FLO (working title)

Description

I am locating the setting to a surfing community. Our protagonist has had a life-changing illness or accident that has affected their mobility drastically and they are struggling with their new identity. Unable to accept their reality, they resist normal rehab offers and isolate themselves from their former surf community. This crisis leads to a suicide attempt at sea. The wrestling here comes in the form of an unprovoked tussle in the surf with a mysterious surfer. The protagonist fights for their life and in so doing discovers they are still a surfer and wish to live, their new identity has hope. It is a pivotal transitioning moment for them, just as in Genesis. They are transformed by the mysterious encounter and return to shore an overcomer.

Biblical Connection

I am adapting Genesis 32: 34-31; I am taking one of the turning points in Jacob's story where after a crisis he is returning to his homeland to face his past. This scene is where he transitions from being the runaway, nomadic, second born to becoming an overcomer. Following this incident his conflict with his brother is resolved and a new chapter begins for him, with a movement impairing wound as a reminder. I am taking the theme of transitioning identities and the motifs of movement and immobility and reframing them in the context of a surfer who has suffered an accident or illness that has changed their physicality forever and their former abilities and identity. The surf to them now is a force of escape through death. Ready to give up, the attack from an unarmed surfer, as in the Genesis story, is a catalyst of change. The perseverance to cling on, and re-engage brings the protagonist back to a place of hope and repurposes them. Its a sudden and shocking jolt, but forces the embracing of a new identity.