My goal is to stay wide awake for the next three months. I wish to tug the threads of my summer blanket tightly around me and pull away all of the frayed ends; to savour until the blissful end, this place. The voluntary exile from my hometown means leaving my room, my family, and my last seventeen years behind. The still air smells of detergent, remnants of breakfast and stale cigarette smoke. The soft humming from the radiators fills the room like beeswings and it's becoming increasingly important to remember all these details.Limp, inexpensive clothes drape lazily over the top of the desk chair closest to me.It wasn’t difficult deciphering what garments would be packed into my battered suitcase and what would be left behind to be looted by my sister.The outfits I have preserved are in short supply.This is because about forty battered novels are randomly stacked on my dusted floor, taking centre on my paisley print rug. It was infinitely harder deciding which books to keep and which to leave. I felt as though I were lining up my children and was yet to break the news that some of them would be packaged tightly with bubble wrap and duct tape to be placed dejectedly in the attic. Beyond my four walls, there are old toothbrushes still lying in holders and uncleaned plates resting in the sink, which is wide and spotless. The linoleum in the hallway is jet black, inviting and has long scuff marks from furniture being dragged across it. The cupboard beside the bathroom is filled with bed sheets, pale and patterned with their pillowcases tucked inside.The oven does not work, nor does the clock.The table sits irreparably stained, the living room pictureless and there is a broken ornament stuffed in a shopping bag on top of the fridge, hidden.Mum does not know of it and I will not tell her.

It is eerily quiet and the sound of my footsteps is harsh and grinding as I thumb through old boxes of childhood things. I have been tearing apart each corner of the house for any last obscurities over the past week and a half. It annoyed my family to no end and so today they had made themselves scarce,leaving me to disembowel my adolescence in peace. An array of art is spread like a patchwork quilt at my knees, pictures of crayoned charcoal-winged dragons with orange flames spilling from their nostrils, strapping creatures with sharp talons and scaled skin etched onto yellowing paper. I found diary entries ,wooden carvings, crumpled odd socks, and a handsome fox with orange skin dressed in a chequered scarf and sage waistcoat.He smiles at me from a sea of nostalgia. All of the memories that cling to them make my head spin and I halt for a fleeting moment, falling forward onto my shins and allowing myself a break.

Quite unexpectedly, an urge grips me so strongly that I don’t even have time to process its origins. It’s impossible to sit still. I lope down the stairs, grab my old bike, noting the large splodge of white paint across its top tube and the lone tassel swinging morosely from left to right. The stale heat of the day slaps me hard in the face, the scent of eroded metal sticking to my clammy palms.There comes a sensation of being propelled by a force too magnanimous for me to resist- because seventeen years of walking straight to school and straight home has burst forth, aching to wander.

Instantly, as I climb onto the bicycle seat, I feel part of something- of wind, grass, and sound- of rusted wheels scraping clumsily in slow tedium on moss as I race down paths and steer clear of normality and comfort. My eyes catch the knotted capillary veins popping under the coarse porous of my strained hands. I feel the familiar sensation of scuffed sneakers circling on pedals, my thin tyres turning over the pavement with a humming that travels through my spine to my bones in a tantalising motion. I spin onto the bridge I have passed many times when walking the dogs and the wheels take on a lower, more animated note as I ride across the grill work. The street knots up and my body sends me further down twisted paths I have only ever observed as dead ends. Ahead I see an eternity of rough trails dropping, and then climbing sharply.To the left, trees and hills. On the right, much of the same, separated only by a feeble stream, murky and brown- clogged with leaves. I catch sight of a small fence, white and proud against the greenery.I stop myself abruptly, lowering one pounding leg to anchor against the ground.I no longer remember what initially convinced me to go so audaciously trespassing but now, without hesitation, I hoist my tired old bike over the fence. Flanked by tall oak trees and damp mounds of dirt, I push open a creaking gate and ease myself through. Unwisely it is unpadlocked and unencumbered. The fear in me lingers and purrs quietly. However, it gradually ebbs and fades as the ambition surges forth, drowning all else. Despite the sunlight, only the seeds of existentialism grow and I quicken my pace as I ache to find something- anything of value.In spite of its size, the garden is enveloped by steep walls that block every view of the surrounding countryside. The wilderness of flowers shyly peep out amongst the leaves, crocuses, dictamnus albus, false indigo and the common mallow. Like me they stood out of place by the wayside, eyes full of forest, the relics of winter congealed under bounds of unruly grass, tall and dark; untamed. As I walk through the mud paths, the roughness of the present feels smoothed out; my body seems to be contained within a miraculous glass cabinet where no sound dares penetrate;My mind is at liberty and I relish in this freedom. The hour is mine