It’s dark. I remember falling through something—a trapdoor? But why would there have been a trapdoor in my house? It doesn’t make any sense. But then neither does being in a place so completely devoid of light. There’s usually at least a little light to see by, or at the very least, you eyes adjust to the darkness and let you make out the shapes of things in the room.

But here, there’s nothing. Just darkness.

Oh wait, and now a pair of glowing red eyes and a supercilious grin.

“Des,” I say. “Good to see you.”

Des lets out a bellowing laugh that seems to reverberate around this space we’re in, even though exactly what “this space” is isn’t clear.

“Seriously?” I say. “Evil laugh? There’s no need for that, is there?”

“I’m just trying to lend a bit of drama to the occasion,” says Des, sounding a little hurt. “Today is a big day, after all.”

“You’re right,” I say. “Though spending some time in a darkened room isn’t exactly how I’d have chosen to celebrate 365 entries of non-stop daily blogging. No offence.”

“None taken,” he says. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye. But I figured we’d do a bit of a Christmas Carol thing here, and whizz back through some memories. You like memories, right?”

“Hmm,” I say. “Depends what they are. If you’re referring to the memories of the year just gone, I’m not sure I do.”

“Nonsense,” Des says, laughing. “You’d be surprised. Let’s start from the top, shall we?”

“Must we?” I say. “This is going to be a long story, otherwise.”

“Yes,” snaps Des, a little more aggressively than he apparently intended, as he says it again, softer. “Yes. From the top.”

The blackness shimmers, and fades in to an image of me sitting at a laptop computer at an untidy desk in a classroom. I’m typing at my usual rapid rate of knots, but there’s a faintly confused expression on my face. I’m writing nothing in particular. No change there, then.

“Humble beginnings,” says Des. “I’m not sure you knew what you wanted to write about.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find something to write about every day for 365 entries. I wasn’t terribly happy at the time—no change there, then—but was aiming to take some positive steps to improve life for myself.”

“Right, right,” says Des. I can’t see his hands, but I imagine he’d be stroking his chin if I could. The image fades. “Like going to PAX East?”

“Yes,” I say, fondly remembering those awesome few days in March.

“Uh-huh,” says Des. “Good times, huh?”

“Right,” I say. “Good times. An escape from the unpleasantness that had come before, and the calm before the storm that was to come.”

“Overdramatic,” says Des. “But probably accurate. It was an interesting time all round, really, wasn’t it? What with that leaders’ debate, the time you met those Twitter people in town and forged several close friendships as a result and, of course, the day you decided to write all about cock.” Images flashed past rapidly as he spoke, ending with a close-up of a penis that I really wished would go away quickly.

“The word ‘cock’,” I correct him. “Also crudely-drawn ones. Not actual cock.”

“Oh,” says Des. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to find that perfect image?”

“Approximately 0.19 seconds using Google Images,” I say. “Plus maybe a minute’s browsing time? I mean, you’re the one who was surfing for cock. I don’t know how long you spent.”

“SHUT UP!” says Des, sounding extremely British. There is an uncomfortable silence for a moment. “You remember the time you picked a fight with Roger Ebert?”

“I wouldn’t call it me picking a fight with him,” I say. “He started it.”

“Oh please,” says Des. “What is this, the schoolyard?”

“No,” I say. “Fuck him, though, he made a lot of people a bit annoyed with those comments.”

“All right, all right,” says Des. “Keep your panties on. So, May, huh?”

I grit my teeth. May was not a good time.

“Yes?” I say. “What about May?”

“Well,” says Des. “Where to begin? You went dancing. You got really drunk and then analysed the experience in exhaustive and, I have to say, very amusing detail the next day.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Welcome,” says Des. “You got a reply from Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. You successfully located some animated GIF images of stickmen shagging that you thought had been lost to the dark days of the Internet gone past.”

“Yes,” I say. “Thanks for bringing those up. They’ve been stuck in my top search terms ever since.”

“And talking of stickmen,” Des says, a flood of light suddenly appearing and a crudely-drawn stickmen dropping to the ground in it, “you introduced Stick-Pete, albeit a somewhat bizarre-looking one.”

“He was,” I begin, “I was looking worried. Of course his… my face is weird.”

“Right,” says Des. “Of course, you were under the impression at this point that it wasn’t always appropriate to have clumsily-drawn stickmen as part of what were often quite emotionally-draining blog posts.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was wondering when that was going to come up.”

“I am a personification of your own black cloud of despair,” says Des. “Of course it was going to come up. But you know what, people seemed to appreciate the way you dealt with it in writing. You wrote a surprisingly poignant post about bacon sandwiches, which I think no-one was more surprised about the power of than you.”

“Uh-huh,” I mutter. “Can we talk about something else?”

“I suppose,” says Des. “Are you sure you don’t want to be miserable for a bit longer?”

“Quite sure,” I say. “I can do that every day. Show me something amusing.”

The stick-figure Pete is still standing in the beam of light, looking over at the pair of us, squinting into the darkness. I can’t tell if he can see us or not.

“Okay,” says Des. “How about this, then? Things you thought were true, but aren’t. Changed your mind on any of those yet?”

“No,” I say. “I still worry about my car exploding when someone throws a fag-end under it. Particularly with the weird noises it makes in cold weather.”

“And talking of weird,” says Des, sighing at his own pitiful segue, “you explored some of the strangest viral phenomena ever to come out of the Internet in one memorable post, I believe.”

There’s a sudden burst of sound and a chiptune version of the ALF theme starts playing. Stick-Pete starts dancing with two chicken wings that have inexplicably appeared in his hands. I can’t help but smile.

“Haha,” I say. “Seriously, what the fuck is that about?”

“I don’t know,” says Des. “But bear in mind you also prepared an exhaustive and illustrated guide on how to laugh on the Internet the following month, so I’m not sure you’re in a position to comment.”

The music continues. Stick-Pete continues to dance.

“Can we turn that off?” I say. “It’s a little distracting.”

“I kind of like it,” says Des, his red eyes bobbing around in the dark. “Catchy.”

I sigh. “Fair enough.”

“You also showed people the ten-step programme of how to go out on your own,” says Des. “Though I’m not sure your way of doing it will catch on, to be honest.”

“No, perhaps not,” I say. “But then, you know what an antisocial git I am. I have time to write a blog every day which includes a comic strip, however crudely drawn it may be. Do you remember when that started?”

“Yes,” says Des. “And the first person in it was that blonde bint Lucy. And you.”

Stick-Pete stops dancing and the music stops. As amusing as that piece of music is, it’s been getting a little tiresome over the last few minutes. A blonde girl stickperson drops down next to Stick-Pete and they smile at each other. Stick-Pete offers her a chicken wing. She accepts.

“While I was taking my work into new and unexplored territory, though,” I says, “some other people were deciding that they didn’t want to carry on. I chose to honour them in my own individual way.”

“And honour them you did,” says Des. “Much as you honoured the guys and girls at Kombo when that site went through… changes. And again when The Big Pixels launched. And again when—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I say. “Look, is this going on much longer? Only it’s been nearly 1500 words now, and that shit all happened in October.”

“All right,” says Des. “Let’s quickly jump into a few big achievements and leave it at that. I’m sure you have more important things to do. Like writing blogs. Oh wait.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Celebrate my achievements. I haven’t had that many opportunities to do that in the last few months.”

“All right, all right,” says Des. “How about that time you beat the Couch 2 5K running programme? That was pretty awesome.”

“You’re right,” I say. “That was pretty awesome. Not to mention the fact I’m still going, and aiming for a 10K in May.”

“May, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“You also did your bit to enhance international understanding,” says Des, ignoring me. “And frankly, I’m not sure why you’re reviewing the year again right now, because you did just that on New Year’s Eve.”

“Yes, but—” I begin, not sure where that sentence is going to end. “Never mind. Are we nearly done?”

“I’d say so,” says Des. “The recent stuff is… well, recent. People can look back for themselves.”

“All right,” I say. “Can I go now?”

“In a moment,” says Des. “First, you must BEHOLD MY TRUE FORM!!”

There’s a flash of light. Stick-Pete and Lucy look on in horror as the darkness swirls around, revealing a huge, slobbering monster with thousands of tentacles, wings, mouths and spider-like legs emanating from it in every direction. I am nonplussed.

“Seriously?” I say. “You’re doing the JRPG final boss thing?”

“Oh come on,” says Des, his voice now loud and booming. “You love final bosses. You have waxed lyrical at great length on the subject, even long before you started doing this every day.”

“Yes,” I say, smiling. “But I’m not at the end yet.”