He lay on the bed for a while, trying to gather his thoughts. This wasn’t like a standard waking up. Normally when people wake up they first remember where they are (and how they got there). Is it a working day, or can they roll over and go back to sleep for a bit longer? As they become more conscious, more memories come back. Is there something important they need to do that day? What did they do yesterday? Did they manage to impress (or upset) anyone?

But none of these thoughts came into Simon’s head. He had no recollection of where he was; no idea of how he got there. He just had this feeling that he hadn’t been there for many days, and that it wasn’t where he wanted to be.

He lifted his left arm to check his watch. His arm felt heavy, and was painful to move. He looked down and was surprised to see that his entire lower arm was ensconced in a plaster cast. Even with this evidence of an injury, Simon had no idea as to how or when how arm might have been broken.

Pushing himself up on his other arm, he looked to the bedside table, guessing – correctly – that his watch may be there. It was 7:50, so his estimate of the time had been correct.

Realizing he was not now going to get back to sleep, he decided to get up and have a look round his room, hoping that would yield some clues as to his location.

The room was quite large for a bedroom - about 20 feet long by 15 feet wide. The single bed was in one corner, with a pine table next to it. At the far end of the room was a round table, surrounded by three upright chairs. On the opposite wall was a white oak dressing table, strewn with papers, pens and loose change. The fourth chair from the table was next to the dressing table, untidily supporting a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. Next to the dressing table was a mahogany-effect chest of drawers. Simon winced at the way no attempt had been made to match any of the furniture.

There were two doors in the wall against which the bed lay. One double pair of sliding doors, that Simon guessed was a closet, and a single hinged door that he assumed led to a bathroom.

The walls and ceiling were painted in a clinical shade of white, and a short-pile beige carpet covered the floor. There were no pictures on the walls to break the clinical monotony of the whiteness and, apart from a mirror on the dressing table, no other furniture.

There was still something not quite right with the room, but Simon couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Swinging himself out of bed, he went to look at the bathroom. It was in pristine condition - looking as if it had never been used. It contained a bath, shower, toilet and wash basin – all gleaming white, and looking as if water had never been run through them. The faucets were dazzling chrome. A single mat was placed so precisely in the center of the floor it looked as if its position must have been measured. Two thick towels were carefully folded over a rail. Although he couldn’t remember ever having been there before, Simon was surprised to find himself accepting that this was exactly how he expected the bathroom to look.

Coming back into the main room, he slid open one of the doors of the closet. The level of tidiness was the complete opposite of that of the bathroom. A tuxedo just about hung by one shoulder on a hanger. A shelf had been stuffed with several shirts – about five shirts more than the shelf would comfortably hold. Numerous other clothes – pants, underwear, sweatshirts, a sneaker or two – lay on the floor, looking more as if they had been abandoned than placed. Again, Simon had a feeling that this was exactly how he had expected to find the closet.

Still no nearer to working out where he was, or why, Simon sat back on the edge of the bed and took another look around the room. He finally realized what wasn’t quite right. The room had no windows and – other than the closet and the bathroom – no door. The light that he had thought was sunlight was coming from a bank of electric lights around the room; each light was automatically adjusted throughout the day to give the illusion of the light from a moving sun.