This is the story of Ashe a veteran, who came back seriously injured from a tour of duty in war-torn Afganistan. He had lost comrades, including his best friend from childhood. After extensive rehab and therapy, he tries to find his stride in civilian life. He's plagued by PTSD and is immobilized by memories that haunt him day or night.
He has just enough money saved up to buy a narrowboat and continuously cruise on the English canals. He has no goals in mind, but let�s the canals lead him. Most times he feels like a zombie, sleepwalking through life. His military and disability pensions barely cover his living expenses, but in his isolation, he doesn't care. He has no motivation to do anything.
Then fate intervenes. By chance he rescues a young woman, Lexie, who is perhaps even more traumatized than him. She moves on the boat with him and they try to help each other. And it would have worked but she has ghosts from her past that emerge to hunt them. They play a deadly hide and seek but eventually have to confront the consequences of the past.
I love the narrowboats and the canals. I just had to find a story to fit. I like what I came up with. The story also gave me a chance to pay homage to the past, to the people who designed and built the canals. In time these effort fell into neglect and disrepair and got filled in. But thanks to enthusiast who restored them and those who maintain them today, the canals are once again alive with people who live on them or vacation on them. I call them a national treasure.
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