Early Bird

EARLY BIRD

By Thorion Knight

Some people start their day with a reason. Others spend their lives searching for one.

For thirty-five-year-old Daniel Mercer, life is simple. Wake up at five, go to work, come home and do it all again. He's spent nearly twenty years working in warehouses, following the same routine and walking the same streets of Liverpool. He's not unhappy. At least, that's what he tells himself.

But when Daniel takes an unexpected week off work, something begins to change. For the first time in years, he starts noticing the world around him - the people, the places and the lives unfolding beyond his familiar daily routine.

Then he notices Jamie.

Just fourteen years old, Jamie is living on the streets, caught in a dangerous world of exploitation and intimidation. He's learned not to trust adults, not to ask for help and certainly not to expect anyone to care.

Daniel's first gesture of kindness is small. A little food. A conversation. A few minutes of his time.

But sometimes the smallest gestures have the biggest consequences.

As Daniel becomes increasingly involved in Jamie's life, he finds himself facing people who will do whatever it takes to keep the boy under their control. What begins as an attempt to help someone in need soon becomes a battle involving courage, loyalty and the true meaning of doing the right thing.

Daniel has spent his entire adult life getting up before the sun.

He is about to discover what it really means to live.

EARLY BIRD is a powerful and moving story of unlikely friendship, loneliness, exploitation, sacrifice and the difference one ordinary person can make.

Because sometimes, all it takes to change someone's life is for one person to stop walking past.