It is a quiet, Saturday afternoon, and the overcast humidity of the air gives me an obscene sense of nonchalance. Time in hand, I peruse a ?Survival Handbook', a sort of "Pessimist's Guide to the World". It was given to me as a Christmas present, and its perverse implication of Murphy's Law amuses me. I would assume that its pleasant uselessness would appeal to all who share my insatiable appetite for superfluous information. A smile creeps onto my face as I remember the one objective truth about this world: "Anything that can go wrong, will".
I stop to ponder a hypothetical scenario in which I might need to know "How to win a sword fight" or "How to leap from a burning car". Further indulging my pessimism, I begin to fantasise?
I am siting comfortably in the first class compartment of a train from Paris to Munich, quietly minding my own business, sipping coffee from a china mug and reading my Pessimists Handbook, when the door at the end of the carriage opens. In walks a decrepit looking old man dressed in tattered rags, giving him the appearance of Fagan from Oliver Twist. Unlike Fagan on the other hand, he sports a gleaming new assault rifle and is draped in chains of ammunition. This, I realise, gives him more of a "Rambo meets Hunchback of Notre Dame" appearance. After a little deliberation, I notice that this is somewhat out of place in my train carriage, which to my perplexed bemusement, is becoming littered with bullet holes.
Caring not at this time to ponder the philosophical implications of this seemingly random outburst of post-teenage angst, I am more worried about the looming possibility of ending unfashionably dead. Remembering my survival handbook, I "run fast but do not move in a straight line" and "weave back and forth". Coming to ...