On this sofa was where Jack had spent most of the day. He was hungover. Last night he’d stayed at the Green Genie offices until almost 11 p.m., and now his head ached and his limbs felt slightly hollow. He had eaten a lot of toast and a big bag of Monster Munch, and drunk two cans of Coca-Cola. Rich had gone to the shop to buy the crisps and the Coke. He had seemed to find the novelty of Jack’s hangover quite amusing.

Still, Rich’s good mood had proven to be short-lived, and Jack had spent the afternoon feeling like a bit of a bother. Rich and Maisie were going to a friend’s house for a dinner party and as they’d bustled around, getting ready, he had heard them arguing about whether to take red or white wine, and whether to take an Uber or get the bus from the end of their road. In the end, Rich had won both arguments (red, Uber). As they left, Maisie had promised they wouldn’t be back too late, which made Jack feel like a baby. He’d heard Rich telling Maisie to hurry up and then they’d been out of the door, arguing in the hallway.

He closed his eyes, glad of the peace. Last night had got rather out of hand. They’d been celebrating. It had been quite a big week, for Jack, actually. Bigger than usual, definitely. It was weird, he thought. He’d waited so long for things to ever happen to him.

Jack didn’t know what to expect as he sat down on the District line train heading east on the Monday morning after his liberation from the attic. He supposed that some people from work might have seen the thread. But he was confused about how he felt. Part of him wanted everyone to know. But he was also nervous in case there was a big fuss and people crowded around his desk to ask him all about it.

When he arrived, just before 9 a.m., the building was almost empty. He had forgotten how long to leave to get from Maisie’s in Earlsfield to the Green Genie offices in Bermondsey, so had arrived far earlier than usual. The office took up the entire second floor of a co-working space inside an old warehouse. The atrium was cavernous and a long fish tank stretched across one wall of it. Jack had nicknamed one of the fish Chips, like his deceased childhood goldfish.

He walked to his desk and put his jacket over his chair, stuffed his rucksack under the desk and turned his office MacBook on. Once it had started purring, he walked over to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, saying a shy hello to Petroc, the burly head of UX design, who was drinking a can of Red Bull while his porridge rotated slowly in the microwave. Jack could hear it bubbling.