Got glint

Yellow street light glints against tumbling metal as keys to locked doors fall into my cold hand. The other hand carries tonight's dinner, the fingers strangled in taught plastic. I pass my local, only a short trot back to the house. This easy life carry me forever. All I need do is throw my hands in the air and shout “OK I surrender!”, and it will. It's so seductive, the bed, the dry, the resources on tap, the modern routine, the cradle of technology. Why wouldn't anyone accept all that? After all it's what our ancestors worked towards isn't it? Did they ever dream that the road of science could support so much? And did they ever imagine how such incredible discoveries could alter the mind?

The keys fly free again. I see life on easy street roll out in front of me like a soft, white, formulaic carpet. I begin to envisage those cushioned footsteps. But my instincts throw me to the side as if the carpet is electrified – the move is a knee-jerk reaction deep to the core, but not something I thoroughly understand. Is it a mistrust of technology, the curiosity of more natural trails, the fear of predictability, did I expect to feel the ground on my toes?

Again the keys shoot into the night sky. I find myself in the woods on a horse, walking across a country with everything we need to live strapped to our backs or in our heads. Our carpet is earth and water and knowledge keeps us alive.

The keys fall into my hand for the last time. I grin and swing the food bag while the hairs slowly rise on the back of my neck. It's a feeling I've missed, one I recognise as a breach – an idea has got in to my head and it's worming its way around transforming everything I think about. It's time to leave Bath.