The Selfless Act of Breathing

Despite British Congolese Michael Kabongo’s full life in London, with close friends and a good teaching job, as he boards a plane for San Francisco he finds he has lost his zest for life. He’s frustrated that he cannot remedy the social injustices his students endure, and after quitting his job and emptying his savings, he departs without explanation or goodbyes to his mother or friends but with a clear-eyed determination to end his life when his money runs out. As Michael travels across the country with stops in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and New York, flashbacks reveal how he came to such a hopeless state. A childhood in war-torn Congo and the loss of his father, an adolescence with his single mother in a housing estate where drugs were ubiquitous, and a run of disappointing relationships have all taken their toll. Eventually, the cycles of poverty and gang violence, which are repeating themselves with his students, have overwhelmed him.