Just five minutes prior to this absolute disaster of a situation I had regarded these people with the typical sort of contempt that had dictated my perception of human beings ever since that very famous day when I turned three.

These days, I was forty-seven and little had really changed, other than the scale of my chin and nose and the gravity of my financial responsibilities. What’s more, people now referred to me in passing as a ‘man’, but that wasn’t so noteworthy. When I was a kid, they used to say I was ‘old beyond my years’ and, though I never understood it, in hindsight I think it was because of all the tutting and eye rolling I used to do whenever adults would speak about things they didn’t understand (like my grades or politics or stock options).

The great tragedy of being a bright child is that there’s a good chance it will turn you into a dull adult who isn’t actually aware of one’s shortcomings. But I was aware of it, which is precisely what made me so ingenious, despite all my failings.

Anyway, where was I? Standing beside a mangled tourist bus in a disastrous situation.

The people who I had held in serious contempt for all manner of sins (like climbing the steps of the bus too slowly and talking nonsense loudly); these fools were now my allies. Useless allies, yes, but when you’re in a life or death situation you don’t get the luxury of choosing who you’ll traverse it with.

The bus had rolled onto two wheels rounding a bend and toppled sideways into a very deep ditch. We had all managed to escape the carnage, somehow still capable of doing the basics like walking, worrying, and whinging. But there was no clear way back up to the road and no phone signal and the sun was trying to kill us with its heat and I wondered if I was bound to die beside the fidgety fucker who kept sticking his finger up his nose and admiring his congealed snot.

We were trapped.

Worse, I was trapped.

Trapped in a ditch and trapped among fools.

It’s quite possible no one knew we had landed there and – already withering in the midday summer sun – it was what you might call a ‘crisis that required a quick solution’.

Sat on a rock, watching them argue from behind my sunglasses, I started to fear that I might die alongside these idiots, and I was certain that it would be a poor way to go for a bright lad who had accomplished nothing in forty-seven years. I wasn’t married, but I had accidentally adopted a mute kid who was remarkable at chess, and I wondered if he’d end up emotionally skewered after discovering that his adopted father perished while returning from an all-inclusive beach holiday that he’d gone on without telling him.

I looked at the incline which slanted towards safety. Too steep. Then I looked at my ‘allies’. What did we have here? A seventy-year-old lady who kept offering everyone mints (she didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation and just appeared glad to still be on holiday). Then there was the admirer of snot, a dull couple in their twenties who seemed to believe that they could will their phones to work by waving them in the air, a loud-mouthed medical student who just happened to be one of the dumbest people I’d ever heard speak English, and the young driver who apparently couldn’t drive buses, but, boy, could he smoke.

As I saw it, our best hope was to pool our resources (mints, two baps, and a tiny pain au chocolat) and take refuge under the leafless trees. At some point, someone would realise that they were missing a bus and put two and two together. No one ends the day a bus down without asking questions, do they?

We debated that for many hours, and, with each counter-argument, the fear levels rose. We distributed the tiny pain au chocolat equally, which equated to a morsel each, and sucked on what seemed to be an endless supply of mints. The baps were rock hard and a danger to our teeth, so we put them aside for a more desperate future, but then they were suddenly stolen by a coyote.

Worse, there was no water, which no one wanted to talk about but clearly represented a real problem. The sun seemed to be getting hotter, and optimism was turning into despair (the young couple were getting increasingly agitated and kept insisting that they needed to post something on Instagram). Then, someone thought they saw a big bear, but it just turned out to be a large boulder.

It was all very concerning, and, in truth, I thought we were done for.

Fortunately – as I later found out – my mute adopted son had covertly followed me on holiday and, from a safe distance, had not only seen me sunbathing, chatting up women, and sinking pints of Efes, but he had also seen our bus career off the road and disappear into the abyss. He informed the authorities the following day (after enjoying an excursion that he had already booked for himself). And so, on the verge of death, we were suddenly rescued by some miserable men in a helicopter.

Deus ex machina.

We were all very happy as we found ourselves flying to safety. It was as if we’d been given a second shot at life. It’s funny what being stuck in a ditch with a bunch of strangers while being assaulted by the Mediterranean sun does for your perspective. One day, they may prescribe such experiences. The old lady offered me a mint and I accepted even though I was sick of them. I stared out the window, looking down at the terrain, thinking about life and dreaming of a cold beer.

Then, commotion.

The helicopter lurched in all manner of directions. The medical student wanted to have a go at flying it and was trying to wrestle control from the pilots. I nearly choked on my mint. Then my larynx catapulted it into the eye of the nose-picker. He squealed in pain; “My bloody eye!” The rest of us shouted at the student to stop, but he thought it was all a big joke. I should have known; two days earlier I’d seen him muttering to himself and laughing at his own jokes while splashing the water in an otherwise empty pool.

This was no way to go. Intent to live, I wrestled him to the floor and sat on his chest until the pilot got us home in one piece. It was my first major contribution to humanity and I felt proud.

We later discovered that the medical student wasn’t a student at all, but a raving lunatic who had recently come into some money and booked the first holiday he had found online.

Later, over beans and toast, I thanked my adopted son for his role in saving my life. “It’s a good job you’re such a weirdo,” I said. “You can come on holiday with me next time if you want.” After a few more months, though, I realised that he was becoming too annoying for my taste, so I put him back up for adoption and went on a cruise to finally get some rest.

Two days in, the ship sank. I’d always been telling people that life was unfair, and finally, as I clung to a buoy, I felt vindicated.