I look down at the card in my hand, checking the address despite having it memorised for weeks now. Up at the seemingly abandoned warehouse that the map on my phone had led me to. The industrial park I’m standing in looks as deserted and run-down as the warehouse does and it sends a shiver of primal fear down my spine. Am I really here? Am I really doing this?
My entire life has been defined by the desire to run that flows through my veins, moving out and away from everyone I’ve ever known at eighteen years old, starting fresh in new towns every couple of years when the restlessness grows too strong, when too many people know my name, when people start asking pointless questions of where I’m from. I can’t help this urge within me, but I’ve finally identified it as a need to be someone else entirely. Once I figured that out and started researching, the rest fell into my lap with suspicious ease.
Meeting up with ‘John Smith’, a name so generic it was clearly fake, being subjected to the weirdest and most vague interview of my entire life, only for him to leave with no contact details but a blank card with only an address- this address -printed on it. It all felt so surreal. The idea that I could leave my life behind without dying. It intrigued me enough to lead me here. So now, on the precipice of getting everything I feel that I’ve ever wanted, I hesitate. Once I step inside that building, there’s no turning back. I’ll be wiped off the face of the earth, nothing but a memory in the lives of every person I’ve met. Finally, truly free.
Continue reading “Leaving it all behind”