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again. I found myself coming down the lane to the church again. I found myself coming down the lane from the moor to the exact same point where I had been perhaps twenty minutes before. I stopped and looked around me. I didn’t understand what had happened. As far as I could remember you just followed this lane down and it went to the edge of the town. But here I was outside the church again and I was sure I had passed this way already. I sat down and drank some water. It was still hot. I didn’t know how I had managed to get lost. Perhaps I had remembered wrong. Everything was still so unclear. I had probably got it wrong taken a wrong turning. I set off again down the lane towards the town paying attention this time to where I was.
    It happened again. After another twenty minutes or so I found myself coming back down the lane towards the church. I was puzzled now and angry too. What the hell was happening? I was angry with myself. I had thought I would manage this trip. Now it looked like my legs could do it but my mind could not. What was going wrong? Where was the wrong turning I was taking? I couldn’t remember taking any turning at all. Up the lane was the moor and down the lane was the town. It seemed straightforward. Surely it was straightforward.
    I tried it again. I tried it twice more and the same thing happened each time. For the fourth time I ended up coming down the lane towards the church. I was sweating now it was hot and white everywhere and so quiet and I was furious. I was furious with myself I was furious with the place I was furious with the fucking church and the fucking moor. I was almost out of water. I felt like crying and I wanted to sit down.
    I decided to go and sit in the church and get my breath back and consider. It would be cool in there and silent and I could drink my water. There might be a tap somewhere. I could fill up my bottle and try again. I went through the lych gate and down the tree-lined path to the church’s main door. I tried the iron handle and the heavy wooden door opened. When I walked in the cold stillness enveloped me. It was a relief. There was nobody else there.
    I went and sat in the front pew before the altar. I drank the last of my water and I breathed slowly until I began to cool down and calm down. I watched the quiet light coming in through the stained glass window. The church calmed me. The ancient silence the cold stone the smell of dust. It was a well of nothingness and I drank from it until I was as still as the air it enclosed. I sat there for perhaps twenty minutes.Nothing happened at all there was just the great stillness of the old stone cradling me. When I felt like I had recovered I went exploring and behind the altar to the left I found a small room with a sink in it. I filled my bottle. Before I left I bowed my head. You have to bow your head to something.
    The heat and the whiteness and the silence descended on me as soon as I opened the church door again. I stood in the centre of the lane and looked and listened. Nothing. I wondered what to do. I had thought this lane was asphalt but now I saw that it was dust. It was the fourth time I had stood here and I was tired. My legs were aching and my head was throbbing.
    There was a field by the church which I felt had once had ponies in it. There were no ponies now. I stood by the silent hedge and gazed into the empty field where the ponies had been. I had no idea how I kept getting lost. I had been returned here again and again. My mind was clouded so much had been shaken. Now I wondered if I had the strength for another attempt to find the town. What if I got lost again? Time was passing and my body was aching.
    If I headed back now over the moor I would probably make it back to the farm. If I lost myself a few more times on the way down to the town I didn’t knowwhat I would do tonight. Perhaps it was best to go back to the house to sleep and try again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow it would not be so hot