after the imogen sailed

Skeleton


AFTER THE IMOGEN SAILED

The story follows the life through the perspective of a boy with a mental disorder that limits his ability to empathise and communicate. Norman lives in the town of Pallister, a small village of closely knit old families and traditions. His mother has OCD-like symptoms regarding her son which exceeds the point of being overprotective and enters the realm of abuse.
Norman is made to feel severely crippled by his mother, who suggests he is one step off of living his life in a mental institution, and reminds him of this daily if he challenges her rules.

His mother is a socialite and well-respected woman of the community and her friends sympathise that her son has mental health problems. Heather, his mother, suggests that her friends' sons should look after him, so he isn't targeted at school by bullies. This is a well-kept secret by Norman's social group John Carmichael, Richard McInnes and Abdul Al-Jazari.
Norman's life of restriction is comfortable for him, he is hardly stretched to do things that test his character, and thus he remains in a similar state of wellbeing and almost childlike naivity.

At the stage in Norman's adolescent life where his friends become more inclined to impress girls of their age, they soon discover that Norman's presence hinders their likelihood of getting a girlfriend. They feel as though that he repels girls from engaging with them, specifically Richard. John and Abdul follow along with Richard's lead and are the sheep of the group. When the girl who Richard has been scoping out for a long time declines his offer to attend the school ball at the end of the year with him due to Norman's interference, he flies into a dramatic rage that ends in him telling Norman that the group only tolerates him because of his mother.
This reaffirms Norman's dependency on his mother to carry him through life socially, and displays to him how much power he has over him in a way that he can't even have the liberty of making his own friends.

Norman leaves the school grounds for the first time in his life and has no idea what people like him do when they truant and he seeks refuge in the local library. He comes across a girl his age who he has never seen before who looks like a sea nymph. Norman is intrigued, because every girl his age is enrolled at his school, and the prospect of a girl who doesn't know him for his reputation through other people feeds his realistic interest in the girl.

The girl, Imogen Salazar has a routine, he notices. She claims a large table to herself and by the end of the day, she fills it up with the 1000 piece puzzles, every single day. By the third day, Norman gathers the courage to speak to her and finds her alarmingly easy to talk to. She seems to be an open book, but out of desperation, like a hostage who hasn't had a vast amount of human contact.
They chat and become friends. This feeds Norman's ego that he doesn't need his mother to make friends or even have a girlfriend, which makes him feel giddy at the thought of entering an unknown world of change.
Eventually, Imogen tells Norman about her situation. She is the child of missionary parents who have left her and her brother in the care of her aunt Lorraine. Her brother is only eight years old and has the early warning signs of a psychopath, which Lorraine enables. Lorraine and Imogen's personalities clash, which led to Imogen fleeing the home to live with a man she met at a bar, who was two years older than her. His name is Chester Myers. Chester abuses Imogen, and often she runs away, or spends her day hours in the library.
Norman sympathises with Imogen and offers that she can sleep in his attic. She sleeps there for many nights. During their days they go on obscure adventures related to the things that Norman felt he had missed out on as a child, and then the things Imogen felt she had missed out on.

Their adventures take place in the city of Stonebarge and they plan on running away altogether and escaping their mediocre lives. Norman feels true autonomy over himself and becomes addicted to the feeling of joy for each day with Imogen. Imogen and Norman plan on living in a shared complex and working odd jobs full time. Their plans are interrupted by Norman's arrest by the police who are searching for Norman, requested by his mother. Imogen wants to follow Norman, but the police refuse to let her come with him back to Pallister.
Imogen follows her plan in living a new life in Stonebarge and has no way of communicating with Norman. Norman misses Imogen in her absence and tries to run away to join her, however his mother threatens to send him to a mental institution for displaying signs of being impulsive and erratic.

Norman for the first time ever challenges his mother with force, taking his backpack of finest possessions and leaving the house in search for the shed her and Chester share to see if she has come home to him from Stonebarge.
Chester greets Norman welcomingly, and has a girl who isn't Imogen over, who wears minimal clothing. He welcomes Norman inside, accusing Imogen of being a whore for not informing him that she had a boyfriend, who clearly has the situation misunderstood. Chester says that it was no fault of Norman's that he was seduced by Imogen and that he isn't special to her, she's like that to everyone.
Although Norman knows that Chester's perspective is very flawed, he is filled partially with doubt.

Chester's girl friend scoffs at how Chester handles the situation, accusing him of being unmanly for allowing his actual girlfriend to meet other men and for him to be fine with it. The thought of his masculinity being challenged by his girl friend in front of a stranger, enrages him. Norman leaves, but listens in on him and his girl friend, Alyssa arguing. Alyssa says she'll kill Imogen for him and beat her in front of everyone in Pallister to finally become his girlfriend.
The prospect of this act of dedication pleases Chester and he agrees to entertain the idea. The fight between an oblivious Imogen and Alyssa becomes finalised.

Norman goes to all the hiding places Imogen said she slept at when she was homeless, and he eventually finds her reading under the cover of the library awning with a blanket wrapped over her with her backpack she carried everywhere with her. Imogen tells Norman that she came from Stonebarge to Pallister to take him with her to run away together.
They wait at the bus stop, where John, Abdul and Richard spot Norman. They all become sour at the fact he had a secret girlfriend (still under the impression that their relationship is fine). The boys plan on telling the whole school of Norman going on the Stonebarge bus with a girl.
The news reaches Alyssa, who becomes so angry that she, her friends and Chester's friends catch the bus to Stonebarge to hunt her down.

Imogen and Norman return to her shared living complex and Norman loses his virginity to her. They are filled with content and hope for their new life of doing things their way and Imogen cancels her working day to spend it in the park with Norman to celebrate.
Alyssa spots Imogen and approaches her. The fight occurs, where Alyssa's friends all join in bashing her. Imogen is left clinging to life, and the crowd vanishes after she becomes bloody. Chester's friends and himself hit Norman until he is left injured and drifting out of consciousness.
A witness nearby calls the police and the ambulance takes the pair to the hospital. Norman lives, but after a week, Imogen passes away.
No family members claim what to do with her body and so she is cremated, and her ashes are given to Norman, who pretends that he is her brother Alex.
He builds a paper ship out of the book she was last reading and sprinkles her ashes into it, and lets it sail off down the river toward freedom. Written down the side of the ship is THE IMOGEN.