The universe is routine. It is routine to live, as it is routine to die. It is routine for the planets to orbit the sun and moons to orbit the planets and asteroids to mess everything up a little. It is routine for the sun to rise in the east and set in the west, chased by the silvery orb that floats in the night behind it. It is routine for there to be twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week, fifty-two weeks in a year. It is routine for living creatures to eat, crap, mate and sleep, just like it is routine for a high school student with scruffy brown hair and a habit for sleeping in just a pair of boxers to roll out from under his bed sheets and onto the floor at seven in the morning as he tries to turn his alarm off. He had been doing it every day since he started school and he didn’t doubt he would continue to do it until he graduated university.

Every day starts the same way; with a large yawn and a few minutes stretching before he stands and stumbles into the bathroom across the hall from his bedroom. He never showers before school, because his parents are still sleeping and his mother would always yells at him for waking her up with the sound of water pelting against hard plastic. Instead, he stands at the vanity and stares at himself in the mirror for a short moment before cold water is splashed over his face and the sleep is gone from his eyes. A wardrobe change, two pieces of toast and a bag slung over his shoulder later and he walks out the door at exactly half past seven, stepping onto the bus that arrives at the bus stop right outside his house five minutes later. He sits on the same seat every day, three rows behind the driver on the right hand side, and listens to the same slow acoustics created by the guitar leaning against a wall of his bedroom.

The bus ride always takes twenty-three minutes. He knows because he timed the journey on his first day of high school, much like he had done on his first day of junior high and elementary, to check the routine of his life. It is always the same, which is why it is routine.

It takes him three minutes to walk to the school campus from his bus stop, and another two minutes to reach the doors of the main corridor. At three minutes past eight, he steps into the corridor and, after five minutes of struggling his way through the crowding masses of students, he arrives at his locker. There’s always a guest waiting for him; waiting to spend the last two minutes taunting him and teasing him before the bell goes and she leaves for class in a smug aura. It takes him one minute to collect the books he requires from his locker, then another two minutes to close his locker and make it to his home room class in time for roll call.

He sits in the back right hand corner of the classroom next to his cousin who has been there since half past seven, finishing off any homework assigned from the previous day. As soon as roll check has finished, the student takes of the pair of rectangular-rimmed glasses that sit on his nose and folds in the arms, placing them on the desk before lying his head down on closing his eyes, enjoying a seven minute long nap before the second bell chimes at half past eight and he walks off to his next class.

His life is just one big routine, like that of the Earth or the solar system or the entire universe. Everything repeats itself and all he can do is just watch and grow bored of the constant repetition. He believes he is a moon orbiting a planet, just waiting for a routine asteroid collision to change his life just that tiny bit to make it just a little more interesting. He never once considered he may be the planet orbiting the sun, where the asteroid collision will do more than just bump him aside.