Edge

Over the Edge

Zander turned off the ignition and the truck shuddered into silence.

‘Abandoned airbase, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.’ He read aloud from the scrap of ripped Rizla packet he was rotating in large, oil-stained fingers. We looked at each other, then out at the landscape of rock, grass and the top-heavy sky. With no trees or buildings to give scale to the panorama, distances span away over an edgeless horizon.

‘This must be it.’ he said with a note of resignation. The truck flexed and groaned in the wind.

No matter how remote, how windswept, the show always went on. Every weekend we searched out the few remaining wild places: forests, mountains, moorland. Places we could hold free parties and festivals without disturbing neighbours or drawing the attention of police. We dodged roadblocks and patrols by navigating back roads, woodland tracks and ancient green lanes. With the ground underfoot as our path and the lie of land as our guide, we drifted over the edge of the only map we had. Our inner-selves reached out and made new connections with geographical space and geographical space reached in and made new connections with us. We were exploring another England. A synaptic landscape. The borders between internal and external worlds. But by crossing over, into the outlands, we’d become outlaws. An adventure for sure, but with the excitement came a growing sense of unease.