He passed on worried and warning
Carried away by the moonlight shadow
Lost in a riddle that Saturday night
Far away on the other side
He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight
And he couldn't find how to push through

I stay, I pray
See you in heaven far away
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven one day

Mike Oldfield

Julian falls straight into his worst nightmare.

He is leaving the comedy club bar after trying to drown his sorrows in cheap beer, although his sorrows prove uncomfortably buoyant. He pulls on his winter coat once through the door, and only then does he see the heavy slash of thick black marker pen across the photocopied flyer for his gig.

YOUR NOT FUNNY TWAT

Julian's stomach clenches, but it is only when he sees

FUCK OFF & DIE 

scribbled at the bottom that it heaves a sour taste of bile and beer that ends up on the pavement. A crowd of drunks coming out of a nearby kebab shop jeer at him.

Wiping his mouth in humiliation, Julian cannot bear the thought of going home. He shrinks from the thought of his flatmates' curiosity, their pity. Or worse, their amusement at Julian, who thought he had a future in comedy.

What a fool. A poor, deluded fool.  

Instead he finds himself wandering over to his university. The one he had so recently decided he didn't need. Poor, arrogant fool. He had kept stand-up as his secret lover, and now it has scorned him, he returns to his legal spouse with his tail between his legs. 

There is one place he can find solitude, the lake which spreads over almost half the campus, surrounded by woodland. The moon adds a shiver of light across the black waters of the lake, its eerie presence suiting Julian's melancholy mood.

Julian walks around the lake in the thin drizzle, almost stumbling at times. There is a brick path around the perimeter, and after some poor sod had fallen in after a night of drinking and was never seen again, a wooden barrier was added to prevent further accidents. 

In the dark, the handrail serves as a guide as well as protection, although the moon in the cold sky sheds a ghostly light through the grey rags of the clouds. Follow the red brick road, follow the red brick road. One foot in front of another. Step on a crack, break your back.  

Julian takes off his overcoat and denim jacket with the strange precision of the intoxicated, carefully folding them on the brick walkway. His mother had bought the clothes for him, and he feels strangely protective of them.  

Without removing his shoes, he climbs onto the barrier and looks into the depths of the lake, a forlorn figure under the pale light of the moon. There is a wavering moment of wishing he wasn't there, wasn't anywhere. Then he lets himself drop, gasping in a deep shudder at the chill, the hard smack of the water hitting his face.

 The icy water of the black lake sobers him up at once, and the utter lunacy of his plan stands out as stark in his mind as the skeleton branches of the trees around the lake. He feels foolish and bereft, and so wet and freezing that all he can think of is getting out of the lake as fast as he can, to wrap himself in his overcoat.

Julian turns back to the path, ready to pull himself out, and that's when it grabs him. Something under the surface, unseen, but of a prodigious strength. He wrestles the creature with a furious terror, suddenly fighting for the life he was planning to throw away only minutes before. He is dragged beneath the black water of the lake, his lungs burning, his brain becoming numb.

His last thought before all thinking is extinguished is that this is completely his own fault ...