The Kindness of Strangers

I turned left at 10.00 a.m. yesterday. It took me two hours to make a choice.

I'm a few paces down the road, looking over my shoulder, wondering whether I left the gas on, thinking I should have turned the water off at the mains. I can still see the crossroads. There's no devil there to parley with. I am on my own.

I chose the course of realism, then camped out overnight within sight of all things that are familiar. Not too late to turn back. But I have notes and some notion of what I might find in the dusty streets that lie some miles ahead. There are strangers I need to get to know in the quiet outskirts of town.

Across the fields, I can hear a voice tempting me down another fantastical road.