[Charlie is stood onstage. Onstage there is a solitary chair. He is stood in front of it]

Charlie

All my life, I've known one thing. Life is crap. You've got to admit. Even when you think somethings going well it always ends up down the gutter. Like...Like university. You can either do a course you hate but will get you somewhere in life, or you can do one that's actually interesting or fun but when you put it on an application form they'll just laugh. I'm doing drama at the moment, and it's a load of rubbish. I'll spend 3 years being creative but once I leave I'll find out Topshop don't give a crap if you can recite several Shakespeare monologues.

And this thing has stuck with me my whole life. Life is crap. School is crap. College is crap. Uni is crap. Home life is crap. Friendships are crap. But then something happened to me. There's this story that I want to tell you.

[Sits down in the chair]

I was sat in this waiting room. It had blindingly clean walls, whiter than anything I'd seen. And the seats were surprisingly comfy. It wasn't like the seats in A+E which feel like they're made of bricks, these were the comfy ones they have outside wards for the family members and friends. And I could hear crying, coming through one of the doors. And I was waiting. I was waiting to hear what was going on. I could remember why I was here. There was a crash. I could remember standing on the pavement. I could remember the screaming.

I could remember the fear.

I was there. Stood on the pavement. I was looking in the window of this shop. Waiting for someone. I couldn't remember who, but I was waiting. And I heard the crash of metal behind me. I turned round, and what I saw was like a scene from a movie. The car was midair and upside down. I couldn't see the faces inside, but I could hear their screaming. It was like it was in slow motion. The car just hung their, in mid air. And all I could hear was their screams. Then it just came crashing down. The car just dropped from the air. There was an earsplitting crunch of metal on tarmac and the car just folding in on itself. I can't imagine what state the people inside were in, because there was no space where the windows used to be anymore. I remember thinking, as the car slid across the street on its roof, that it just looked like a mass of metal, not a car. I watched as the car slid to a stop on the other side of the street, just opposite where I was stood. And as I watched, I could just see, through one of the cracks in this used-to-be car, a single drop of red begin to drip out.

And that's why I was here, in this small, white room. Waiting to hear what was happening through the door opposite where I was sat. I waited and I waited. I waited for hours. I stood up and paced. Back and forth, back and forth. I remember looking at the clock and wondering whether I'd got lost in a cartoon. You know one of them where the clock stays still despite the time passing for ages. I was half expecting Wile E. Coyote to run through a hole in the wall, or Pikachu to jump through the lone window. But it never happened.

[He stands up]

Then I began to remember more. I remembered what really happened. And it all clicked into place. This small white room. The crying through the door. The waiting. All this waiting. All these images started flashing in my mind. A flash of light, the world upside down, the searing pain. I wasn't watching the car. I was in the car. And I realised, life isn't crap. Life is only crap when you make it crap. And if you make your life good, it will be good. But it was too late. All I could do now, was wait.