Jimmy reached to the top of the wardrobe and pulled down the old army bag that lay unused for almost a decade. An empty whiskey bottle fell down with a thump on the carpeted floor. It remained intact, rolling under the bed. Jimmy took this to be a sign; God was telling him in his own unique way that he was doing the right thing. In his youth he had travelled around Europe, he’d lived and worked in Germany. Munich had been his base for almost five years. It had been very easy to jump on a train at weekends and be in Spain, Belgium, Holland or France, to mention just a few, in a matter of hours. Fond memories came flooding back now and it brought a wide grin to his tired face. He was determined to regain his lust for life, his sense of adventure and that feeling of excitement associated with the unknown. He was forty five years of age and lately he felt every day of it. He was in a downward spiral for the best part of the time his army bag had not seen the light of day. He’d never thought of it like that before and it gave him some small relief to begin to make sense of his depression. He decided to make a list there and then. He located some paper, a pen and sat at his table, scanning the room in thought.
He lived in a tired old bedsit. The flowery wallpaper had begun to peel away at the corners of the wall. It had lost its battle against the rising damp which was most prominent in the small bathroom just inside his main door.