The first thing he smelt was charred ash. A dour, stale smell that drifted in the air, staining the walls and ceiling of the room like a bad birthmark. If you'd have asked him 3 weeks ago prior to today never would he have considered smoking. That was before the bad thing had happened, and now he was puffing away 20 a day like a run-down steam engine.

Stacks of crumpled cigarette packets and empty beer bottles cluttered the floor, along with discarded business cards that seemed to taunt his name, William Shaw, with a bitter humour whenever he looked at them. He had it all - money, a career, an established identity, and yet never had he felt so lost, so meaningless. It seemed the period before when the black event occurred, when the tone and texture of life had suddenly dimmed like being turned down by a dial, was merely a gold and fragile vail, strung up in front of realities true, decrepit, face. A face that had clawed it's way through the happiness, the blistering rays of the summer sunshine, the mounting financial wealth and job promotions, like a pathetic wall of paper plastered over a back street entry.

The first thing he saw when he awoke this morning was the tan coloured ceiling of his flat. Through the sleep induced blurry vision of eyes that have not fully woke, this looked strangely like a vast desert, the minute crack that lay in the middle stretching before his tired eyes into a huge smiling ravine. It reminded him of the grand canyon, something as a child he'd always wanted to visit. He had spent a lot of his school holidays, and acrylic paint and canvases, drawing pictures of it, inspired by its many twists and curves, imagining it as an entrance to another mystical world below where dinosaurs and other creatures hid from the world above.

To a child creativity is essentially their way of interpreting life, and coming to terms with it, and for William Shaw the thing that got those cogs whirring was nature itself. He'd write stories, draw and paint pictures, and whilst his skill at all these was clumsy, his imagination was striking adept, confusing and wowing his parents who had been expecting a crude stick man drawing but instead were presented with a clunky, Van Gogh-style picturesque scene. Being an artist isn't all about the skill, anyone can perfect brush strokes, but looking at the ordinary and somehow visualising the extraordinary.

He never ended up going to the canyon, nor anywhere else for that matter - his mother was unemployed, utilising her time by taking piano lessons and gardening, and his father was a forklift driver at a logistics company. Barring the one-time trip to a seaside holiday camp, where the apartments had smelt of salt and the bedding was scratchy, Will had never been on holiday as a child.

But that was okay, he told himself, they struggled but never neglected me. Now, lying here as the amber hues of dawn startled trickling through the middle of the curtains, those days all seemed like a distant dream. Breaking down financially, they were exhausted and living in worry, yet he went on all the school trips, always had milk money and a cooked dinner waiting for him when he got home.

I have more than I could ever want, and had then, so why do I feel like this?

He knew why, it was because of the bad thing. It had lodged itself inside him, like a festering tumour. No amount of running or distracting himself would make it any better; it would be like running a race against a car or a train.

Or a speeding bullet -

[Hush! Don't want to think about that]

And it was in that split moment he felt an image rising to the surface, callous and cold - a champagne glass exploding into a shower of shards, and oh the screams all he could hear was their screams rising like a tidal wave, ready to submerge, to drown -

BANG BANG!!

He rose with a jolt and glanced over to the digital clock which blinked 8:49 in the far corner. He was running late again and needed to get a move on if he was to arrive at work on time. He hadn't been late ever, but over this week getting up had been a struggle. Sleep just seemed more of a priority right now.

He grabbed a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, grimacing as the acrid taste filled his mouth. The first was always the worst; causing slight nausea as the nicotine rushed to your head. However the feeling of airlessness afterwards was amazing, temporarily stunning all the nerves in your brain, giving a confused floating feeling only drugs can better. His best mate John, who'd subsequently introduced him to smoking, often said the best cigarette of the day is the first as the 12 hour sleep hiatus allowed the brain to detoxify itself, thus catalysing the nicotine rush. The fact John also thought the Queen was an alien and that Donald Trump should be president made Will take his advice with a pinch of salt - but, in regards to smoking, he was almost spot on.

Much like himself, John was quite a skinny guy with a shock of scruffy black hair receding even though he was in his late twenties, and his black outlook on life often contradicted his bubbly personality. Will had known him for years since high school, and knew full well his stupid and often sarcastic jokes hid the darker side to him; John had served time in prison for a theft he didn't commit and, although he wouldn't admit it, had lapsed into a drug addiction upon his release. The slight gaunt dips in his cheeks said it all.

Looking at him coping, just, and carrying on filled Will with both admiration and guilt. His best friend was spiralling into a whirlpool right under his nose, and the worse part of all - he couldn't do anything about it. Again the feeling of helplessness, of meaninglessness, was there gnawing away like a bloated sewer rat.

He took another drag and glanced again to the clock. Now it read 8:57, almost grinning at him from the other side of the room.

Better get a shifty on, and with that he stubbed the cigarette out and stumbled toward the bathroom, catching his toe and cursing as he went.