Forgetful
by Nick Mann

A persuasive dean from a historically black university in Washington, D.C. talks Dr. Benjamin Parks into leading a seminar on cross-cultural relationships. Bright students enroll and question whether bridges really can be built across racial, gender, attraction orientation, political, and religious divides. The universal dilemmas explored in the seminar are but one of the multilayered complexities that in some ways challenge and in other ways trap Ben Parks. His professional achievements can’t substitute for the loving, peaceful home life that stays just out of reach. Compounding the situation, Ben is afraid he is losing his memory and may be suffering from early dementia. He experiences embarrassing signs at unexpected times in both his professional life as an organizational consultant and part-time college professor, and in his hot and cold relationship with his wife Addie. Ben is blessed with a career hob-knobbing with corporate and government movers and shakers as they wrestle with complex strategic leadership questions. But as multiple family members around him are succumbing to Alzheimer’s, Ben wonders if he’s next in line.