Temoprary Difficulties

by Max Carlyle (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

A leap into the unknown Jamaica

Born months premature, a boy with cerebral palsy finds himself invited on a voyage of the Caribbean islands after nonchalantly applying for a travel scholarship whilst procrastinating from his undergraduate dissertation at the age of twenty-one. The hollowness of graduation looms as the protagonist is propelled into a world he has only seen in movies or YouTube adverts he consumes hours on end as mental scars from his past has prompted him to become more introverted from the lively soul he once was. This, however, does not mean that his imagination has become any more subdued. Fired from part-time job to part-time job, our hero does not subscribe to the belief that one should sell their time for money and longs for an existence where he wakes up with a smile on his face. Upon landing in Jamaica, he is exposed to sights, sounds and colour palettes that trigger flashbacks of his pasts. Suppressed memories come flooding back. Boarder control reminds him of the search process he and his family would undergo at the hands of prison guards when he visited his father in one of the U.K's grimiest prisons for a crime he did not commit. The rush and chaos of the airport conjured up painful recollections of the morning police raided his family home and took his father away in front of his agonizing mother and siblings. Somewhat overloaded and engaged in a cold sweat, the protagonist undergoes a moment of clarity once he finally sees the blue skies through the other side of the arrivals terminal. This, for better or worse, reminds him of a girl he once truly loved. He had managed to keep his disability unknown during his teens despite being subjected to bullying when in junior school, and his grounded aura often attracted girls to enter his life. None he loved more than a girl he met when he was seventeen. Many people had come and gone from his life but she, for some reason, had a firm hook left in his brain. She had left him, through no fault of her own, to pursue her own wanderlust and had gone on to live in Rome, Barcelona and more recently Costa Rica. This was something the less mature protagonist struggled to come to terms with, leading to an abrupt, messy ending of their relationship due to his own social difficulties. This had sent him into a spiraling depression moreso than the arrest of his father. Many friends, who he had connected to each other, would leave his side as he became less socially inclined. He had delved into both drugs and alcohol but also developed the intellect to recognise these hindered his mental state. He had greatly admired those who inspire wider societal change like that of Bob Marley, and the carefree, humanitarian nature of the Jamaican towns he journeyed through on the tour bus inspired recollections of the years he had spent as part of a disability football team. He had always met this with a pinch of salt as he knew this would not fulfill the dreams of him playing for his boyhood team, but the camaraderie and friendships could be seen in the communities of people he now found himself amongst. His love for football and long, meaningful conversations came from his mentor Grandfather, who he had lost to a combination of cancer and dementia a year earlier. He knew, he would never be replaced, but the protagonist uncovered an elderly gentleman who would command the same respect as his Grandad simply by his presence. The wisdom of this gentleman was apparent through the slow pace of his speech and one would hang on his every word to see what would come next. It was through this relationship, that our protagonist would find the sense of inner peace. Peace of mind. Peace from mind. The vivd, chaotic imagination slowed to the pace of the reality that lay before him and he finally, after so many years, felt comfortable in his own skin.