Around the World in 80 Lays

It had been a few weeks since the funeral. A few weeks since the lives of Jason Young and his younger brother Thomas changed forever. It had been a normal Friday night when Jason got a call from the hospital, informing him that his parents had been involved in a serious car accident. The two brothers rushed to the hospital and arrived in time to say their goodbyes to mum, but dad was already gone.

Since then there had been a lot of sadness, a lot of mourning, and a lot of visits from various family members, family friends and work colleagues. A large inheritance for both brothers hadn’t done much to alleviate the pain… but it had sparked an idea in Jason.

For as long as he could remember, Jason had always wanted to see the world. Sure he’d been on various family holidays to mainland Europe & the US, but they were always spent in 5 star hotels in the nicest areas of whatever city they were in. Jason wanted more than that. He wanted to see the real world, meet the real people of the world but his father never approved. Everything had been meticulously planned out for him from primary school all the way through to his first job.

Now he was free to do whatever he wanted, and with that large inheritance and as new part owner of his dad’s company (which pretty much ran itself these days), he had an almost unlimited amount of money to do it.

The night before his departure, he packed the necessities. A reasonable amount of clothing, toiletries, the required electronics and a few other things. It took a surprisingly small amount of time before his suitcase was full of everything he needed. He zipped it up and lifted the case from his bed, placing it by his bedroom door just as there was a knock.