Terrible dreams enslave a guileless and callow young man and stop him from embracing the girl he loves until a Herring Gull offers salvation.
Character DrivenFantasyHigh ConceptLove StoryMythicalPsychologicalSupernatural
Time Period: PresentStory Location: USASpecial Effects: Minimal SFXTarget Audience: Young Adult
In Act 3 there's a raging storm in the gulf of Alaska. A magnificent Herring Gull lands aboard a doomed fishing boat. The Gull witnesses something that offers salvation.
Charlie's childhood memories are gone. Airplane rides, ominous clouds, flashes of light all trigger horrible dreams.
He seeks peace by moving to a city from his village. His dreams persist. His loving family try to help.
An old woman bothers him in bingo halls.
He quits his job and moves again, this time to a small fishing town.
Here he can not keep a relationship going with his girl Minnie. The dreams have followed him.
He helps solve a drug ring mystery working with the town's cop. He is now a night watchman at the boat harbor.
A Norwegian Independence Day Festival draws Charlie and his drunk boss in. They act as Vikings. They 'raid' a State Ferry.
His boss gets help for his drinking problem.
The old woman bothers Charlie in mystical visions. She and an 'animal identity' wish to use an ancient secret way to make Charlie healthy and whole.
Charlie claims this power from the woman.
The 'animal identity,' that of a beautiful Herring Gull, is actually Charlie's personal 'animal identity.'
He takes the shape of this Herring Gull.
He flies into a raging ocean storm. He sees his loving parents and himself as a child aboard a doomed fishing boat. His parents save him, telling him they love him before they fling him into the ocean storm strapped within a sealed survival raft.
The parents drown.
Charlies understands the source of his post traumatic stress.
Eventually, he's able to move on with his life, reach his full potential as a respected citizen, and claim his love, Minnie.
