Stories from the Silk Road

An Interview with Patrick Eaton -- Lead Character in Chaturanga

Wandering the ghostly ruins of ancient empires, braving sandstorms, tangling with spies and bandits… all while working to solve a family mystery steeped in geopolitical intrigue.  To many of us, this might sound like the plot of a good novel.  But for one local boy, these were just the highlights of his summer vacation.

Less than one month after completing a dramatic journey across Central Asia, fourteen-year-old Patrick Eaton could easily be forgiven if he were still struggling to readjust to life back home.  After all, he had spent nearly three months immersed in a land and culture vastly different from his own.  But earlier this week, when I caught up with him in the cafeteria of Central High School, it appeared Eaton had already transitioned back into a typical American teenager.
 
“I couldn’t find my khakis this morning,” he said with a sheepish grin, arriving at our meeting in a wrinkled t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.  He sat down across from me and lifted a threadbare baseball cap to reveal the shaggy hairstyle so popular with adolescents these days. 
 
Having worked with teenagers before, I replied that it was okay; this was not a job interview.  Besides, I added in a pitiful attempt to relate, it must be tough settling back into the cruel world of young adulthood.  He just smiled and shook his head.  “Actually, I just slept through my alarm this morning.”
 
Looking him over, I started to wonder if I was in the right place.  My editor had hooked me with the tale of an American boy who accompanied his father on a business trip to Azerbaijan, and was then whisked along a hair-raising adventure on the Silk Road.  Trekking across deserts and visiting far-flung oasis-cities, he had learned about the wider world and his place in it, surviving difficulties and dangers, and growing stronger and wiser as a result.  Could this be that same boy?

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