The Rite by Mark Lu at Inkitt

Summary

A recently disgraced economics professor with marital issues takes a bus trip west to see a performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring before he plans to take his own life. Kenneth Spurlock, an economist at the University of Buffalo recently disgraced by a CNN interview regarding the housing crisis in 2008, takes a bus trip west to see the San Francisco Symphony perform Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring before he plans to take his own life. Along the way, he experiences some fond memories of his life, especially of his wife, Sabrina. He enjoys enlightening conversations with various other Greyhound passengers. He hallucinates conversations with the Devil, who takes the form of a clean, British man, during his stops at various stations throughout the country. Told non-linearily; most of the heavy exposition is conveyed at the end during the two acts and finale of The Rite of Spring. Themes include regret, old age, parenting, Platonic love, self-forgiveness, individuality, and a will to live despite the eccentric unpredictability that life has to offer.

Genre: Drama/Other

Author: Mark Lu

Status: Ongoing

Chapters: 20

Rating: n/a

Age Rating: 18+

Prologue

If I should die and leave you here awhile,

Be not like others, sore undone, who keep

Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.

For my sake — turn again to life and smile,

Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do

Something to comfort other hearts than thine.

Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine

And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.

— A. Price Hughes and Mary Lee Hall

My name is Kenneth Spurlock and I am 64 years old. In October of 2008, I bought a bus ticket from New York to San Francisco, a five-day journey across the United States evocative of what I can only describe as a physical excursion from my own reality. The San Francisco Ballet and Symphony Orchestra was performing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. The Greyhound ticket cost me $79 and I purchased it as a one-way trip without any regard for a return trip. The idea of coming back seemed distant to me. The route made stops in Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles before arriving in San Francisco, California. I went on this trip not as a personal hiatus, but as a prelude to my surely death.