Today, I Died.

Reader, tell me, how was your day today? No, honestly, I'm interested. I'm very interested to know how your day went. Do you know why? Because I can guarantee you that mine was far, far worse. I don't care if you work in a chippy for two pounds and forty pence an hour. I don't care if you're a teacher and a child threw a toy horse at you and broke your nose. I don't care if you're Wayne fucking Rooney and you missed the goal that cost England the World Cup. Hell, I don't even care if you were the paramedic that I was in the bloody, shaky hands of just a few moments ago because I'll bet you my life that my day was worse than yours. 

Because I died today. I literally died. My time on this mortal plane of existence is over. My soul (if people really do have souls - I'm dead and I'm still none the wiser) has faded away to nonexistence and my lifeblood has run down a dirty, cobbled street and dribbled down a manky old drain in an alley somewhere near Hyde Park. It's not a nice affair, dying, I'll tell you that for nothing. Forget all this Hollywood fairytale bollocks that makes dying seem all calm and peaceful because it really, really isn't. 

My name is Mark Allen. I work... worked, at a pub near Belgrave Square Gardens in Central London. The Slug and Plank, it's a nice little place. You should drop by for a pint if you're ever in the area. I'm afraid I won't be serving you because I can no longer hold solid objects. I was working an early evening shift on a particularly average day in the city. The sky was overcast, the temperature was nothing to marvel at and there was nothing at all interesting on the telly. It reached five o'clock and it was time for me to pack up and go home. So I did. Or at least, I tried to. 

I left the Slug with thoughts of my flat, my sofa, a beer and a pizza on my mind - a Standard Friday evening in for me as I have a very limited circle of friends and a Pornhub, moisturiser and tissues style love life. God, my funeral is going to be depressing... I only live on the other side of Hyde Park so I never catch a bus or a tube home, I always walk. While walking, it suddenly occurred to me that I needed to piss. Not wanting to turn back and go into the pub, I carried on until I found a dim and secluded enough alley to relieve myself in. 

I started going about my business and then bang. No warning. No "your money or your life" malarkey. Some total prick comes behind me, reaches around and plants a nine inch blade nice and deep into my chest plate. Three times. Once is already a bit excessive but three times, really? What did I do to deserve this? I'm a perfectly average twenty-six year old Londoner. I pay my taxes. I don't do drugs. I hate David Cameron just as much as the next bloke. I'm pretty certain I don't have any international terrorist sleeper cells out to get me.

Anyway, the guy then proceeds to take my wallet and get lost. Nice and simple. I'm lying there coughing up my own blood, unable to move or speak or scream because of how much pain I'm in and Mr. Mugger is running away from the CCTV-free, witness-lacking crime scene to go and spend the hard earned eighty-four pounds and twenty-nine pence. I had a fully loaded Nandos card in there as well. Bollocks. So there you have it, the story of Mark Allen. The man who left work at five o'clock, was stabbed for less than a hundred quid at eleven minutes past five, managed to call the paramedics at fourteen past then died on the cold, hard cobbles of a London back alley with his cock out at twenty one minutes past, only two minutes before the paramedics arrived. So yeah, keep me in mind if you think you're having a shit day.