UPSIDE DOWN 1

The front porch was latched so I went around to the back door. There was a note sellotaped to the outside. It was written by my dad. His shaky handwriting was enough of an alarm.  He's more of a talker and doesn't like any outward sign of frailty. That's what I tell myself at moments.
Piss Off Murph, is what the note read. It was midnight and I had missed my curfew by an hour. Fuck him.

Hammering on the front only brought my dad’s face from above, and then his pale shoulders visible in the streetlight. His white skin pasted with those freckles all dry and independent. 

He didn’t have anything more to add to his note but he underlined it there and then from the open window so that anyone who cared could hear. There was nothing to do but leave.

Next morning, whilst he was at work, I managed to get inside and gather some of my stuff. I had to leave my LP's but I took the stereo and sold it for fifty quid. 

I had three pairs of socks, my black leather jacket and four books. That was enough. 

I made my way to the M62 through some woods and stuck my thumb out. The first lift I got was from the police. A motorway patrol car flagged me down on the hard shoulder. They said what I was doing was dangerous. 

When I got in I had a branch attached to my boot that got trapped by the door and half of it dragged along the road outside, probably scratching their paintwork, at seventy miles an hour. I didn’t tell them as they were busy talking about work. And the weather.
They dropped me off at Birch services where it was safer and I had a better chance of somebody stopping to give me a lift. They wished me well. I was glad to kick the twig away. I went in and got a cup of tea but the radio was doing my head in. 

I stood out in the rain on the slip road and waited. It was dark before I got a break. 

An old guy in a tanker stopped and beckoned me into his cab. 

I can’t remember what we talked about, nothing of consequence I guess, or maybe, I was preoccupied. Maybe I was self-obsessed and stupid. Maybe I knew what I was doing and was glad for the freedom of not having to listen.

I got out at Sanbach. I don’t know what time but it was still dark. There had been a constant drizzle. I had been hypnotised by the windscreen wipers and their intermittent drag, squeak and drag. It felt good to be out of the cab, thankful as I was to the driver. He headed in to the restaurant but I decided to push on and save money. 

Family lived quite close so I pointed myself in that direction. I thought it was close. Nobody else was heading east at that time for their reasons. All traffic was off south it seemed. 

I hopped in with one ride until Stafford. The driver didn’t say a word and drove like a demon hunched over the wheel of his van. I think his eyesight was bad. I got out soon after and I decided to walk because he was scaring me. 

I gave in at some point and clambered under a hedge.
The rain occasionally drove at my head when the wind whipped it.

Pulling up my bag, I thought about all of us back at home and wondered why it had come to this. I hoped they were okay but I didn't really care. My brothers were in different places than me now.

It was too cold and wet to sleep for long. Like the light I got up. I could not believe how flat the land was, just fields of beets and barley, all hedged in a formal way. I thought it like a felt tipped version of the world and I liked it.

I found a road and a milk truck got me to Uttoxeter and from there it was a breeze. I knocked on her door at seven in the morning and when she answered I saw a bruise-black eye and swollen lips and what little plans I had changed. I didn’t even ask. I turned around and