getting out of there

by uzwi

Here’s a taste of “Getting Out of There”, a new story published as a run of 200 signed & numbered chapbooks by Nick Royle at the Nightjar Press. If you’re quick you might get one.

Hampson came back after some years, to the seaside in the rain, to this town built around a small estuary where a river broke through the chalk downs. Everything–everything people knew about, anyway–came in through that gap, by road or rail; and that’s the way Hampson came too, down from London, midweek, in a rental van, unsure of what he would find for himself after so long. He had options, but since he wasn’t sure about them either, he rented a single room on one of the quiet wide roads that run down from the old town.

The day he moved in, he realised that not all the things he had brought back with him–bits of furniture, endless half-filled cardboard boxes sealed with gaffa tape–would fit in there, so he drove the van to a self-storage under some railway arches where the London Road left the centre of town. It was a bit back from the seafront, the usual kind of place, not very modern, with untreated breeze-block cubicles of different sizes, behind doors that were little more than plywood. He spent a morning carrying things around in there, then looked into the office on his way out. Behind the desk he found a woman he recognised.

“My god,” she said.

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