K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra

PROLOGUE

This book can be understood and enjoyed by those who have not yet read K-PAX (1995), K-PAXII:OnaBeamofLight (2001), and K-PAXIII:TheWorldsofProt (2002). To fully appreciate the context, however, I urge you to read the trilogy prior to, or immediately after, reading fled.

The aforementioned series describes the appearance, in 1990, of a man who claimed to have arrived “on a beam of light,” from the planet K-PAX, some 7000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, and records my attempts, as a staff psychiatrist at the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, to determine his true origins and treat his apparent delusion, which continued until the time of his final “departure” in 1997.

For those of you who have read the first three K-PAX books, it should be mentioned at the outset that prot makes no further appearance in the present work. This should come as no surprise, however, as he himself stated that he would not be making a return trip to Earth.

Six months after prot’s departure I retired from active practice, and my wife and I moved out of the suburbs and into a lovely cedar-shingled home in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. I did continue to visit the hospital from time to time, and occasionally gave a lecture at Columbia University, where I held the rank of professor emeritus. Aside from those forays back into the clinical and academic worlds, my wife and I have enjoyed doing all the things we would have liked to do earlier but never had time for—travel, reading, gardening, socializing with family and friends. I finally took up flying, a hobby If enjoy very much (to the horror of my son Fred), but which turned out to be far more expensive that I had imagined. (Q: What makes an airplane fly? A: Money.) And—owing, no doubt, to prot’s influence—astronomy. For a retirement present Karen gave me a four-inch reflecting telescope, and over the past seven or eight years I have become quite familiar with the planets, moons, and stars in our galactic neighborhood. I even found time to write a couple of novels (see www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk).

The entire family, incidentally, is doing fine. Karen is totally free of cancer cells and is more active, if possible, than ever. Abby is now the mother of college men, Rain (Princeton) into computers, while Star (NYU) wants to be an actor, like his uncle Fred. The latter has found a comfortable niche in Broadway musicals, and has appeared in two major films as well. He’s confident a starring role will come along soon. Jennifer is the busiest of the brood, intimately involved in the testing of the first vaccine against AIDS. Will runs a close second, though, as the newest member of the psychiatric staff at MPI, and he loves to discuss his patients with me as do I, of course, with him. He even takes my advice from time to time! I have been told that he looks a lot like me, and I suppose that’s one of the reasons most of us have children: to do it all over again, in a sort of vague and distant way. (On the other hand, I’ve also been informed that anyone with a beard looks much like me.)

I should also mention that we have another member of the family, a mixed-breed dog obtained from the local animal shelter. Flower is seven now, in the prime of life, and she’s a clumsy, hilarious, canine oaf, whom we love dearly.

As an aside, the excellent film version of K-PAX didn’t do as well at the box office as had been expected and, as of this writing, a sequel is still up in the air. (If you know of a studio or producer who’s interested, please ask them to contact me through my website.) There’s a ray of hope in the strong videotape and DVD sales and rentals, however, and as prot pointed out on numerous occasions, anything is possible. Whatever happens, I think the movie was a good adaptation of prot’s story, and brilliantly played by both Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges (as well as Mary McCormack and the rest of the cast). Karen and I were privileged to meet the stars during the filming (look for me at the end of the “bluebird” scene), and both are fine gentlemen as well as great actors.

But the point I was making is that when prot departed the Earth at the end of 1997 I was pretty sure we would hear no more about K-PAX, certainly not in my lifetime, and especially not from an entirely different visitor from that faraway planet.

As usual where alien visitors are concerned, I was wrong.