Endymion

Prologue

That day, to Alex McCarfferty Simpson, couldn’t be more normal.

He got up at 7:30 am as usual; went for a run as usual; was stuck in the traffic when crossing the harbour bridge and curse every single person he had met in his life so far as usual; he even had a chat with fellow colleague, Jonathan, about the footy match in the tearoom on their morning tea break as usual.

Alex was an architect. His firm was specialising in renovating old houses. This has become a new trend lately in Auckland. Buy an old granny house, preferably turn-of-century villa, redecorate it into modern day standard. Mix a bit of olds with a bit of news. Very retro revival thingy. Thanks to this trend Alex’s firm had been quite busy. Alex himself had three active jobs at the moment: one in Parnell, one in Epsom, and one in Birkenhead. He was going to meet another client in the afternoon, which might be his fourth job.

He was having muscle pains for about a day or two, due to the triathlon competition he had participated during the weekend. He thought he might have over trained prior to the game. However, he wasn’t worry about it that much. They should be gone by the next couple of days.

He was more worried about his dinner with Kate, his girlfriend, tonight. Kate and him had been out for nearly 2 years now. Everything went pretty well between them. He was thinking of asking her to marry him this evening.

Alex finished his meeting with his client by 11:00am. All went well and he got himself the fourth job.

He started developing a headache..

By about 1:30 in the afternoon, his headache had progressed into migraine. He took some painkillers on his way to inspect the construction sites, hoping it will go away. But it got worst. At 3:00, the migraine was so severe he barely able to drive his car back to the office. At the same time, fatigue started attacking his body.

Alex decided to leave work early to get some rest before dinner. For safety, he left his car at work and took the taxi home. He was so tired, the taxi driver had to wake him up when they arrived in front of the house.

Alex struggled to make his way towards the front door. He got into the house, put the key down, and then headed straight towards his bed. He felt asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Half asleep, he heard the phone ring. But he decided not to take it.

Dinner was at 7:00; he got plenty of time to have a nap. At least that’s what he thought.

He turned around, and drifting into a deeper sleep.