He heaved, sweating, and pulled another door from the wreckage. Crouching down behind it he hoped to gain some respite from the carnage that surrounded him. The curly-haired man closed his eyes and breathed deeply hoping to recentre himself.
When he eventually opened his twitching eyes he spied the remains of his guide a few feet away.
Carefully dodging every spike and shard that threatened his feet below, he eventually reached the guidebook and with trembling hands scrambled to find the right page. It was useless; he already knew he had gone too far and there was no turning back at this point.
The guide was of no help, and he sunk to the ground with the door and landed in a shaking and overwhelmed heap.
Tommy Atkins listened to his heart beat furiously as the reality sunk in; it was him against over 150 units with no help in sight.
Hearing a crack under his left thigh, he found a broken mirror and looking back at him a man he hardly recognised. It was him, of course, only his reflection portrayed his harrowing situation and the emptiness he felt inside.
Always one for dark humour, Tommy laughed to himself as he recalled his earlier conversation begging for more responsibility and wanting to be the ‘hero’.
Well, he got what he wanted, although the ‘hero’ part was yet to be seen.
Once calmer, he abandoned the door and peeked around at the doom that enveloped him.
He needed a smoke.
Getting on his hands and knees he crawled around his self-made base camp and tried to spy his cigarettes and lighter. Long had they been missing here, but he was determined to have one last smoke before he gave up.
The debris was obscuring his vision; he could barely tell glass from wood from nail from lighter and so he let his hands do the searching, reaching out ahead and feeling about for his treasure. As effective as this was proved to be, it wasn’t without its risks; fingers were nicked, knees were poked and stabbed at, but eventually it paid off as his fingers traced the outline of that all-familiar paper box. Tommy had found his Nirvana and pulled himself to the wall looking up at the sky. It was dark now, and the moon was a welcome and relaxing sight.
Finally, he lit his prize and succumbed to his fate; defeated he sat breathing in the fumes of death and letting the moonlight highlight the scene.
Footsteps approached in the dark and Tommy kept his eyes closed. The steps seemed to carefully dodge the rubble below and he sensed them stop in front of him.
‘Is this wardrobe nearly done?’ his wife asked, hands on hips as she looked at her husband smoking surrounded by the pieces of an IKEA flatpack.
