He felt confused and alone. He lay on the floor, frail and weak and paralysed, his body sprawled out. Around him his personal items - wallet, stick and shopping bag - lay scattered, yet almost seeming as if they had been purposely placed there. His wallet was unzipped, with the name on his driver’s license just barely sticking out: Tom Perkins.

He had been floored, unable to even stand, for - as his license told us - he was 73 years old. He began to wish he hadn’t injured his leg in the Falkland’s war, causing his lack of exercise in the past. He remembered how the boy had approached him like a dark shadow, and how he felt when his face had hit the cold, hard, brutal floor. “My God,” he thought, “If I was just a bit younger, I would’ve given him a thick ear. He wouldn’t have got me pushed…pushed down like that. Yes. I fought in a war.”

He started to remember with misty eyes the days of his youth, a good 65 years ago, when he was running around like a regular Parson Jim. He was fit and healthy then, exercising daily and eating the right meals. How he missed the year of 1943, when he was young and carefree, going where he pleased and father was around. The memory of war slowly began to creep up on him, but he quickly extinguished the thought and went on to remember his middle-aged life.

His beautiful wife, his young daughter’s birth, a great job with good friends…they were some of the best years of his life. “1967 was a particularly good year,” he recalled “a year of good…no, wait…great intentions. Yes, that was it”. He and his family had worked hard then, making sure they did their best in each of their jobs. He then started remembering how proud he was of his daughter when he chauffeured her to her senior prom. “She looked stunning in her mother’s dress, the spitting image of her in her youth” he thought. “Oh yes. Wasn’t long before, three years later, she moved out. I cried that…that day…”

Tom’s mind started to fade into a sea of memories, remembering pleasure after pleasure, until he was snapped out of it by the rush of car on the nearby road. He noticed that, even though he’d been down for over fifteen minutes, not a single soul came down here. He’d just taken a quick turn through here to get home early. “Shouldn’t have done that,” he realised, “Should’ve stayed away from Walnut Alley. My eyesight is a little poor, but I could still read the sign. Why’d I think it was Walter Alley? Daft old me…”. His mind slowly started to drift into a state of rambling, think only of how stupid he was.

Then another thing dawned upon him. He could be stuck here for hours, his poor daughter waiting for him to the point of worry, and then…what? They would search and find an old man on the gritty sidewalk. A man whom no being had assisted, because they never turned down Walnut Alley. “I’m so foolish.” he began to rationalise.

An hour passed, and still no sign of any hope. Quietly and feebly, through an approaching barrage of tears, Tom Perkins cried for help. He could barely shout out through lack of breath and, after a mere five minutes, he gave up trying. Suddenly, there was a low, deep rumble. He panicked and glanced around, only to realise it was his stomach protesting. He groped around, trying to find his food-filled shopping bag, but soon tired of this too - the food around him had become broken and crumbled anyway.

After what seemed like an eternity of loneliness, help arrive in the form of a young woman. She had taken a shortcut down the alley a few moments ago, before noticing the shadowy shape that laid upon the floor. She rushed up to him, asking him his name and telling him hers - Lucy - and asking what had happened. Tom was trying to stay awake, aware that were he to fall asleep here, he may not win the battle against the brutal cold. The girl gently shook him and tried to keep him conscious, no good. He was the hungriest and most tired man on the whole planet.

As a fuzzy, disorienting feeling began to overwhelm him, the cruel world through his eyes became blurry and unfocused, and the girl’s cries slowly started to fade. Tom thought “Mustn’t…sleep. Got to…stay awake”. Then, without any kind of warning, he suddenly drifted into unconsciousness.