Deep in a
psychosis one time I was on a road that I thought would never end. I was aware
that it led back to Warrington, but one particular roundabout I knew lay on the
horizon just would not appear. It was a long straight, a turn, another long
straight, another turn, and so on. I started to get really doubtful at one
instance about whether I had entered a parallel dimension. I considered the
fact that this road may not in fact have an ending. What made it worse is that I
started to perceive dinosaurs in the woods either side of this road. I could
see their vague shapes out of the corner of my eye. I could hear them. The noises
they were making sounded surreal, squeaking and purring as I hurried by. I didn’t
feel threatened but I was aware that I could be in danger. It was the
otherworldliness about it.
Every corner
I turned, I thought to myself: Surely the roundabout I recognise is up ahead
here at this one, but it weren’t, the road just crept on and on and on and on
and on. It was like being in the Twilight Zone or something. I was getting
hungry and thirsty and laboured and there was no explanation for it. The road
would never end!
I remember that
day well. I’d been driven out of town by a White Lives Matter rally. They chased
me to the border of town because of my colour and I was forced to hike it to
the neighbouring town, Widnes, which incidentally is my home town of origin. I’m
not sure if the crowd that chased me out had weapons or not, I didn’t pay them
too much attention as I was hastily getting out of their way, but I feared that
they might have. It was several hundred strong. I encountered that never-ending
road as I was making my way back home later that same evening.
The fear of
that crowd is still with me today. I was battling the things in my head, all my
ghosts and ghoulies and beasties and demons, but to be encountered by a rally
in the flesh was something else entirely. It made all my nightmares real. I
think it was simply a case of bad timing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong
time. The last thing a White Lives Matter movement wants to see is a black man
prancing towards them as if he owns the place, which is the way I usually walk
(like a Millwall fan); things just developed in such a way that they decided to
pick on me and chase me. If I hadn’t of hurried up and got a wriggle on and
actually being caught by them then things could have ended up a lot worse off
for myself personally. I could have been badly beaten at the very least and
maybe even something worse. I consider it a close scrape with vigilante law but
it hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm or passion for the town, it was just one of
those things and as I say bad timing.
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