Sundays are the worst. I'm treading carefully along the tightrope that separates utopia and dystopia. I know I should be happy but really I'm not and it is in these moments where I format my potential futures, both literal and metaphorical, as a film reel for my own viewing pleasure. You can still do more with the imagination than with a Hollywood film budget. Much, much more.

In the first, and perhaps worst case, scenario, I've given up. I've stopped what I love and I'm focusing solely on procuring money through whatever means possible. I'm working three jobs; Two delivering take away food (one chinese, the other indian) and the other in a small office typing up irrelevant articles about issues that do not interest me for some unknown magazine. Once a week, I'll go to the cinema with a friend or two then head out for a couple of drinks. At the weekends, I'll go out and get adequately drunk, more often than not on both nights. I've stopped doing the dumb things that I used to do but this is primarily because I'm no longer the person I was. I've lost my confidence. I've lost my spark. I was losing it all along but the new lifestyle just accelerated it's disintegration. It's a quite life and slowly but surely I fade into the wallpaper and die, young, unhappy and without any achievements, when a bus driver sees me crossing the road but decides it's easier to continue and mow me down than to apply the brakes and not traumatise the entire population of the bus, included three children (aged between four and seven), a clique of angry looking teenagers ("non-conformists they'll think themselves to be, no doubt), seven adults (in the twenty-four to fifty-size range) and more elders than the Cliff Richard fan club.

Fuck that. I'm not having my death printed on the memory of a bunch of strangers. I wouldn't allow them the story telling rights; "Oh, you'll never guess what happened on the bus today!..."

The next scene plays out and I'm a happy married man, with two wonderful kids and a dog that I've called Scrub. It's a shit name but it's only a dream. If this proves more a vision than a dream and I do indeed live out this scenario then I'll think of a better name. Perhaps Jeff. Jeff the dog. I like that. But that's not what the fantasy called it, so thus that is not what it shall be called for the purpose of this story. Scrub it is. The children go nameless, though again, should I have kids in future, they'll be named with magnificent names. My house is large, with sufficient space to breed dinosaurs and build an airport if it took my fancy. I choose to do neither due to the financial and extinction factors, amongst other things. Once a week, I take the family out to dinner. Once a week, I'll do something with friends. Bowling or football or something. Once every couple of weeks or so, I'll have a neighbour or relative look after the children while I treat the lady by taking her out to a fancy restaurant before taking her out to the dancing or the cinema or whatever activity takes her fancy that week. But just as the sun can prove troublesome, each life has its downsides and at this point that I discovered that although I am happy and married, I am not happy with my marriage. You see, the woman I am currently with is no longer my wife and the woman I am married to (but have since parted with) is no longer a friend. There is no future that will keep me happy. There is no past that can prepare me for this.

These revealing extremes part ways and leave me with a much more interesting and confusing vision. One of such grandiose importance yet incredibly gnomic. In it, I am not me, but a greater man. I am a gladiator. Strong in body and mind. Brave and noble. Widely respected and admired. A figure so intensely awe-inspiring and inconceivably rich in soul. Yet a man that has been pitted against an animal so fierce and so dangerous that no man nor animal has cared to name or even imagine it until now. It is in this fantasy that humankind is first weighted up against such an opponent and it is I who is standing in the corner for mankind. This is an animal much akin to a lion in appearance and ferocity yet with the strength and stamina of a bear. No-one knows where it came from or it's motive for being here but we've accepted what we've been dealt with and we're moving closer to resolving the issue. The crowd are massive and stentorian in this vast coliseum, with barely an inch to divide each person. The beast reflects the fear I'm clearly showing but is being rallied up by humans who wish to enrage it in hope for a better fight, despite their obvious bias towards mankind. In anger, it's baring it's large, sharp teeth and is starting to spasm. Were this vision in cartoon form, we'd see smoke bellowing from each ear of the beast, while its' cheeks turned a martian red. But it's not. So we don't. A bell goes affirming the start of the match officially as I find myself in the path of an enormous, infuriated cat of death. If I were to be struck in this collision, I'd almost certainly be killed. I'm lucky enough to move in time enough for the animal to miss me and crash into the backing wall, bewildering it slightly. It shakes off the blow and runs for me again, this time not so thoughtlessly. We wrestle out for a little bit and eventually I find myself on my back at the beasts disposal. A giant paw cocks back in the air before swooping harshly towards my face with such momentum that could potentially rip my head and neck from my torso. As it nears, it is met with my shield, knocking the animal off balance and on to its side, allowing me to force myself on top it of, my sword pressed against its neck. One thrust would prove fatal. Yet in this moment, I'm overwhelmed by an epiphany of stratospherical levels and decide that it is not the beast I want. I disarm and prepare as I am ruthlessly discarded from this world.