In This World (Harry Styles)

Missing Chapter 3 (Jamaica)

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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Port Antonio, Jamaica

December 2020

HARRY

If I could think of one thing I was sure I'd never have to endure again, it was the hellish ride up this mountainside road, hitting a pothole every few feet the entire way. The only saving grace was the view. I gazed out over a forested valley surrounded by smoky blue mountains and coffee plantations, and couldn't believe my eyes. Not a bit of it had changed. Not the hidden homes peaking from among the brush below. Not the chimney stacks. Not the hiss of the hidden falls. Not the exotic flora. Not the scarily young children wandering about and smoking cigarettes as we reached the summit.

Van Morrisson's "Tupelo Honey" kept me company as I hadn't spoken with anyone in days. It was nice to be away from the bustle of the town, with its bright colored buildings, poorly kept. The reeking truck exhaust, loud engines zooming up and down the road all day long, mopeds slicing through traffic. Music blasting from car stereos. A universe of sights and sounds and smells wafting from the teeming markets of Fort George Street. I wanted only the sedating sounds of the sea. I was in no mood for eating. I was in no mood for vibing like the last time I'd come here. Drinking was about all I wanted to do, and I would see to that as soon as I settled.

Don't get me wrong, sobriety had been nice. It'd had its moment. Its time in the sun, if you will, and even came close to convincing me I was a better man for it. I'd stuck it through for a solid three months, but now desperate times called for desperate measures. This wasn't a vacation. More like asylum seeking. I couldn't go back to the States, or the UK, and considering the circumstances, Japan seemed the most unlikely of all. There was a 6'4, 200-pound Aussie madman looking to take my head clean off my shoulders if I ever stepped foot back in that place. I was sure of it. So, the best thing to do now is what I was becoming rather good at: run. New phone, new number, loads of cold hard cash and supplies; and a one-way ticket to No Man's Land. That was my life for the foreseeable future, as this time, real calamity had found me. Not like my April 2020 heartbreak or that time I'd ventured away from the known world to write my first album in 2016. This shit was bleak. I was a bloody fucking fugitive, for all intents and purposes.

Fuck's sake, it was warm out, despite the time of year. It was a nice reprieve from winter in Amsterdam, although that week or so would always be etched on my mind as the final days of peace I would ever know. I was only 26, and had experienced 10 lifetimes in one by now, and to top it all off was the uppercut from hell, knocking my bloody chin clean into the air until all I saw was stars. When I returned to consciousness, the world seemed to collapse in on itself. The sky falling with thunderous impact around me, as I frantically made my way to the airport for a hastily booked flight to the Caribbean. I'd screwed the world. Ruined millions of lives. Ended careers. Weirdly made others. You know, the gossipers. But I'd also become the destroyer of fantasies, ripping a hole in the multiverse where riotous realities were now compounding in on themselves and no one, save myself and one other soul, could make sense of what the world had become, or where there was even left to go from here.

"Don't stop," I uttered, as the cabbie slowed to pass through a crowd milling about at the entrance to the resort. I couldn't understand why they were here, but if word had broken that I'd made it to Jamaica, that might make sense of things. Thankfully the windows were tinted, a precaution I'd taken from the moment I'd left the Waldorf Astoria in the Netherlands, and I doubted I'd ever be able to traverse any town in any corner of the world without total concealment from now on. What a life.