Charlie, chapped lips and loose teeth, got out of bed. He had big plans for the future, big plans indeed. Staring at his reflection, he couldn't help but smile. This ragged fellow before him, torn clothes, sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks would be gone soon. His replacement was already alive, living cautiously inside Charlie's active imagination, not quite ready to realize himself, but excited nonetheless. He turned from the mirror to look at the room. The matress, the blanket, the pile of clothes were his only luxuries. He would miss them. He took one last deep breath, tried to pull the whole room through his nostrils, careful to store every stail particle somewhere in his memory, to remind him later what he had been. What he still was until he left. He pulled his shirt over his head, pulled down his pants, chucked off his underwear and looked up again at the mirror. Naked, new, and never again. He opened the door and walked out of his life.

The hallway he entered into was in stark contrast to the bedroom he'd just left. Behind him desolate and bleak in bare simplicity and before him walls painted warm, red, welcoming. The dim lights emanated an almost genuine glow, as if by candlelight. The hallway was perhaps intimidating in length, but not so in its openness, the space between the walls. You could walk three, maybe four people and still have leg room.

Air in his lungs entered fresh, with significance. Perhaps because of renewed purpose, perhaps the lack of stale air, the musk of unwashed sheets - perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It hardly mattered beyond the spryness of his step and the energy beneath his skin. This was it: the start of something - anything, as long as it was something else, something different than before.

Utterly convinced, this was the only way left to him to achieve that.

“Yes”  Charlie thought, “... This is how I imagined it – it’s the perfect place!”  While simply sensing it was also nearing the perfect time.   

Like an omen, it was exactly how Charlie Newman had dreamt it out.  Even down to the early season’s drizzle hitting against the glassed out cityscape.  He stood still, transfixed with determination, while he calmly waited for the city to finish saying its prayers with its usual neon lit amen’s.  Suddenly, the drizzle gained weight and in every dimension.  The view sheltered by a glistening display of excitement that grew mesmerising, as its patter quickened

In short bursts Charlie’s phone rang breaking the silence. He turned slowly, letting the answer machine receive his call.

“The plan is in action.” Said a deep voice.

 “The letter in the briefcase will tell you what to do from here….code 7423-2219”

As the message ended Charlie glanced towards the front door and to its side where a black and silver briefcase sat.

Inside would be his new identity. But more importantly among the clothes and other essentials a letter would reveal the new agenda and what had been happening whilst he was in hiding.