You are James Ward, aged 29, and been a journeyman tennis pro since 2006, ranked number five in Britain, but 177 in the world.
You find out you have been drawn on centre court against the defending Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic, the world number one for the last 302 weeks.
You have earned one million career dollars, your opponent has banked $101 million and won the last four Slam finals.
Your only win of note in a decade is giant American John Isner in the opening round of the 2015 Davis Cup that Great Britain went on to win the final for the first time in 79 years.
Your career win/loss stats are 25/52, your opponent 730/148.
‘What the hell?’ you say to yourself, I’ll just give it my best shot.
You walk out onto centre court with the undisputed best player on the planet to be greeted by an enthusiastic capacity crowd at the home of tennis.
It doesn’t get any better than this, the court is pristine, not a mark on it.
But you lose the first nine games in just 41 minutes, and win just 13 points.
Reality smacks you fair between the eyes.
At 6-0, 3-0 you say to yourself enough is enough, Novak isn’t going to beat me with three bagels.
You hold serve for the first time to thunderous applause, break Novak for the first time to even louder applause, and hold again for 3-all.
So you start feeling invincible.
At 5-all you hold three break points, and ready to serve for the second set.
But Novak wasn’t to be denied. He eventually won that important 11th game and went on to win the tie-breaker.
That was fairly predictable with a 200/130 career record compared to your 13/20.
You keep being competitive through the third set, even though you were broken early.
But you keep holding your serve to lose 6-0, 7-6, 6-4 in 203 minutes.
As you leave centre court with the capacity crowd on its feet, you turn and salute them, and it’s returned with more thunderous applause.
Novak paused beside you to add his applause as well in a genuine sporting gesture.
You disappear into the hallowed hall in the knowledge you had just played the match of your life that you will vividly remember for the rest of your life.
For the next fortnight you can use your player’s ticket to join the expected 39,000 spectators a day consuming 28,000 kilos of strawberries, 7,000 litres of cream, and 29,000 bottles of champers.
That’s after you bank your first round loser’s cheque of 30,000 British pounds, or 53,674 Australian dollars, the biggest of your career. You know you gave tennis lovers at the home of tennis something vivid to remember of the opening day of Wimbledon 2016.
And you can justifiably feel very proud.
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