Harold stared down at the cuts on his hands, numb to his surroundings. As he examined the multitude of cuts and scrapes that covered them he marvelled at his ability to do so. Just four hours ago the idea of him sitting outside in the street and his attention being on anything other than the crushing weight of the outside world on top of his head would have seemed an impossibility.

The day has started like the one before it, and the one before that. And we’ll, each one before that really. It had been two years since he’d left his apartment, opening the door even only to food deliveries and the occasional family visitor. Harold wasn’t sure how it had started. He’s had a tough year or two for sure, somehow he started leaving less and less. The pandemic hadn’t helped, but he couldn’t really blame just that. Eventually it’s been weeks since he’d left the house and he’s realised he’d started to fear the prospect. By that point it felt too late though, the pattern had been established and the behaviour set. He didn’t know how to change it, so he just carried on. As humans tend to do he supposed.

After his breakfast he’d sat at his desk, checking his new sites and feeds. A like warm coffee sat on the edge of the desk, gently cradled in his left hand as he absorbed the final remnants of heat from the ceramic. Then all of a sudden it was as if the very world had exploded. Harold was thrown backwards, as was his desk, to the other side of the room. Every inch of his body felt as if a thousand tiny daggers had been hurled into him. He was subconsciously aware of the sounds of exploding glass and pulverised brick even before he hit the floor. Everything went black.

He awake a short time later, pain everywhere, crushed Beamer his desk on the floor. Everything was coasted in plaster dust and debris and his head felt like someone was pounding his skull with a blacksmiths hammer. He slowly stared around him, the realisation of his situation sinking in. A bus has gone out of control and smashed into the front of his building. He could dimly hear the screaming of the travellers and caught ima glimpse of them as they exited out through the back of the mangled bus carcass.

He took a few more moments to try and collect himself, slowly he became aware of the smell of petrol fumes and the sound of sparking electricity. In that moment Harold almost laughed, it was just like a movie. Loose wires sparking, petrol pouring out of a wreck, a ticking time bomb. You couldn’t write this stuff. Still, danger was danger, Harold gathered himself together and slowly pushed the brown desk off himself. Time to get out of here.

He worked his way through the wreckage, squeezed past the bus that was stuck in his front wall and exited onto the street. The scene outside was just as bad as inside, but with more people. And sirens, lots of sirens.Harold stumbles to what he guessed was a safe distance and sat on the curb. Around him people rushed around, but weirdly he felt totally calm.

Harold stared down on the cuts on his hands, numb to his surroundings.