Escape Reality - Story Concept and Test Scenes

One of the strangest episodes of my life was as we returned from our honeymoon in Cuba, that I went into little short of a state of mourning for what I had seen in Holguin. Cuba is a beautiful country, it's a third world country by any standards and the signs of poverty are strewn throughout its towns and cities alike but despite the obvious wealth divide between nations the people are happy, but not the kind of happy we think of, it's hard to explain but an actual happiness devoid of all the endless wants and desires of first world nations. While that holiday was strewn with moments of this other kind of happy, there's one that will stay with me forever and I cherish deeply to this very day.

One of my fondest memories is of being on a beach behind our hotel (neither me nor my wife are really lounge on the beach people) and there was a family of Cubans there, the mothers resting in the shade and the kids catching fish from the sea in a discarded plastic cup, they spent hours catching fish and letting them go. Some Canadians went across and had brought some toys for the kids, they opened them and thanked them before going back to the water to catch fish again. One of the kids, a girl, maybe 5-6 years old came running up to me to show me what she had caught, a beaming smile and a wailing voice filled with delight, though I didn't speak Spanish and she didn't speak English, we had a connective moment as she proudly handed me the plastic cup to show me that little fish. As she ran back I remember thinking that kids in the UK would never experience such a simple and pure form of happiness, because they have games consoles, phones and whatever else to distract them, so why would they ever just want to catch a fish with someone else thrown away plastic cup?

That strange moment is one of my fondest memories and often when I'm writing scenes or parts with kids being happy, I often think about that moment on the beach in Holguin, even as I type it up some six years later I can still hear the enchanting giggles of pride and remember the delight in her eyes, I guess simply put it's a pure form of happiness? The purest I have ever seen and as we returned to the UK it haunted me. For weeks I mourned coming home, not because our honeymoon was over but I missed that pure happiness I had witnessed in Cuba, having less somehow invigorating life and adding a different and deeper value to things and or months we looked into how to move to Cuba before in 2020 Covid happened and that dream faded away into the global pandemic.

A few months ago I found myself thinking about that time again and had an idea to create a story, possibly narrated but maybe just pictorial of someone doing what we didn't and leaving behind the world of plenty for a simpler, humbler but happier life.

I had a few characters kicking around that I have accumulated over the years and brought one back into service to tell the story, I think a female lead will suit this one better than a male counterpart as for me, she has more to lose by parting with her world in favour of something purer.

There's a few concept images so far, nothing too spectacular as I've only just really started to delve into the concept but the basic premise is she will live out of a backpack, kind of like a nomad I guess but intentionally rather than through force.

It might be called "Escape Reality" or "Muy Fragile" I haven't really decided yet, though it might wind up being called something else, it's to early to really say.