The year is 2026. The rain is falling in a miserable, persistent Manchester drizzle, a perfect mirror for the state of Marc's soul.
He's huddled in The Bishop's Blaize, a pub that has seen generations of United fans celebrate and sympathize, though lately, it has only been the latter.
The air, once electric with anticipation, is now thick with the smell of stale beer, wet coats, and the suffocating aroma of shattered dreams.
On the giant screen that dominates the wall, the red shirts of Manchester United are chasing shadows, their movements a chaotic ballet of mediocrity against a backdrop of jeering away fans.
They are playing a meaningless mid-table side, a team they should be dispatching with contemptuous ease. Instead, they are losing 2-0 to Arsenal at home, and the players look as lost and dispirited as the fans watching them.
Five games, Marc thinks, his chest tight with a familiar, crushing pressure. Just five wins in a row.
Is that too much to ask? It was.
It always was.
For years, it had been too much to ask. A simple, respectable run of form was a mountain this club, his club, seemed incapable of climbing. Every flicker of hope was inevitably extinguished by a display of ineptitude so profound it bordered on performance art.
He takes a long, slow sip of his bitter ale. It does nothing to wash away the foul taste in his mouth.
He is a lifelong fan, a soldier of the Stretford End since he was a boy hoisted onto his father's shoulders. He remembers the glory days, the Fergie era, with a clarity that feels like a curse.
He remembers the taste of champagne after the '99 final, the roar of a crowd that didn't just hope for victory but expected it, demanded it. Now, all he tastes is this cheap beer and the metallic tang of his own resentment.
The Glazers.
The name is a poison that has seeped into the very foundations of the club. They had taken a titan, a cultural institution, and treated it like a credit card.
They had bled it dry, leaving a hollowed-out husk, a commercial enterprise that occasionally played football as a marketing exercise. He remembers the specific, painful cuts.
The sale of a world-class defender because his wages were too high.
The refusal to invest in a crumbling Old Trafford, its leaking roof a pathetic metaphor for the state of the entire organization.
The steady, inexorable rise in ticket prices that had priced out the local, working-class fans who were the club's lifeblood.
On the screen, a promising young winger, a boy with the weight of the iconic number 7 on his back, miscontrols a simple pass, the ball bobbling harmlessly out of play.
Mason Mount looks down at the grass, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Marc's heart aches for him.
He remembers watching giants wear that shirt; Cantona, Beckham, Ronaldo in his first, glorious incarnation.
They were men who bent the game to their will. This poor kid just looked like he was hoping the ground would swallow him whole.
His own heart, a tired, overworked muscle, gives a painful, violent lurch. He clutches his chest, a gesture he's become accustomed to during matches.
The stress, the constant, unending disappointment. It was a physical burden, an illness of the soul that had manifested in the flesh. His doctor had warned him, three months ago, after the last scare.
"You need to relax, Marc. It's just a game. Your blood pressure is through the roof. You're forty-three years old, not twenty-three. You need to find another outlet, another passion, or this obsession will kill you."
Marc had nodded, promised to cut back, to find balance.
He'd lasted exactly one week before he was back in the pub, back in the stands, back in the endless, masochistic cycle of hope and despair.
Because it wasn't just a game.
It had never been just a game.
Just a game.The words were a blasphemy, an insult to everything he believed in. It was never just a game. It was identity. It was community.
It was the one constant in a life of quiet desperation, a dead-end admin job, a small, lonely flat, a string of failed relationships. His only real passion, his only escape, was this club. And it was broken.
On the screen, the referee raises his whistle to his lips. The final, merciful shriek echoes through the pub.
The players, millionaires in the sacred red shirt, offer a few perfunctory claps to the travelling fans before trudging down the tunnel, their heads bowed.
They look like they're searching for answers in the turf. There are none. Not anymore.
"Rubbish," a man next to him slurs, slamming his pint glass on the table with a force that makes the other glasses jump. "Absolute, unadulterated rubbish. I'm done. I'm finished with them."
Marc doesn't have the energy to agree. He knows the man isn't done. He'll be back next week, just like all of them, a glutton for punishment. But for Marc, something feels different. Final.
He feels a strange, cold numbness spreading from his chest outwards, a creeping tide of ice in his veins. The angry shouts and groans of the pub fade into a dull, distant roar.
The vibrant colours of the screen seem to leach away, turning to grey. His life, or what passed for it, flashes before his eyes. Not the big moments. There were no big moments.
Just a montage of mundanity. Monday mornings at a desk he hated. Lonely Tuesday nights with a microwave meal.
The brief, fleeting joy of a Saturday victory, inevitably soured by a midweek defeat. It was a life measured in fixture lists and league tables.