It was too hot outside.

He looked up and debated whether he would open the blinds, even after the sun had passed on to the south side of the building. East facings were great if you were a morning person, and had AC. Neither applied to him.

Probably should, need to water the plants…. He thought to himself as he buttoned up his old Hawaiian shirt so that no one would get an unwanted surprise.

He looked down at his spider plants that his mum had given him when they were just shoots surviving in a jar full of water. They looked good, almost two feet tall now; and some shoots were even wider than his thumb.

He looked over at the small spruce in the terra-cotta planter and paused, remembering.

Shaking his head, he used the elephant shaped, sky blue, watering… can? It was plastic, so that probably didn’t apply. He shook his head as he finished.

Another pause as he spotted what had been decorative window jelly letters. Seems that if you leave them in the window long enough, behind a blind that helped trap the heat, they started to… melt. What had been a couple of bunnies and little eggs was now a long, misshapen, blob slowly making its way down the window.

Hmm, maybe some paper towel… Another shrug as he once again sat down, picking up his tablet to do more reading.

Another pause.

Was it just escapism? This time a sigh escaped him as he looked over at the little spruce tree, barely five inches tall and scrawny as can be. She had been so proud to present that to him for Father’s Day, her little sister insisting on being able to hold the tiny planter it had come in.

A smile, but oh-so bitter-sweet.

A few deep breaths, head tilted back.

What was he to do? Everything we so… grey. So lifeless.

Shaking his head once again, he grabbed his phone and brought up the music app, found his songs, and then hit shuffle.

“Oh where, oh where could my-“, that got immediately skipped and the phone nearly thrown out the window.

Taking another deep breath, he instead found one of his playlists that featured purely instrumental pieces.

Much better.

Soon enough he was back to reading about his favourite Aussie ninja-wizard (once again wondering about the pants theme) and waiting for his dinner to arrive.

Which didn’t take long as the No-Dishes ordering service was pretty quick when the restaurant was only a kilometre away.

Soon enough he was once again sitting, but this time distracted by not just music and reading, but also food! Mmmm, chicken-cashew stir-fry….

But just as he was about dig in, from the corner of his eye, something caught his attention. It was a bright flash of light, and as he turned his head fast enough to hear a pop, he saw the house across the way explode outwards, sending debris everywhere.

The thing that really caught his attention was the huge black object that flew out and towards him.

Not two seconds later, it had skipped once off a parked car out front and sort of did a belly flop into his apartment.

Two things happened, well, three if you count his shout of surprise. The first was that he was knocked over by the shockwave. The second was a wave of vertigo and dizziness so strong that it put any festival/park/exhibition ride he’d ever been on to shame. He then promptly threw up and lost consciousness.

Well, five things, but who was counting?