The Long Journey Home

I’m in a hostel, The Good Shepherd. It’s all open plan, and wooden floors. I try to find my allocated bed, but the number on my key armband keep changing. A doctor speaks to me. He’s glad I’m here. He hasn’t seen me in a while. He thinks I should be in a meeting, discussing my problems with others in the same position. I think of all the treatment options I’ve been offered, but failed to use. All of them were pointless. 
I sit on a bed. Other guys chat to me. I explain that I have my own place, a bedsit, nearby. I just come here for the food, to see other people, and remind myself that there’s a caring safety net. One guy asks if my other place is like a mobile bat cave. I say it is exactly that. 
I wander across wooden, laminate floors, and down wooden steps with no bannisters, scared of falling. The numbers on my armband slowly stop changing. Words appear. “Just Now” they say. I realise I don’t belong here. I pause by a gift shop. Soft toys and jigsaw puzzles. I put a puzzle in my bag, and put a frog toy from my bag in the shelf. As I leave, a security guard stops me. He picks up the frog, telling me that I forgot it. I thank him, and leave. Outside, I look at the puzzle. A sunset, over a German autobahn. 
I’m driving with someone else. We follow the gps map onto mud tracks. There’s no gps signal. We are lost. We walk over a wooded hill. I think about how it’s like the start of a horror film. I find myself in bed, thinking about different plots the movie could have, how they start out comical, and end in horror. A knock. E is at the door. We go to a launderette. There we meet other friends. 
An older, black woman, asks me what her work email address is. I recognise her, and, slowly, she remembers me. E and J are playing an Ocean Colour Scene song on guitar and bass, through portable amps. I join them, looking through different apps on my iPhone until I find a suitable synth. We jam. People like it. We pack our clothes away and leave. 
I’m alone, by the launderette. My phone is now a terrible old model. I try to bring up a map, to find my way home. It shows me a route from Syria to Iran via Saudi Arabia. I know home is a long way, but just about walkable. 
I start the long journey home, unsure of my final destination. 
🐐🐏🐑🐏🐐🐏🐐🐏🐑🐏🐐🐏

The Robodogs of the AA Archive

I’m attending an AA meeting. It’s up a spiral path, inside what looks like a tesla tower. The path gets slowly narrower. I see Tony and Penny struggling to ascend. I get stuck behind a little old lady, as it narrows to the width of one foot. There’s a handrail now, both are red. My left glove starts to slip, I’m worried that I’ll fall. No one can help me. I reach over, and manage the last few steps. I look back. 
What I couldn’t see, behind me on the narrow path, was how safe I was. The drop was tiny, into a laminate floor. In the middle of this floor, people sit on 70s furniture, drinking coffee. 
I navigate a huge plastic puzzle, and slide into the outer office. A couple emerge from the inner office. They dress like the 70s, and have three, friendly, robodogs with them. There used to be four. They had a band. The couple ask me if I could adopt one. I explain that pets are not allowed where I’m renting. But I realise, these are not pets. The inner office door opens. My dead dog, now a puppy wriggles out, happy to see me and the robodogs. I decide to take them all home. 
We pass an archive. It’s a huge cylinder, containing items donated for Tony and Dawns marriage. They are sorting through things. Occasionally, they become Katie Price and Peter Andre. I find an old jacket, and a stack of hats I used to wear, and some smaller, sentimental items. There’s a range of shampoo samples, and chocolate body butter. K&P appear covered in it. I ask if it left their skin smooth. P has a shower to wash it off. Workmates complain about me washing my mouldy hats in the sink. 
The archive is now outside a huge old house, and D searches for a compass I left her. She’s lost her direction. Me and a robodog carry things home. He has a Dublin accent, and I narrow it down to one, specific, area. We use an underpass. P will follow us in a van, with the rest of this stuff. 
We cut through a nature reserve. Our way is blocked by a nest in a box, with a flap, as wide as the path. I open the flap, and a cotton wool ball is fired out, then, soon after, another. I notice a rhythm. The gap between firings is the same as between AC/DC riffs on Highway To Hell. I close the flap, then open it again, beginning to sing after the first shot. They are perfectly timed. 
Behind us, a group of naturalists take notes on flora, while my dog watches out stuff. I realise that as a real dog, he’d never play guitar, or talk, or carry things with his hands. 

🎸🐶🤖