—— ? ——

  There are moments in life when you question how everything went wrong.

  Fewer moments when you wonder where "here" even is.

  And only the rarest of occasions when both hit you at once.

  Simon was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to happen. Yet here he was.

  Everything was white. It wasn’t snow; it wasn’t fog. Just pure shapeless ‘whiteness’.

  Like being trapped inside a smokey room. There was no distinct smell, there was no feature to focus on.

  Nothing. Void. Blank.

  Simon’s last memory was that godforsaken progress bar in the server room. Maybe on the way to the elevator, his brain just quit.

  Was it a stroke?

  A seizure?

  Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised. After that car accident a few years ago, this would just be a statistical likelihood.

  “Probably a coma,” he muttered, stroking his chin.

  He froze.

  Simon had been stroking his chin.

  He could feel his chin!

  Alright. A coma wouldn’t let me move. Right?

  Testing his limits, Simon jumped. He walked. He ran.

  Well, he was pretty sure he was doing these things. Outside of his body, he was getting zero feedback from the world around him.

  There was nothing. No real ‘floor’. No sound.

  But he was still able to ‘move’. He flexed his hand, feeling his skin crinkle and the pressure and sensation of his fingers.

  Was this a lucid coma?

  “Okay,” He said aloud. “A lucid coma I can work with. I can do things in a lucid coma. Doing things will help keep me sane.”

  He paused, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

  “I think.”

  The sensation of breathing felt off. It was like something was wrong with the air around him. Was it because his mind was failing to simulate the concept of air?

  Oxygen was complicated… right?

  All things considered, this turn of events could have been worse. What would he have done if he was able to think but couldn’t move? That would have been awful. He wasn’t sure what he would have done.

  He had faced a similar fear before. Simon looked at his recovery in the hospital as a net positive, but it wasn’t always… great.

  Simon had passed out from the pain so many times that first day. When he finally woke up, body bandaged and devices beeping around him, his mind had been so jumbled that he thought he wasn’t going to recover. His body was in so much pain, it felt like he would be trapped in that hospital bed forever.

  He had survived that. Hell, it had been something that had transformed into a light in his dark life.

  How was this different?

  He survived through the horrifying pain and made it through. He would do it again.

  Although, the emptiness around him was really starting to bother him.

  Wait. If this is my mind, why can’t I make things appear here?

  He stopped moving and focused intensely.

  Minutes passed.

  At least what felt like minutes passed.

  Wait, was it minutes? Hours?

  Simon knew dreams always seemed much longer than they actually were.

  Everything he had done in this void, this white empty space, might have only taken seconds back in reality. He was probably still… still..

  Oh god.

  The outside world.

  The dimly lit basement. The computer that broke on Tuesdays.

  No one was going to find him down there. That remote, forgotten crevice. His body would lay on the ground, seizing and drooling. The only observer is Buddy, the old computer.

  Wait! The computer! He hadn’t pressed accept on the second prompt! Someone would come check and find out what was wrong, right?

  Hope.

  “Man, this is shaping up to be one shitty Tuesday.” Simon spoke to the void.

  Dread started to fight against his hopeful thoughts. There was a problem.

  Sure, someone SHOULD go check on the server. Matthew knew what the issue was and how Simon fixed it. He would know where to send someone to finish the fix.

  But…

  “Shit.” Simon groaned. No one was going to come check. His co-workers and manager would band together in a show of loyalty and backwards tribe mentality. Matthew would wait for Cindy to come complain.

  His co-workers?

  “Oh? It’s not working? The manufacturer is sending out an extra software patch because it’s their company's anniversary!” They would say. “Don’t worry, we will restart the server tonight and the files will come back.”

  They would cover Simon’s ass, patting themselves on the back. It was just what they all did. It was expected.

  Why?

  Well, would you want to sit next to the person you just ratted on? What would happen on a day when you failed to turn something in, be it by incompetence or forgetfulness.

  “It could be weeks.” Simon whispered, not trusting his voice. “My body is going to lay on the floor, slowly dying, until someone decides to check.”

  This was a huge problem. Was all of this the remains of his accident? Something wrong with his head after the accident they hadn’t caught?

  Simon sat back, struggling with these thoughts.

  His optimism deflated, like a balloon meeting a cactus.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  He was sure he could come back from almost anything. He had done it before. One foot into the grave, and he still pulled himself out.

  Death would need to show up in person and drag his sorry ass into hell before he gave up.

  Even then, he was going to claw the gates open and escape.

  Or that’s what Simon thought. In reality he stood in the void, his mental body quivering and thoughts racing.

  “Yeah.” he told himself. “I can beat this. I can figure out a way.” Simon nodded to himself, his face resolute.

  Now the problem.

  What the hell was he supposed to do? Simon had no fucking clue. Just a dumb mentality of “I got this.”

  Just how long did he have?

  Simon let the minutes float by.

  Nope.

  Doing nothing, did nothing. Shocker.

  He wasn’t waking up on his own anytime soon. Could he do something to rouse himself?

  “Might as well try something. Not like this can get any worse.”

  Simon thought hard.

  Jumped.

  Screamed.

  Focused his ‘inner eye’, then stopped trying to do that. What the hell was that thought ‘focus your inner eye’.

  Nothing worked.

  “Alright brain, it’s time to play dirty.” Simon said to the void. “We go with the time honored cliche.”

  Simon took his fingers and grabbed a pinch of skin. He twisted it hard.

  It hurt.

  “Hey, that’s something!”

  He could feel ‘pain’ in this void. Maybe he could shock himself enough to jolt awake? That might work.

  Simon looked around. Wow. It was a white void. Glad he did that. He bunched his leg muscles then charged forward and launched himself. He went shoulder first into the ground.

  Instead of an impact and more pain he was greeted with nothing. His shoulder moved through the ‘floor’ and he came to a stop. It was like the entire world just went ‘nope’ and stopped what he was doing.

  “What?” Simon shook his head, getting to his feet. “That makes absolutely no sense. I pinched myself, why can’t I throw myself to the ground?”

  He stomped his foot. There was no feedback. It was like a fluffy cloud, or a super strange ball pit at a fast-food joint.

  Several attempts later and Simon gave up on that approach.

  “This sucks. Time for a new approach.”

  Simon pumped his arm back, made a fist, then swung his fist into the ‘ground’.

  Same result. His arm just disappeared into the substance, all force vanishing as it contacted the material.

  Come on brain, I know you don’t like pain, but seriously. He pleaded with himself. If we stay on this floor passed out, we are NEVER coming back from this.

  Unsurprisingly, Simon got no response in return.

  It was time for Plan B. Pinching worked so…

  Simon cocked his hand back and threw a haymaker at his face.

  In an instant, a strange, mist-like substance covered his hand. It was like the floor, but this time it had the consistency of wet corn starch. Rubbery… and gum-like? Both. At the same time.

  All the force in his punch vanished.

  Frustrating.

  He tried again. Same result. Again. Same result. AGAIN.

  How could pinching work, but not punching?!

  Was this type of self torture just not allowed by his brain? What a stupid rule. Who said this was allowed? Not Simon, that’s for damn sure.

  Well, he knew one thing that worked. He could take that to the absolute extreme. Slowly building up the pain would suck, but Simon was determined.

  It was do or die. Simon chose not dying, thank you very much.

  He grabbed a handful of skin, took a deep breath and started to twist. The pinching sensation ramped up as continually increased the pressure. It started to get unbearable, but Simon pushed forward. He was going to live, god damnit.

  Then the strangest thing happened.

  He watched as the hand he was twisting his skin with started to slow. Simon didn’t slow his twisting or relax his muscles yet… the pressure began to wane.

  It was his head, brain or something stopping him from causing more harm. That dumb part of him needed to shut the hell up and let him work.

  “HEY YOU! WAKE UP!” He shouted into the white.

  Nothing.

  “Okay, brain, let's talk. I know we don’t like pain. But if we stay where we are right now, we are going to die. So let's quit this preventive bullshit, alright?” He paused, then decided to reason with himself. “Just think, if you let me do this I can wake up. Then I will crawl to the elevator and get it. That’s it. That’s all I need to do. From there, someone will find me.”

  Again.

  Nothing.

  “God. DAMNIT.” His voice took on panic. “We are going to DIE. Everyone is going to cover for us until the end of time.” Simon’s voice shook. “No one. Is coming. No one will look. Not for days. Weeks?!”

  Frustration swelled.

  “COME ON BRAIN WAKE UP!!!”

  He panted from the outburst, his mind unhelpfully providing him with the memory of a simpsons meme. ‘Old Man Yells at Cloud’ the image said. That was all Simon was doing here. Hopelessly screaming into the void, expecting something to change.

  The next minutes were not his proudest ones.

  He tried every trick he could think of to get his brain to see reason.

  He pleaded, he cried, he raged.

  He begged.

  After who knows how long, he sat.

  “There was just so much I never got to see.” He muttered, dejected. “Like the world's largest cheese wheel.”

  He had been a roaring river of emotions, but his screaming had drained him.

  Nothing was working.

  “Fine. You want to slow me down? Stop me from hurting us? Too fucking bad.”

  He grabbed a handful of skin again. “I’m going to do this, over and over again. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. We will twist every piece of skin on my body until you let me wake myself up.”

  Simon started twisting, the action doing that weird ‘slowing’ thing again. Simon growled and spat, the spittle flying out as he grabbed a different section of his body. He was going to hurt his body until his brain gave in.

  That was it. There was nothing else he could do. Deal with it, dumbass brain.

  He had moved to a fourth section of skin when he nearly had a heart attack.

  “Would you please stop that?”

  Simon froze.

  That voice hadn’t been his. It was from outside his current head in the white space.

  “Depends… are you going to let me wake up? Dumbass brain?” Simon sneered at himself.

  “That would be difficult, considering you are already awake!” The voice replied.

  “Hell YES! Now we are talking. Also, I am clearly not awake.” Simon said, gesturing to the surrounding void.

  Who would have known he would get so excited to talk to himself. At least the time before his death would be interesting. Better to be insane and talking then silently accepting his fate.

  “No, you really are awake. Regrettably so. The system prefers waking people up naturally after transportation. However, you woke up far earlier than expected. Not ideal.”

  Simon frowned.

  What the hell was his brain talking about? System? Transportation? Oh shit, that seizure must have been really bad. Just how messed up was his body?

  “I can assure you, your body suffered no issues. It is in great condition.” the voice paused. “Well, except for being in stasis, that is. I guess technically that could be considered less than ideal."

  Well, it made sense that his own brain could read his thoughts.

  Something bothered him though. Doubt filled his mind. This voice… didn’t sound like him? That was a stupid thought right? How the hell would he know what his lucid coma voice in the void would sound like?

  But something still nagged at him. Why did this voice sound so different then what he expected? That made no sense.

  But… still…

  Simon decided to trust his gut feeling. Taking action and trusting himself is how he got through most of his life, so why should he change now?

  Okay, if this thing wasn’t him for some ridiculous reason, how could he prove that?

  His mind raced through theories. He drew on every movie he had watched. The books he had read.

  An idea came to him.

  Simon went through every dumb thought he could think of. The worst jokes he had told. The most awkward moments.

  No response.

  He sighed. Of course that didn’t work. Why would it. If it was his brain, it already knew all of those horrible jokes, those awkward moments. If it was something else, why would it care?

  Simon racked his mind to come up with a way to solve this. Several minutes later, he still had no idea.

  “God damned Tuesdays.” He moaned. “Always the worst. I didn’t get my coffee before having to deal with this shit.”

  “I really don’t get it. How is the concept of ‘Tuesday’ the most horrible thing? I don’t think this arbitrary day is as horrible as you think,” The voice chimed in.

  Simon’s mind screeched to a halt. He blinked. His body felt numb, his emotions frozen as he tried to comprehend.

  Shit. okay.

  Breathe in.

  No sensation.

  Breathe out.

  No sensation.

  Nope. That’s not fucking helping.

  His mind finally broke from its deadlock, the numb feeling replaced with rage.

  “Who—the hell—are you?!”

  Silence.

  Moments crawled by.

  Simon was not okay, he was freaking out. What was going on?

  Finally, the voice spoke again.

  “I am honestly surprised… You have to be the strangest being I have encountered so far.”

  It paused, seeming to think through its next words.

  “How is it that the concept of a day convinces you another being is here? Fascinating.”

  Simon took a deep breath, turned to the sky and shouted.

  “BECAUSE TUESDAYS SUCKKK!”

  —— ? ——