I Know Not

Against my better judgement, I'm going to tell you about my life a little.

I felt a little weird tonight. I can't really describe how - just that everything was annoying me and it felt a little hard to breathe. I'm going to just ramble for a bit, tell you about my small adventure. Is it going to be exciting? No, not in the slightest. Is it going to be particularly thought-provoking? I like to think so, but I'm probably just deluding myself. I'm only really doing this for myself - to ensure myself that this did actually happen and hopefully motivate me to mix it up a bit now and again.

So I went for a walk, at about 8pm or so. Maybe 8:30. I went down the steps in my garden and followed the road to the terrace. It felt pretty average at first, since I walked down that road from school all the time, but albeit rarely at night. I considered which way to go when I reached the hill - off to the left, to the old bridge and then maybe past that, following the river, opposite where my old childhood crush used to live? I decided against it and instead travelled up the hill, away from the train station I walk to every morning. I could hear chatting and laughing inside the pub on the bottom of the terrace. There was an odd feeling in my chest when I walked past that pub - I had never seen what it looked like this close, the sloping terrace, let alone at night, when I'd usually always be on my computer, doing nothing at all except stare at a blank document and hope for words to appear.

Sorry, let's not talk about that. I complain enough about it already.

Anyway, I walked up the terrace. I thought I saw someone in their garden, watering the grass, but they didn't acknowledge the gangly, odd-looking teenager walking right past them at stupid o'clock so they must have been a scarecrow or a washing line or I don't even know. Too dark and my eyesight is terrible. The houses on that terrace looked nice, the lawns all quaint and small.

Beyond that, I was now in unknown territory. I was walking along the road at the top of the valley, the odd house on my left and the enormous sloping fields down on my right, past the short hedge and fence. It was quite surreal, seeing the whole valley in darkness like that. Hell, just seeing it from that perspective was a depressingly unfamiliar experience. I was objectively aware that my village was essentially located in a giant bowl, but I'd never really looked at it and taken it in like that before.

Did you know I've lived in this village for my entire life? Yeah.

I had my phone with me as a torch/flashlight and I eventually turned it off when there were no other lights at all, just to see what walking in the pitch darkness was like. It was refreshing. I think it's a very nice experience, though I still had enough light to see where I was going. A car drove past me and the beams blinded me for a bit, enough for me to misstep and squelch in some mud. I kept walking.

There were some tennis courts just up ahead, I knew. I'd used them before with my family, several years ago. They were decrepit and overgrown but at the same time I liked them, perhaps because of that rather than in spite of it. But then two more cars passed me and the atmosphere was shattered. I really liked those tennis courts. I want to go back out at night again, so I can see them.

I reached another decision. I could either go forward and take the direct route back to my house, which is what I was going to do and very nearly did.

Then I looked to the left, up the shrouded hill, and I remembered where that went - the church and the school and the new graveyard where my next door neighbor died a few years ago (I don't remember exactly when, which scares me a little. It was one of the very, very few funerals I've been to and then remembered with some clarity afterwards.) I decided to go that route.

The hill was pretty steep. I started puffing a little bit (parasprite just uploaded a story called Spunk Science when I wrote that sentence and now I've been thrown for a loop). This was probably because I'm incredibly unfit, as you may have divined thus far. I took a little peek into the surprisingly empty graveyard. then looked up to see the Grassy Path, which is the accepted name for the long slope up the side of the hill towards the primary school of the village. I really love that school. I hope the new headteacher is looking after it as well as her predecessor did.

A couple of cars passed at the inopportune moment, at the same time. I turned right and, on a whim, went up a small hill on my way back to the main part of the village. There was a small gap in the bushes and thorns on the left that I remember leading up to an alcove, but I couldn't be sure. The tearooms were down the slope on my right, lights still on and people chatting inside. There's a playground behind it. I wondered if anyone still used it.

I walked down the steps and there, across the road, was the winding road that led back to my house. I followed the pavement - flowers had grown through the cracks in the wall on my left at some point apparently - down towards my house.

I walked in through the front door. My parents were still watching the TV as they were when I decided to leave on a whim without telling them. I thought about going back to my room and going on my laptop, but instead I chose to use my parent's new desktop to write this.

And that's that. My parents looked at me a little oddly when they saw me typing away with an odd look on my face. They probably think I've gone mad, which I wonder about too sometimes.

Really, I quite enjoyed my walk. It was a nice experience.

I hope you enjoyed it too, somewhat. I'm going to go to bed, despite having done no real writing or homework tonight.