The Conversation

Why are there so many things we never say, and questions we never ask, not realizing their importance until it’s too late? All of us have made that mistake, and Bruce Archibald is no exception. His late father, John (Jack) Archibald was a brilliant man. Driven, ambitious, and community minded, he was a role model to his children in many ways. But he could also be a terrible bully, opinionated, inflexible, and harsh even with his own family.

After living a parallel life in many ways—for better or worse—Bruce has long wished for a chance to get answers from his father and finally understand why he’d been so firmly set in his ways, determined to follow a pre-set, linear path through life, even at the expense of his own happiness, and determined that everyone around him follow in his footsteps. Sadly, this man of baffling contradictions had passed away decades earlier, and it seemed his son’s questions would remain unanswered indefinitely.

But then, while vacationing in Australia with his wife, a chance encounter with a white lorry lands him in hospital, heavily medicated, and the normal rules of past and present cease to exist. Then the telltale glow of a White Owl Invincible cigar from the shadowed corner of his room announces the presence of an unexpected and impossible visitor…