Perhaps the news of Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s victory skipped your house. Sure, you were too busy Googling your homework and missed Apple’s unveiling of the iPad. Maybe, just maybe, you didn’t realise Beyonce was coming to Trinidad. But you’d probably find it near-impossible to convince someone that you’ve never heard Palance.

If Allah wills it, Hakeema Abdul Latif would realize her dream of studying medicine at a leading medical school in the United States or Canada. But after a few conversations with friends, she is convinced her name could get her the wrong kind of attention if she ever decided to study abroad.

A name can say a lot before you have the opportunity to say much for yourself. Parents put a lot of thought into names and sometimes all that thought and research results in some of the strangest names you have ever heard.

One night you're battling demons, and the next you're were having a fight with your best friend, somewhere along the way you remember standing in condensed-milk rain. Share a dream with someone and you begin to sound like you were cast in a hilarious unscripted reality show.

*Tiffany Charles didn't wish her own boyfriend Merry Christmas this year and she didn't have to figure out what gift to buy him. No text, no card, not even a Facebook message. To her, December 25 is just another day.

In the middle of the night, 10-year-old Melissa* got up and thought she was dreaming but she quickly realized her 20-year-old brother was at it again, groping her and beckoning her to have sex with him another time. It had been going on since she was four. "Tomorrow, I'm telling my mother about this, I have to," she thought to herself.

By most measures, we were nondescript. Ryan was from Bon Air, Arouca, Matthew lived farther east in Sangre Grande and I grew up in Tunapuna. Three shortish boys from the east, we got into QRC the same year.

While many teenagers are participating in sports or are walking around various malls, Don Goodridge, 17, has never been able to walk, run or even stand upright without assistance. He’s been afflicted with cerebral palsy — a brain disorder which affects mobility — since he was born.

Clear your mind and embrace this story. Internalize it and realize that maybe, just maybe, the family problems you have really aren’t all that bad. If you can relate, however, or are experiencing worse, I still urge you to read on so that you know that you are not alone. This is the story of a 19-year-old young man stuck in a cycle that becomes a mental hell. This is Maze’s story…

Tucked away securely under her pillow is a rosary.
Anna-Marie Lee cannot, no, will not, sleep in her room without the prayer beads hidden beneath her head.