Remapping the Twenties

By Haina Long

Tylor Davies, who lost his parents since a kid, spend his childhood in orphanage under the care of lovely caregiver Daisy Winsland was forced to move from one adoptive family to another due to different kinds of drastic, even horrible reasons, finally becoming an adult. The lost of loved ones had nearly killed him off through mental depression and numerous of life unfortunates and failures on the society. As he nearly loses his hope for lights in the war against his miserable and drastic life, the positive changes finally arrive one after one when friendly strangers and old friends show up. Amazing suggestions and the correct group of people helped Tylor to dig out a new direction. He picks up his guitar and music and joins the music band established by his old friends to start a brand-new life that is full of hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Jun 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781669881636

Haina Long

Tracy Kang, pen name Haina Long, a 23-year-old Chinese New Zealander who loves reading and writing since childhood. Her family immigrated from China to New Zealand in 2012. She loves books, history, culture (especially Chinese culture), heritage, anime and music. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Art degree, double major in history and sociology. Soon, tried to climb up by taking Bachelor of Honours in Museum and Cultural Heritage. Then reached her limit so tried several jobs and now working in Auckland as a receptionist while writing stories for enjoyment.

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Copyright © 2024 by Haina Long.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/22/2024

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CONTENTS

Remapping The Twenties

From The Ages Magazine

REMAPPING THE TWENTIES

T YLOR DAVIES IS born on 12 August. His parents feel happy about their newborn child.

When Tylor Davies turns three, his mother dies in a horrific car accident caused by an overworked, sleepy bus driver. His father begins to lose hope for his life and fails to succeed in his daily work at the game production company. He used to be a brilliant 2D digital artist.

By the time Tylor Davies turns five, his father is dead as a result of being overworked from taking good care of little Tylor, who needs to go to kindergarten. Tylor’s father was the most trustworthy 2D digital artist in the gaming company, so his manager gave him the most challenging projects. He managed to save some money for little Tylor so his future would not be too stressful.

When Tylor Davies turns six, he starts his first year in the orphanage. The orphanage isn’t large, and he is the only healthy child in it. That means teachers spend little time looking after him. Tylor feels he is being neglected by most of the teachers (although there are only three in total), and the only one who truly cares about him is Daisy Winsland. She has been going to the university for an education degree in the large city and has been living away from the town. She knows more than other teachers and has a heart full of love. Tylor remembers all the good things she does to keep him happy and doing well in school. She teaches him piano and guitar, plays football with him, and reads him various books before sleep. Tylor takes Daisy as his nonbiological mother, even though she looks young for a mother.

From ages six to nine, Tylor learns to make Caesar salads and fruit salads from Daisy. A hot dog with sliced onions and tomato sauce is the first meat meal that Tylor can make for himself. Scrambled eggs and poached vegetables help him survive for at least three days if no one cares for him. This may sound strange: a nine-year-old boy being taught to make food for himself without too much care from the adults. This happens all because the orphanage has staff shortage. Daisy is still there but is too busy to look after Tylor. Tylor begins to miss the short stories and illustrated encyclopaedia that Daisy used to read to him before bedtime. But Daisy gives him the authority to use her office so he can read her books. Tylor is not an excellent student, but he is good enough to keep himself on the right track.

When Tylor Davies turns ten, he finally meets the first family that wants to adopt him: Arthur Louis and Lydia Silva Louis, a half-American, half-French family. Tylor writes a thanksgiving letter to Daisy before he leaves. He has always taken Daisy as his first nonbiological mother, and his love for her will never change. Tylor promises Daisy that he will be a good child in the Louis family and will continue to play football and study guitar. Tylor tells Daisy and his new parents that he will join a school band as a guitarist if he gets a chance. The adults laugh proudly at his dream. Daisy hugs him tightly and promises him she will go to his concert if he becomes a famous guitarist one day. Tylor thinks everything is moving on the right track.

By the time Tylor Louis turns twelve, he has a good life on the surface. He goes to one of the top five private schools in the city because the Louis family is rich enough to send him there. He joins the school band as a guitarist and becomes a candidate for the school’s football team. He works hard to keep everything looking great, but the Louis parents do not perform their duties; they are lazy in preparing school lunches, and when Tylor is at home, they prompt him to find friends to play with and allow him to stay outside as long as possible. They seem to ignore Tylor sometimes, especially when Tylor comes back from his friends’ houses. The only time that Tylor feasts at home is when his nonbiological grandparents come to visit them. His adoptive parents seem to tell his nonbiological grandparents that they finally have a child and are doing great in looking after and educating him. Tylor gradually realizes that something is wrong in the family and his adoptive parents are trying to hide something from him. He believes that he can find out one day.

Tylor’s school band performs at several school events, and he plays the main role in a musical which is fantastic. His adoptive parents don’t film his performances, so he remembers these amazing days only because of taking selfies with his friends. Tylor loves to post his selfies on social media. As part of the digital generation, Tylor receives a tablet from his adoptive parents, and he learns to use it from his friends and teacher. He registers for a Facebook account and posts all his photos to it. He knows that there will be people seeing his life and that these photos could one day drag dangerous people towards him. But posting them to social media platforms is the only way he can keep his precious memories. After Tylor finds that his adoptive parents don’t take photos of him or film his performances, he decides to store his photos by himself. They are not trustworthy, he thinks. He makes himself a private email address and finds Daisy’s email address on the orphanage documents. He still looks at Daisy as his loving mother and emailed her all his precious photos and shares his recent life events with her. Tylor truly believes that Daisy is closer to him than his adoptive parents.

When Tylor Louis is thirteen, he leaves football training early one day because one of his team members breaks an ankle during the game. Tylor arrives home and says, I’m home now! The football training finished early today because Oscar broke his ankle during the game. Hello? Mum? Anybody home? He hears a strange noise upstairs. He listens and observes carefully. The living room seems clean, but clearly someone he doesn’t know has been in the house, because he smells two different perfumes. A voice comes out from Lydia’s bedroom, so he thinks there must be something wrong with her. Tylor is afraid that Lydia may have put herself in danger, such as by fighting with a burglar, but he isn’t sure about it. So he moves slowly upstairs, keeping calm. He stands in front of Lydia’s door and listens; the strange noise is still there but is quieter than before. He opens the door quickly and asks, Mum, are you all right?

He is shocked by what is happening on the bed: Lydia is having a threesome with one woman and one man. Tylor doesn’t know the man, but the woman, named Joanna, is Lydia’s colleague and yoga classmate. She came to their house for a barbecue party the previous weekend.

That is Tylor’s first time seeing a threesome. The private school he goes to does a good job at teaching the students essential knowledge about the function of male and female genitals and reproductive organs. But they haven’t studied the fertilization module, and the sexual orientation module appears only in the senior social science classes. And it’s impossible for any school to teach students about sexual intercourse. So Tylor is trying to understand this adult-only scene with his beginner knowledge of reproduction, but Lydia and Joanna’s threesome is like a gunshot to his brain, and he shouts and escapes from her bedroom. Tylor wants to tell this shocking news to Arthur, his adoptive father, and Daisy because he is afraid that Lydia will do something horrible to him since he found out her secret.

That night is the most awful night in Tylor’s memory. Arthur and Lydia share their secrets with Tylor and expose their real purpose behind adopting him. Arthur and Lydia were hookup friends at the beginning and started a real relationship only because their parents prompted them to find someone to marry. However, they didn’t stop their hobby of sex after they got married, and they had their own tastes. So they decided to have their own hookup friends outside the marriage and agreed to help each other keep their sexual secrets quiet. But to fulfil their parents’ dream of having a grandchild, they decided to adopt a child from the orphanage, because neither of them wanted to have a baby. That’s why they ignored Tylor and neglected him. They knew from the beginning of their marriage that they just wanted to play sexual games. Tylor is an absolute outsider to them.

Tylor understands that he can no longer be part of this family. He writes a long email to Daisy, telling her everything that had happened in the previous days and stating that he thinks they will send him back very soon. They do, and Tylor returns to the orphanage after he finishes the year at the private school. Although Tylor moves from a large mansion to an old orphanage, he feels happy