UK The Call of Wings
Millionaire Silas Hamer enjoys material happiness in his extreme wealth. Then one evening he comes across a legless piper whose tune transports him into a strange euphoric state, prompting him to question everything he stands for.
...he had had the utterly preposterous notion—absurd on the face of it!—that he was rising from the ground—that the music was carrying him upwards...
More about this story
The short story explores the conflicts between the physical and the spiritual, and material wealth and moral goodness. Hamer experiences his disconcerting spiritual journey for the first time after having dinner with altruistic parson Dick Borrow and nerve specialist Bernard Seldon, with whom he shares his concerns over his new-found dream-like state.
The story was first published in the UK in 1933 as part of The Hound of Death collection of short stories, and in the US in the collection The Golden Ball and Other Stories.
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