The story begins…

I heard a phrase recently and decided to use it as a prompt…

”If you miss the bus atleast miss it running”

A simple little phrase, but it’s lead to several pages of writing, which I’ve edited twice now – so there will no doubt be more changes, but currently the first bit sounds like this…

Chapter One

There are two types of people; those who run for the bus and those who press the button at the pedestrian crossing to buy themselves more time.

Phillip Simmonds was definitely the latter.

He had never run, not since his school days when forced to run around the field with all the other boys in his class, or even worse – cross-country! No, when school finished so did any movement on foot that exceeded four miles per hour!

Like most of his memories, that school memory was crystal clear and could have been yesterday.  Phillip remembers everything vividly: the day the garden chair collapsed causing him to fall into his father’s fishpond, age seven; the red and white Raleigh racer leant against the wall by the Christmas tree, age eleven; or the day the police knocked on his door and told him his friend had gone missing, age seventeen.

He remembers everything. 

So why did he find himself where he currently was and have absolutely no memory of getting here?

From the back of the house to the top lawn was a climb of over 30 steps, that’s nearly three times as many as a standard household staircase.

And here he was standing at the top of the steps right beside his favourite shrub, a mock orange, wearing nothing other than a pair of socks.

For the first time in his life Phillip had no idea why he was where he was.

The only thing that ran through his mind in that moment was that this did not bode well for the rest of the day.