Belfast-Boy

An Algerian moves to troubled Belfast and is drawn into guerrilla-life following loss but contemplates a future one of true daydream(s)!

A story about political woe, inspired by The Devil's Own (Brad Pitt). Enjoy, 

----

====

Belfast (Northern Ireland) is troubled by sectarian (Catholic-Protestant) woes created by unemployment/poverty conditions endured by the Irish minority 'left-behind' after the 20th-Century partition of mainland (Catholic-dominant) Ireland. This is where an Algerian-American pair of brothers manage a quaint world-friendly bookshop.

The brothers, Amlan/Ali, moved to Northern Ireland after political troubles in their home-country of Algiers forced them to 'escape' while they're teenagers. They worked on the streets as paper-boys and found ways to just survive in Belfast and saved up enough money to take positions of employment at the Belfast bookshop where they worked happily as researchers and traders of great world-books and clerks in the inter-religious establishment.

Amlan is the more pensive of the pair of bros from Algeria, and he likes ordering books for the Belfast bookshop capturing a modern fascination with multiculturalism and traffic and commerce-oriented customs for peace between Catholics and Protestants.

Ali, the older/wilder brother from Algeria, likes to order magazines and coloring-books for the younger customers in the Belfast bookshop who come in regularly with their parents (Catholics-Protestants). He's considered a savvy and flamboyant community character and sometimes is seen playing soccer in the streets outside the bookshop, albeit surrounded by sounds and news of skirmishes and 'troubles' between the Irish Republican Army (Catholic) and Ulster Volunteer Force (Protestant).

When an IRA attack on a UVF truck creates a devastating explosion and kills Amlan's soccer-playing older brother Ali in the streets of Belfast, Amlan is crushed. He wonders what he'll do and what to do about this living hell in the place he's called home now for multiple years.

AMLAN: After praying for some time now visiting my brother's Belfast tombstone, I resolved to form a guerrilla-retaliation.

As Amlan is now focused on the parameters of organizing his new Northern Ireland group F-IRA ('Foreign Irish Republican Army'), discovering the IRA-UVF incident that killed his brother was linked to blood-diamond smuggling into the UK, he invests energy and manpower in F-IRA, recruiting advocates of poverty-addressing in Belfast, in blood-diamond smugglers-vehicle interceptions! However, during this heavy mobilization, perhaps created by a need to treat his trauma and depression, he meets a gorgeous young Catholic woman named Shelbye, an 'orange-county' lovely, and falls in love.

SHELBYE: What you're doing (for your brother's memory!) is awesome, Amlan, but I'd prefer if you went back to book-shop.

The graffiti and depictions of Irish-Catholic resistance to British-Protestant rule and status-quo governance arguable 'neglect' of Catholic-minority population unemployment/poverty are abound, and Amlan was wondering if Shelbye's advice is wise --- if he should part from this new life of vigilance/activism, working now even with Interpol-relations for blood-diamond infiltration(s), and seek a life of sanity and peace and neutrality in Belfast...as a family-man.

SHELBYE: When I think about how Amlan tells me he's 'thinking' about my advice, I also think about his guerrilla-appearances.

AMLAN: I made you this New England clam-chowder from scratch, darling, with fresh ingredients bought locally.

SHELBYE: I dunno what to say, except it's really zesty!

AMLAN: I think more about what you advised me, for us, and less about Ali, Shelbye.

SHELBYE: Really?

Can New England clam chowder bring this 'hellboy' out of the grave(s) of trauma and poverty-anxious guerrilla works in troubled Northern Ireland (United Kingdom)? Will he prefer a domestic life with Shelbye over an Interpol-life of blood-diamond operations for progressive Sinn Fein talks about overground/legitimate employment economics reforms for motivated young men of Belfast who aren't 'lured' into a crime-life of blood-diamond profits? This started out as an Algerian folk-story...but became an Irish one. Let's hope Shelbye's the victor.

====

"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)