made the idea of collecting the life stories of everyone on earth a reality.  In this Official Travel Guild Testament, Rick reveals a future glory for the Guild: Brian and Mariko are survived by a daughter, groomed since birth to take stewardship of the Travel Guild in her father’s wake, caretaker to all of his secrets. 

Shades of satire dark and light illuminate the myth's theme: the truth of what we believe is often far less important than the fact we believe it.  With an unwavering love of every human strength and frailty, this is the one thing Brian Hilliard, unlikeliest of prophets, truly believed.