An ocean, blue and infinite; a ship, small and worthy, could he survive a voyage across to Indonesia? What would happen if he was caught in a storm? One of those big ones that you see in movies. He wouldn’t be alone, of course. Shipmates with vague, unrecognisable faces scuttled about the business of staying afloat. One was a woman, self-confident and pretty. What would her name be? Something unique but not overly exotic…
Mira?
Yeah. Mira. Sandy-blond hair cut short enough to stay out of the way but still long enough to tie back in a ponytail. She-

A hum snapped him out of the daydream. The 5:30pm alarm. It was time to get ready and head off. He sighed. He carried the air of someone burdened with a mountainous task. Baggy eyes, dark complexion, one wouldn’t guess that he had spent the entire day doing entirely nothing. In fact, his step count was probably just enough to get him from his bed to this couch. He sighed again, got up, put on a jacket, grabbed his phone and keys and headed out of the door.

He was an unassuming man, fashionable only in the hour at which he arrived. Despite the warmth of the pub, he shivered when he stepped inside. It was a lively place; regulars stood around their favourite tables, weekenders filled the remaining space. The late-March, Saturday night air wafted through the cracked windows and just managed to offset the smell of spilled beer and cold chips. The dim screen of his phone reminded him of the date, time, and where to meet his coworkers. He was at the right place. Four steps inside the door he quietly scanned the crowd in front of him. After the second pass he recognised Jason’s haircut. Further investigation of the immediate area around that 2004-style faux-hawk revealed more familiar faces, one by one. They welcomed him when he arrived. They asked him about his week. His weekend.
“Ah yeah.”
“That’s the way.”
“You have to have those quiet days sometimes, right?”
None of the conversations lasted longer than polite preambles and he drifted from circle to circle, listening to conversations but adding nothing to them.
Without realising it, he ended up alone at a standing table nursing a lager he didn’t particularly like. He sighed and looked at his phone again. It had been 40 minutes.

“Hey. How are you going?”

He looked up from the formations of foam in his glass and let slip a smile. A crooked grin, short, sandy-blonde hair, and a grey vest. Mary. He gave back a fumbling reply in which he mashed together a few words which informed Mary that “hews doing grood todight.” She kindly smiled and offered a reply to his unspoken question. She was doing well too. They talked about his weekend. Hers. What her week was like. The current assignments at work. The weather was lovely, wasn’t it? Alright, well it was nice to talk to you.
He sighed and looked at his phone again. An hour. Silently and with discretion he moved to the side of the pub then out onto the street. By the time the door clicked behind him they had forgotten he was ever there.