Simon was late again… His life is not especially hectic, but he always seems to find ways to get distracted and let large swaths of time pass by unnoticed. This evening he had been playing online games with his friends again and lost track of the time, so now he is rushing down the street to the shop before it closes. All he really wants are some snacks and a cold drink, along with some time to stretch his legs and smoke a cheeky joint on the way back.

His heart was beating quite strongly in his chest, but he was used to this feeling while walking, in fact he was not particularly accustomed to walking slowly anymore and felt that pushing himself a little helped to keep him relatively in shape. He doesn’t work out at all, but does stay reasonably active despite spending many hours of the day sitting in his room being less than productive.

The weather was extremely humid due to it being the middle of June, and the air had that static tang that precedes a thunderstorm. The clouds didn’t look quite ready to burst yet though, so Simon knew he had time.

In, snacks, drink, cash, out, feels like I set off 5 seconds ago Simon thinks to himself. What the hell is time anyway? Now, where’s that joint, which pocket? Ah yes, here it is. A few clicks of a lighter later, several deep inhalations, a flick of the finger, and suddenly Simon finds himself in front of his door fumbling to find his keys. “It’s fine” he thinks, he has a specific pocket he tries to keep them in so as not to lose them. They’re not there…

Next pocket, nope, next, nope, next… NO… Simon is getting visibly frustrated as he takes his bag off and unzips the main compartment. He checks the little top pocket to no avail, takes a short but deep breath and starts to unload the bag of its contents. Still no keys. The frustration is building now, and Simon is starting to get angry. At this point his mind comes into focus and he remembers where they are.

He takes another short deep breath through his nose before unzipping the side pocket and retrieving his keys from the “safe place” he remembers putting them in earlier. He angrily mumbles to himself about how casually absent-minded he is at times as he picks everything up and opens the door. It’s fine he thinks, just get in, get sorted and relax in front of an episode of something before bed.

Simon has a fairly decent sleep pattern, however it is exclusively regulated by a routine of winding down over the course of an hour or so and smoking alone in order to quiet his thoughts enough to get to sleep. Tonight the weather was temperamental, but warm enough to sit outside in a t-shirt, which is unusual for Simon as he usually has to wear several warm layers while he smokes due to the bitter cold of England at one in the morning.

He sits in a quiet, discreet spot and takes in his surroundings, expanding his awareness outwards, detecting every sound, the direction of the steady breeze and entering into a state that is almost euphoric. Sometimes this is where his depression throws a black cloud over his mind, manipulating his thoughts into dark and torturous imaginings of what is, what was, what could have been, or what could be. He smokes to numb these thoughts and sooth his anxiety. Tonight however he was ok. Simon’s depression is fairly-heavily influenced by the current circumstances of his life and at the moment, despite him feeling a bit disconnected, life was pretty good. He finishes up and just like every other night, goes to bed and gets a decent night’s sleep.

As his brain boots up the next morning, he lets out a groan and turns over, lying there for a minute before grabbing his phone and sitting up. He blinks his eyes into relative focus and checks for messages. He and his friends had a group chat that was awash with memes and banter, he has a dating app that he checks (a futile effort he thinks) and he is subscribed to some online news channels which he watches to get caught up on events and politics.

After an hour or so of absorbing a fairly large quantity of both useful and useless information, he hears the real world knocking, it was time to get up and face another day. He isn’t Superman, he isn’t a millionaire with the whole world at his fingertips, he doesn’t have some easy job that ensures his life is like a comfortable car ride, he was just Simon, sitting on the edge of his bed, struggling to figure out how to achieve the life he so desperately wants before he feels it’s too late.

Twenty-eight and still living at home can take a toll on a young(ish) man’s self-esteem and confidence in their ability to succeed. Simon has to find a road that leads to an independent life soon, otherwise he fears he might crack and become one of those mindless ones he sees walking the streets, living mundane and repetitive lives, not much caring to better themselves or achieve anything out of the ordinary.

Work today at the pub feels just like any other day at work. While he is there, Simon feels like every day he has ever worked there has merged into one, like he never actually left his previous shift and that he is stuck in some eternal hell. The people are fine, his colleagues are fine and even his boss is a fairly decent person, but it wasn’t that that bothered him, it was the boring repetitiveness of everyday life. 

As soon as he steps outside after his shift though, most of those feelings drop off almost instantly and he shifts his focus to enjoying the rest of his day. He makes sure to have a little something rolled for his walk home so that when he gets back, he is already in a relaxed mind frame. His keys are in the right pocket this time, but he doesn’t pay any mind to the times when they are, he just walks in almost on automatic and transforms into house-mode.

Time now to indulge in his favourite addiction, playing online games with his friends and going on digital adventures. Simon has a pretty eclectic and strange group of friends which he has accumulated over the years, all of whom he knows or knew personally outside the internet. He has not seen most of them in many years, simply due to the fact that Simon has moved around a fair bit.

Simon feels very close to his friends, each in different ways, but he doesn’t value any one of them any more than any of the others! They are part of him, and he relies upon them for emotional and psychological support. Simon doesn’t just let anyone into his inner circle, this group he has put together over the years are made up of people he completely trusts. He knows that they will always be there and have his back no matter what and they know that the reverse also applies! Each has had their problems over the years, and each has grown to rely on the security that such a close group of friends brings.

After a few intense hours of looting, grinding, fighting and dying, Simon was ready for bed. He rolls himself a little something and goes outside as he always does. The weather is the same as last night, warm yet muggy, with an electric tang in the air. He sits down in his usual spot and begins the process of winding down. Tonight was one of those nights where his smoke seemed to not have as strong an effect on him as it usually did. He was still feeling fairly alert and he knew that if he tried to go to sleep while he felt like this, it would be a long and possibly futile effort. So he went back inside, grabbed his bag, a bottle of his favourite juice and decided to go for a walk to tire himself out a bit.

As he walked, the sky rumbled. That storm is aching to erupt he thought, but he pressed on thinking to himself that, due to the hot weather, it wouldn’t be so bad if he did get caught in the rain. A few minutes later, it hit. The rain started very quickly and this wasn’t just rain, it was like standing in the shower! Simon was absolutely drenched in a matter of seconds and he found himself picking up the pace to get back. A flash of lightening, followed almost instantly by a deep thunderous rumble told him that the storm was right on top of him. Being struck by lightening was a very unlikely possibility, but Simon wasn’t one to tempt fate.

That’s when it happened. It happened so suddenly that he fell to the ground, but the ground was not what he expected, it was sand. He groaned and quickly started to pick himself up, when he quickly realised that it was a lot brighter all of a sudden. He shakily stood up and looked around… “This, wha’, wait what!?” he said out loud to himself. He simply couldn’t understand what had happened and it would be a long time before he would find out, but by some strange and inexplicable occurrence, Simon was in the middle of a vast, scorching desert.