Stuck In Neutral

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Stuck In Neutral
“Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get.”(Forrest Gump) Substantiated in Terry Trueman’s novel, Stuck in neutral, an unwinable war is fought between Shawn and the disability with which he was cursed. Cursed in a sense that…how would one feel if even eye contact was on the brink of impossible? And, that was the easiest thing that Shawn could do.
Disability? What does that really mean? The best person to ask is Shawn McDaniel, if he could speak, if he could write, or even if he could give some sort of sign that he understands a thing that is said to him. So, who is to blame? His parents, himself, or how about nature? Shawn battles nature everyday for the anguish and loneliness to which is disability has subjected him. See, Shawn didn’t fall out a tree, or get hit by a car. During his birth, a blood vessel in his brain burst in the most profound spot. So now even the words, “I love you,” are just out of reach.
Stuck in neutral is just about that. About the everyday struggles with which Shawn deals. The inability to do this, the inability to do that. The inability to say, “don’t worry about me, I’m happy.” The only time Shawn is happy is when he has a seizure, for the fact that it is the only time he feels free. Isn’t that sad? To everybody else, it is sad. In reality his seizures are the only thing keeping him sane, even though everyone else thinks he is in pain. So now Shawn tries to avoid the inevitable, death. Death not by natural causes, but death by asphyxiation. By the person that loves him the most…his dad. But, for some reason his dad’s madness is, in a sense, honorable. He doesn’t want to see his son go through what he is. One has to take what life deals them.
Life is like a box of chocolates. None of us know what’s going to happen to us or even when our ‘ticket’ is going to be called. The only thing we can do is try our best to live the life...