By Matvii, age 16, Dublin
This is a day of truly different emotions and different thoughts…What you see is an ordinary teenager’s room in the morning, vibrant, dynamic, with refracted light from stained glass, and wallpaper with striking vertical bands of colour, but with a window on the bottom left corner showing shadows or silhouettes of people outside. His “friends” are looking over at him, laughing at him as he sits all alone on a chair pretending not to notice them and overthinking as he usually does. Behind him on the wall there is a poster of an orange “dragon” which represents his anger. His blue eyes show tears and the sadness he is going through.
Hercules used to be really active and happy but now he doesn’t really have any friends and barely goes outside anymore, unless he really has to. He developed arthritis at age ten and then vision problems meaning he then started to get bullied in school and in the local village for it. He feels sometimes as though he has been imprisoned in Hades, with this cycle of only school/ home, home/school forever, never able to escape.
But in the center of his complex life he is hopeful, (the white painting symbolises his hope of the good moments to come). He knows he possesses strength and perseverance in abundance. He has noticed lately how the light has been trying to break through the grey clouds above.
Then imagine his surprise when his dad Zeus and mom Alcmene say they have just received an email inviting the family to a new job and a new home on the other side of the island.
Grasping the opportunity he and his family make plans and begin the long journey, starting out early that same day. It takes many hours, and the way is very difficult, but it is one of joy and hope to be released from the old cycle of living.
They arrive just before nightfall. Hercules knows that here he will find himself, his role in life, a new circle of friends…a new idyll.