Leaving.

I’ve never been one for leaving. It’s not in my bones, my blood, my whatever – it’s not there. It was in everyone elses’. They left. Lord knows that they found. It’s a strange and frightening world out there, one which I can scarcely fathom and hardly want to. Hardly fathom, scarcely want to.

William left in the morning, bags bulging and heart swelling with pride – new opportunities, new friends and a myriad of possible lays. Oh, prospects! The journey was excitable, every road sign a daring enticement – come and see if you’re brave enough, what lies within?

In a service station all was shiny and new. He revelled in the exciting urinal. How different this all was. The prospect of moving on sure put things in a new light. He returned to his table, hands pleasantly reeking of the petty excuse for soap he had been plied with. The scent of the new world. His cold burger was sumptuous and the pig’s buttock scraping bacon a delight.

He returned to his mother’s car – chariot. 127 miles away Chris was on the road the sun crept from behind a cloud and Michaela crept further away. Pangs of longing and excitement jostled for pride of place in his heart, brain. Was hope a place? He wouldn’t know until he got there – something of a half-arsed conclusion.

Whilst the others were shipping out, Joseph was in place. Settling into his new room he was rebuilding fondness for all the things he’d brought with him. Familiarity breeds complacency and with a whole swathe of his life washed away he was not easily going to lose these trinkets from home. With all his things reassured and in place he stepped barefoot into the corridor. Something outside his door demanded to be known underfoot. He looked. It was a pebble. A small, beige pebble, just large enough to be intrusive but entirely inconsequential. He kicked it away.

Meanwhile William cursed the lay-by. The signs further along the road were giant taunts in a friendly and mocking font. Mother and Father insisted that they didn’t know what was wrong, the chariot was not on fire, but just as useless. S.O.S – Stupid Old Sod, William mused dejectedly, there was no new world for him just yet, just a darkening motorway and the gossamer thin promise of AA help.

Meanwhile, Chris had placed himself. The place was wrong but he settled in all the same – make a go of it. It was late and his new and unfamiliar bed bid him enter. The morning was another place and another possibility.

Joseph awoke, groggy, memories of the night before were regrettably tenacious. They clung to him – a disorientating glove. He stepped into the corridor. Something. Something was there. He looked. It was a pebble. A small, beige pebble, just large enough to be intrusive but entirely inconsequential. He was surprised. It looked familiar. He kicked it away, puzzled and nauseous and began the dizzying journey to the kitchen.

William awoke. The travel inn was glum. The curtains were little defence against the vulgar local sun. Other suns were so much better – refined. He trudged to the toilet. It was greying and a displeasing catalogue of previous tenants. He looked in the mirror, it was past its sell by date. A cracked smile and a silent shout.

Chris awoke. His sun gleamed and danced through the window, a crack in the curtains ushered him to the doorway. He dressed quickly and went instinctively to the main gate. His post-box looked appetizing. He delved inside and found hope. Heaven was a box. Reading Michaela’s messy and hurried scrawl was like loving all over again and he did. On his way back to his room everyone was a smiling cherub brimming with benevolence and love. The birds chirped romantic strings.

Something. It was a small pebble. Beige, rounded. Not of any consequence. Intrusive. Joseph hurried back inside with the pebble and his cornflakes. The cornflakes drowned into a shapeless mush as he furiously studied his nemesis. Small. Beige. Intrusive. Malicious. Haunting.

The garage called. Mr and Mrs William ushered William out to the travel inn forecourt. He gasped excitedly at his chariot. It glistened with god-knows-what and beckoned him inside. He rushed forward, giddy and climbed in. He was back on track. The signs smiled – yesterday was a joke, no harm done I trust?

Joseph slithered silently to his door and yanked it open. He looked down at the ground just outside the threshold. Small. Beige. Intrusive. He threw the offender down the hall, stormed back inside and slammed his door.

2 Miles sang a chorus of green rectangular beauties. Indicators winked and willed William onwards. Onwards to victory.

Joseph looked outside cautiously again. He was there. He saw him, his odious beige hide. Sitting passive on the carpet. Why are you doing this? Joseph screamed. He giggled and said nothing.

The countryside began to taper to nothing. Where was it, this glorious palace of learning and excitement, this brave new world? All was white. No trees, no buildings. The other cars and the road faded into white. Where was he. He was there. But Warwick wasn’t there.

Neither was I. So don’t quote me on it. I can’t leave. Never have. Probably never will.

Stranded (or 'Thoughts on Colliding')

It was broken. Beyond repair, Number One said. The word among the crew was that there “wasn’t a hope”. Number Two observed the ship, now mostly visible amongst the trees. Since the crash the cloaking device had been gradually losing power and now any curious rambler or UFO nut would have to try very hard not to see it.

After realizing that the ship was beyond repair many of the crew, now at something of a loose end, had taken to analysing their records of the planet and time in which they were stranded. The outlook was not good. They found numerous newspaper cuttings documenting a large ‘problem’, as it was optimistically called, due to occur in a matter of days. As they dug deeper into this mysterious, ground-shaking ‘problem’ that was to occur, they were bombarded with investigative journalism and thoughtful pieces into the nature of free will and questioning whether unimportant species such as those responsible should be mothered more by the wider inter-galactic community.

Resigned to their fate the crew sought to entertain themselves. This came in the form of betting absurd amounts of currency, which was now essentially worthless, on seemingly random events – such as the flight paths of passing owls, blackbirds and flies.

“A million says it’ll fly past that bushel of whatever and then…explode.” Proclaimed a clearly drunk Number Eight.

“You’re on!” Exclaimed Number Fifteen jovially.

The thing promptly flew past that bushel of whatever and then with equal promptness exploded as it was lasered by a gleeful Number Eight.

“A million, if you please.” Grinned Number Eight holding out his hand expectantly.

Number Fifteen somewhat dejectedly went to his locker and fetched the appropriate currency.

Other members of the crew had amused themselves with other pranks. Numbers Five, Nine and Three had gone out on a jolly to the closest settlement to the crash site and attempted to attain the services of prostitutes. The game they had set up consisted of taking their respective prostitutes to their respective rooms and seeing which one could illicit the loudest scream upon revealing his entirely alien genitalia.

However failing to account for the pluckiness of this particular planet’s sex workers, each was disappointed when no screams came and the girls set to work. Returning to the ship several hours later, Numbers Five, Nine and Three were silent and wide-eyed and curiously broke.

A day before inevitability set in a rambler stumbled upon the clearing the crashed ship had made for itself. As he gaped in awe Number Two slid nonchalantly out of the ship’s emergency exit hatch and violently insisted that he came in peace whilst waving what looked like a futuristic weapon around. He explained that the world was going to end in under two days and then watched, giggling as the rambler stumbled, screaming away.

“What were you doing?” Enquired Number One now lolling out of the hatch lazily.

“Just spooking some random. It’s almost lost all entertainment value – but not quite”

That night, somewhere on a nearby continent a chain of events was set into motion that would soon engulf the virginal planet. At the very same time Number Fifteen ran around the nearby town centre yelling “Redrum” in his best impression of intergalactic mega-star Jack Nicholson. Meanwhile back at the ship Numbers Seven and Eight were using some of the ship’s more abstract technology to launch the entire filmography of intergalactic mega-star Jack Nicholson out of the planet’s atmosphere.

In the morning Number One gathered the entire crew in the briefing room for one last speech.

“Now I know many of you are hungover and the last thing you want is to listen to me. So you won’t have to for much longer. As you all know today is the day when this planet and, due to circumstances bizarrely left outside of our vast sphere of influence, us will perish. I believe it’d be uncharacteristic of our mighty race to get sentimental or morbid now and in light of this, I’ve opened a military strength bottle of ultra-vodka – get smashed.”

The crew began to drink off their hangovers, drown their sorrows and saturate their fears as trees and buildings less than a mile off were torn out of existence and flushed into an unappreciative ether.

As everything began to wink out of being the crew sang songs and told jokes and did impressions of intergalactic mega-star Jack Nicholson.

“Here’s…” Was the last loud cry to come from the ship as it too un-became.

Interestingly enough, the only thing to escape the planet in the days before its destruction was a collection of films and a charred piece of thing. The films were picked up a thousand years later by a passing craft a million light years away and the charred piece of thing floated serenely towards the sun where it burnt into nothing.