Sometimes it is easier for things not to go plan or so one may tell himself or at least assume when he sits alone in his underwear clutching the neck of an almost empty bottle of whiskey with three more bottles lying empty and close-by on the floor of a dark one room bedsit.

It's dark because overdue bills were not heeded, as if anything could have been done if notice had been taken. Yeah, it can be easy to feel sorry for oneself and sit in misery when the universe has failed you. You could have always gone and made your own luck no matter the disaster which has come your way. You could have stood up and fought back, take the punches, and return them tenfold, tell the universe you can knock me down, but I will get right back up or you could just lie there wallowing in your own self-pity.

Barry Knowles never knew his father. The dad, who never was dad, ran out on mum as soon as mum said baby was on the way. Mum worked hard, she had three jobs and at that there never seemed to be much of anything though Barry as a child never wanted for much. What he did want, even at such a young age, was for his mum to be happy.

The world, his world, never seemed to have much room for happiness and such proved to be so the older he got. An apartment on the sixth floor of the third of six flats within a council estate with eight rows of housing preceding the row of flats is where Barry spent the first eight years of his life with mum.

He had friends in school but not so much outside of school, for if he weren't hiding in some small corner of whatever workplace mum so happened to be working within then he would be kept indoors at home with the apartment being so high up and with the neighbourhood being too tough for him to be allowed outside to play unsupervised.

Barry understood all this so he very rarely, if ever, found reason to complain, again even with being so young he wanted to add happiness and not inflict more hardship. Life was as is and he knew no different. The most disastrous of all disasters occurred at home when Barry was eight years old.

At home, mum reacted to a burning smell. She checked the kitchen area first, even though the smell seemed to be coming from elsewhere. The oven was off, and nothing was burning on the cooker. This was how it should be for she hadn't been cooking during this particular moment.

Clearly something or somewhere was burning outside the apartment, perhaps somewhere else within the apartment complex and on a lower floor. Mum didn't waste any time gathering any belongings or grabbing anything which could be considered to hold any value, either financially or otherwise, she simply took Barry by the hand and made a move to exit the apartment.

They only got as far as the front door to the apartment for as soon as it opened three men forced their way inside. They each attacked and had their way with mum despite her pleas and shouts of the building being on fire. The attack was relentless. Barry hid, and when the attackers left the apartment, he returned to mum. Her last words to him were 'I love you little man.'

Rescue workers managed to save Barry, any injuries he received were minimal. Barry could have grown up to be the man his mother would have been ever so proud of; he could have fought the world and he could have proved to the world that he was better than all that came his way; he could have at least tried.

It was all too easy to drink his life away, it was all too easy to sit in darkness and blame the universe for whom and what he is. Sometimes, however, the universe likes to deal a winning hand or two, even to someone who thinks of himself as a loser, the butt of an evil joke.

At twenty-five, a reporter offered Barry a small amount of money for him to tell her his story, and he did tell his story. He didn't want to tell anything, especially not on television, the memories are far too painful, but the money, well his pockets were empty. What would his mother think of what he became? The very thoughts of this brought him down all the more to the point he was ready to meet his maker. With his luck he was sure he'd end up burning in hell for all eternity.

By chance, one of the rescue workers who had aided an eight-year-old Barry out of a burning apartment building in the poor end of town all those years ago, so happened to see the news report and said former rescue worker reached out to Barry, ultimately aiding him to find the help he needed to begin to take his life back.

Ten months Barry fought the darkness to the point he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. There was one roadblock still in his way however, to get over his past he needed to confront it, head on. The apartment building, the flat he spent the first eight years of his life within, still exists. It is still burnt out and has never been renovated or knocked down. It still stands still the same.

He returned to his former estate, passed the eight rows of housing that looks just as bad as it ever has and on to the rows of flats. Third flat in and there is some boarding but not much more. It is clear that local kids come and go in here as the like, the risk factor must be huge though if nothing has been done about this place by now then it is highly unlikely that anything will be done about it anytime soon.

In he goes on in, as tentatively as he can. Barry hasn't quite come dressed for such activity as he has taken on though since he has come to where it is he is then he may as well go whole hog and face this demon full on.

He climbs concrete steps up to the top floor, careful as he goes, not to touch the walls or any possible debris that may be around. It is dark in here, extremely dark so he uses the torch on his battered mobile phone to guide his way and it isn't all so long until he reaches his destination. The door to the apartment he lived in burned down on the day he was last here so access into the rooms which once a home is attainable.

In he goes, carefully stepping in a manner which ensures that he doesn't fall over among the dirt and whatever else has been discarded in here over the years. He moves past the main living room, on down a short hallway and then into a bedroom that used to belong to him.

Imagination and memory can be a powerful combination for as soon as he enters his former bedroom, he sees it as it once was seventeen years earlier. More than that, the horrid burnt-out smell which filled his nostrils the second he moved into this building has gone, replaced by a homely smell that feels like it was only yesterday since he last took in the pleasantness of the smell.

For an instant he feels as if he were safe, as if nothing could hurt him, as if he were once again a child then he sees him, Barry as an adult sees ... himself as a child. This is no memory, this is no out of body experience, this is something else entirely.

The boy, an eight-year-old version of ... Barry ... is kneeling down by his bed with his back turned to ... the returning Barry. The bed is freshly made, with the cool colours one would expect to see on a young boy's bed. There is a wooden rocking horse at the end of the bed, a stuffed bear on the bed and young Barry has a couple of toy soldiers in his hands.

The boy turns his head around to view the visitor and simply says 'hi.'

'Hi there, you must be Barry ...' he speaks to his younger self.

'Yeah, and what is your name?'

'My name is also Barry. What is it you got there?' he asks as he moves closer to his younger self.

'My toy soldiers, I like playing with them.'

'They are really great ...'

Before he can speak any further, arriving Barry is distracted by a sound coming from somewhere behind him, somewhere back down the hallway and off the other side of the living room ... 'mother?' he asks himself.

He moves and soon sees her, his mother alive and well. He can see her, but she cannot see him. A burning smell returns. No, this cannot be possible, Barry has returned to the day his mother dies. She checks the kitchen and sees nothing is burning in there, assuming there is a fire within the building somewhere on a lower floor she goes and gets her eight-year-old son so they can make an attempt to leave the building.

'No ...' speaks adult Barry as he sees mother and son close in on opening the apartment door.

It is too late, the door has been opened and in rush three strangers, all interested in one thing. Barry is not having it, if he can do anything about this, he sure as hell will. He reaches for one of the strangers, grabs a shoulder, spinning the strange round before throwing a punch. To mum and to the strangers, an invisible force is at work here.

Before long, three strangers are on the floor nursing newly inflicted wounds. Mum grabs son and begins to move, turning back from the door to see an older version of her son looking back at her. She simply nods and moves on; mother and son make an exit from a burning building and adult Barry vanishes.

Seventeen years pass, mum is alive and well, Barry is alive and well. He is not penniless, he does not live in a one room bedsit, he does not surround himself with empty whiskey bottles, instead home now is a special place. It is not the fanciest place in the world but it is a heck of a lot better than what came before, in any timeline, though as it is, it is not the building that makes a home, it is the people who share it or at least come round to see one another ...