Oxford, England
22nd September 1976
It's the little things that we rarely notice: those smaller, seemingly irrelevant memories that always lead to more memorable ones. We seem to forget that these events, when put in succession, can eventually change our lives forever. The aftermath can often times leave us in a state that we can never truly recover from, and can even change us into completely different people; people that we wouldn't even recognize.
These events are usually ones we often see in films and literature; we never expect that they can happen to us. But the fact of the matter is that these things do happen, and they can happen to anyone.
One tiny fraction of a second is all it takes to change everything. Your whole world turns upside down: you can't tell which way is up or which way is down. But these moments- they're only the beginning.
It happened on an ordinary September morning, only there wasn't anything ordinary about it. Or at least, not yet.
It started just like any other day: he woke up to the blaring of his alarm clock, promptly hitting the snooze button so he could sleep for just one more minute. Then one turned into twenty and he was going to be late for work… again. He jumped out of bed and hopped into the shower, grabbing his toothbrush on the way in hopes of conserving the few valuable minutes he had left.
After a two-minute shower (this allowed him only to rub shampoo in his hair while attempting to brush his teeth, then haphazardly rubbing the small bar of soap over his body), he hastily got dressed and was about to head out the door until he realized he had put his shirt on backwards.
With his shirt righted, he grabbed a quick snack on his way out the door and had practically inhaled it before he had even reached his car.
Ordinary. Normal. Routine.
He got in his car and started the long drive to work.
Ordinary. Normal. Routine.
Everything was normal.
Until it wasn't.
One minute he was singing along to the radio as he made his way through the busy streets of Oxford and the next, he was lying in the middle of the street, hanging onto life by a single thread.
A fraying thread that was about to break.