It was just another day, one like any other, the sort of day people go about their business without putting much thought into it, until somehow every single mentality changed; all of a sudden. Just. Like. That.

The roads stayed empty as the hustle and bustle of the world’s busiest capitals was replaced with a general sense of ease.

Jane woke up that day and realised she had had enough of work. The weather was just right for it: blue skies, slight breeze, a few non-menacing looking clouds and that perfectly mild temperature. She looked at the ceiling of her apartment, the beige paint peeling off in conjunction with some water marks that had greeted her every day in the morning. She gazed over to her bedside table clock, its menacing bright-red numbers looking back at her.

But today, she could feel something had changed. Usually when deciding to skip work, she would feel remorseful after looking outside and observing the cars hurry past, a sign reminding her the world does not simply stop. But that same commotion had been replaced with just a few cars driving past at a leisurely pace, the same way a convertible drives past with its top down, unhurriedly on its way to the beach.

Intriguing, she thought. Something was up but she was not worrying about it.

She turned on her flat seventeen-inch screen looking for answers, but to her great surprise, nothing but white noise. She decided to enquire next door.

The brass gargoyle-looking door knock struck twice. She waited for a few seconds and, to her surprise, there he was, Jerry, in his underwear, eating a sandwich.

‘Jerry.’ -she said.

‘Jane.’ -he replied.

‘You’re home.’ She said.

‘Yes I am. And so are you, by the looks of it.’

The sentence lingered in the stillness of the hallway.

‘Is it not strange? I feel like we should be at work.’ She asked.

‘Yes, we should.’

Another short silence broke out, only disturbed by Jerry’s leaking tap which dripped onto a mountain of dishes he was not ashamed of.

‘Ok, have a good one!’ -Jane said as she turned back to her apartment.

She opened the door, put on her favourite yellow bathers, prepared her bag and set off to the beach.

To this day, no one knows what set off this change of mentality which would later be described as ‘The Great Epiphany’. Maybe a change in the moon cycles. Maybe just a general change of mindsets.

One thing is certain, the world was never the same. And neither was Jane, who went on to live her best life, along with the rest of the now not-so-busy metropolis.

(Story trigger: Attempt to continue, through the use of significant detail, something that is unlikely/impossible.)

---