There are times in your life when you start to wonder what set of events brought you here.

  Additionally, there are times when you wonder where in the world you even are.

  Lastly, there are times when you need to just sit and come to grips with the concept of existing.

  Simon was pretty sure that all of these times were not supposed to coincide at the same moment.

  Looking around, he couldn’t see anything. It was all white. His last memory was some hallucination that involved a replication of the stupid progress bar from the basement computer. Simon was pretty sure that on his way to the elevator, his brain had a stroke or some other type of injury.

  Honestly, it wouldn’t be that surprising, the car accident a few years before had been decently traumatic. While the doctors had assured him that his head was fine besides a concussion and flesh wounds to his face,

  Obviously, they had been wrong.

  What ailment he was currently suffering was less the issue as how he was going to cope with what had happened. Coma was on the top of his guess list. That would account for the lack of sensation and white surroundings. His brain must have seized up in such a way that all of his senses had gone completely numb.

  ‘But what can I do about it?’ Simon thought to himself, absentmindedly stroking his chin.

  He froze.

  He had felt that.

  Alright, a mind-numbing coma that allowed him to ‘move’ his body in his mind. At least if he wasn’t completely insane, he had a decent chance of dealing with it now that he could ‘feel’ things.

  Experimentally, he moved around in his mind space. He could jump, breathe, move his limbs, and feel other parts of his body.

  Sweet.

  This is like a full lucid dreamscape instead of an awful void. Simon could work with this.

  He had noticed that while he could ‘breathe,’ it felt off.

  That would have to be because he wasn’t breathing anything in this imaginary space. After all, while he was sure his mind knew about the need to breathe, it probably would have issues recreating physical space to an accuracy like the inhalation of oxygen.

  He could deal with this.

  During his stay at the hospital directly after the accident, he had come to terms with the distinct possibility of being paralyzed or locked in his own body. The initial damage did not look good. Simon wondered if it was weird to be so at peace with being in a coma, but he had no other frame of reference to compare it to, so no need to worry.

  What he wanted to do was to explore his new world, this prison of his mind. He took a tentative step and was pleased to find that he could wander.

  Now, the fact that he had no sensation of movement or indication that he was moving was a bit disconcerting. But those locked in their mind can’t be that picky. That made him start to wonder. If this was his head, why couldn’t he change it to have points of reference?

  He stopped walking and focused intensely.

  What felt like minutes passed.

  Wait, was it minutes?

  He knew dreams always seemed much longer than they were in real life. All of this was most likely occurring in seconds in the “outside” world.

  That made him think. The outside world… Oh god.

  No one was going to find him there.

  Simon slumped down at this realization.

  He had just come to terms with being in a stroke-induced coma. However, he was in one of the more remote places within the hospital. He knew he hadn’t finished the update protocol, which would make someone go down to the basement to check.

  He hoped.

  Man, this was one of the worst Tuesdays he'd experienced in a while.

  It was more than likely that his manager would just assume he hadn’t done his job. That was the go-to at the office for sure. He was sure that eventually a doctor would get pissed off enough to make his manager go find out what in the hell was taking Simon so long.

  But as bad as his co-workers were about doing their jobs, they were weirdly loyal. He was pretty sure that his boss and co-workers would make up some level of bullshit that was slowing down this month's repair of the server. They wouldn’t even mention it come the next few days, it was just expected to cover the backs of the people he worked with.

  This was an issue.

  It could be a very, very, very long time until someone actually remembered and then went to that basement to check.

  Simon sat back, struggling with the thoughts. His trivial outlook of this awful situation had completely deflated.

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  He could come back from almost death, he was sure of that. He had already done it once. Simon was going to make death pull him to the grave personally, but then the moment it turned its back, he was going to crawl right back out.

  But just drooling in an ever-growing puddle of his bodily fluids?

  On the floor of a dimly lit basement with nothing but a lonely unconnected computer near him?

  Yeah, he was not going to beat that.

  At the moment, it seemed he couldn’t even summon ice cream into his white empty mind space to eat his feelings away.

  He was going to miss ice cream.

  Now the question was: how long did he have, and could he do anything about it?

  After more ‘minutes’ went by, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t waking up anytime soon. Was there some way to rouse himself?

  He started trying anything he could think of. He thought hard, ran hard, jumped, screamed, focused, and then stopped focusing.

  None of it worked.

  Well, time to try some cliches.

  He pinched himself.

  It hurt. His mind was still very good at the concept of pain.

  So he decided at least that was something. He tried throwing himself into the ‘ground’ that he was standing on. Surprisingly, he just phased through it.

  Weird.

  It was like he had thrown himself at something solid.

  It felt SOLID, but then the solid object turned into a fluffy cloud.

  Or a ball pit at a local fast food restaurant.

  After several attempts, he realized that this approach wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Well this sucks’ Simon grumbled as he pulled back his hand and attempted to punch the ‘ground’.

  Same result.

  ‘Come on brain, I know you don’t like pain, but seriously. If we stay on that floor passed out, we are not getting back from this’ he reassured himself.

  Time for plan B. He pulled his hand back and attempted to wallop his face.

  A strange mist-like substance covered his hand as he did so. It was like the white floor, but this time the consistency of wet corn starch. Rubbery and… gum-like? It felt like it had both the properties of rubber and gum.

  Now, this was frustrating. He tried again and again to punch himself awake. Pinching worked, but acts of violence seemed to be stopped by the white all around him. Seeing no better option, he decided, while unpleasant, he would have to pinch or rug burn himself awake.

  Doing that, he suddenly felt like his body was slowing down. This was so frustrating. Simon sighed and then couldn’t help himself. If he was in his head, then this was his mind, and it needed to listen to him.

  “HEY YOU! WAKE UP”

  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 bull shit alright? Better YET. Let's wake up and crawl our way to the elevator, right? We can sleep all we want as long as we are not in the belly of that hospital.”

  Again, nothing.

  “God DAMNIT. We are going to DIE. Matthew is going to cover for us until the end of time. No one is going to look in that basement for days, if not weeks. COME ON BRAIN, WAKE UP.”

  Simon had a distinct memory of a comic that said “Old Man Yells at Cloud”.

  This was how he felt at the moment.

  What followed next was not one of Simon’s best moments. He tried every trick he could think of to reason with himself. He pleaded, he cried, he raged, he begged, he sat dejectedly muttering,

  “I don't even like my mind anyways”.

  Nothing worked.

  ‘Well. Back to pinching, I guess’ he thought as he proceeded to attempt to wake himself up again.

  “Would you please stop that?”

  Simon froze.

  That voice had come from outside his ‘head’ but still in the white space.

  “Are you going to let me wake up… dumb brain?”

  “Difficult. Considering you are already awake.” The voice spoke back.

  “HELL YEAH, now we are talking. Also, I am, clearly, not awake.” Simon said, gesturing to the white void surrounding him. He was overly excited about this level of mental degradation. Hey, at least the time he had here would be interesting talking to a different version of himself.

  “No, you are awake. Regrettably so, but the system does like to allow people to wake up normally after transportation. In your case, you are just awake at a much earlier time than the ideal”

  Simon paused at hearing this.

  ‘Oh man… I am really, really broken. That must have been one hell of a seizure’

  “I can assure you there is no physical issue with your body. Despite being in stasis, that is.” The voice answered his unspoken thought.

  Simon paused then tried to think of some of the dumbest things he could.

  There was no response to that. Time for a different approach.

  Simon was sitting where he had been crying and pleading earlier. He then decided to think of the vilest, most awful thing he could.

  “I don’t think this concept of a ‘Tuesday’ is as horrible as you think it is,” the voice sighed.

  Okay.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  Nope, that didn’t help. Stupid lack of oxygen feeling sensation.

  Simon freaked out.

  “Who. The HELL are YOU?” He screamed.

  Silence.

  The moments went by, Simon was freaking out more than he ever had in his life.

  Finally, the voice spoke again.

  “I am honestly surprised. You have to be one of the strangest beings I have encountered during this initiation. How is it, the concept of a day is the part that convinces you? Fascinating.”

  “BECAUSE TUESDAYS SUCKKK!” Simon roared into the air.