A man who decided to 'not take anything for granted' after reading a tragic newspaper article is now virtually house-bound with existential dread it can be revealed.
Mike Hayden made the decision after reading a local news story about a man of similar age who 'dropped down dead' a week earlier and now spends all of his time calling loved ones and checking his symptoms on the NHS website.
"It was such a sad story and very close to home as not only was the guy a man, but he also lived in a house and had a cat, like me" mused the 42 year old. "My initial reaction was to 'count my blessings', though I was soon struck by the foreboding realisation that each blessing could be suddenly and violently revoked either through pure chance, medical inevitability or through simple cold and logical causation as the universe marches us inexorably towards our annihilation!' he gasped fearfully.
"Did you know that I've probably lived more than half of my life already?" he continued "And that's only if I'm some sort of genetically mutated super-human, who doesn't get murdered tomorrow, or isn't crushed beneath a falling 737, or I don't succumb to some sort of undiagnosed space-cancer; And only if a Sino-American war doesn't blow up out of nowhere and turn me and everyone I know into a surprised looking stain on the pavement!"
"He had spell like this last year where he tried to live every day like his last" said partner, Alice, 39. "That ended sharpish when he fell off a stationary Super-bike on a showroom forecourt and I told him I'd kick him out if he kept trying to call Gillian Anderson".
