It might have seemed utterly ridiculous—borderline pathetic, even—that a 27-year-old man, drunk out of his mind, managed to fall off his chair and break his arm simply because his balance had aged a little too quickly for his liking. And yet, that was exactly what happened. Worse still, it wasn’t just anyone—it was Alex. The rockstar Alex Turner. A man with the reputation of a composed, untouchable celebrity, someone who didn’t seek trouble and certainly wasn’t the type to become the talk of the town for anything other than his music.

And yet, there he was, sprawled on the floor, barely able to push himself up, his body radiating pain with every movement. A groan, embarrassingly close to a whimper, escaped his lips. That’s how he ended up in the hospital at 11 p.m.—still not fully sober, still groaning like a wounded animal, his pride shattered just as badly as his bone. The humiliation burned almost as much as the pain, an ego bruised in ways no bandage could fix.

Fortunately, the hospital staff admitted him quickly—partly because of his manager’s intervention, partly because his pitiful state probably spoke for itself. They wheeled him into a sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway, where he learned the full extent of his idiocy. The fall had been worse than he’d initially thought; the impact had snapped a bone in his arm, coming dangerously close to an open fracture. The doctors worked on him all night, but Alex barely remembered any of it. He drifted in and out of consciousness, partly from exhaustion, partly from the weak painkillers he had pathetically begged for—because mixing alcohol with stronger medication would have been a disaster even for someone as reckless as him.

The next morning, he awoke to a dull throbbing in his arm, now tightly encased in a stark white cast. His other hand had a drip attached, the IV fluid slowly seeping through the tube like a silent observer of his misfortune. His head ached, not just from the alcohol but from the sheer absurdity of it all.

Then, a knock at the door.