Hellsborough Exposed

Half of Hellsborough smokes dried yellow snough weed and never connects the smoke in their lungs to the field they walked through on the way home. Stay on the tramlines: step off and the stalks close in behind you at a rate that has nothing to do with wind, and the acre-wide root tangle underneath simply holds your boot while it works out whether you're worth composting. I once pulled a man free after four hours, both boots gone, both ankles the colour of the flowers.

Seven people in Hellsborough cross my path far too often for it to be chance, and I've stopped pretending otherwise. You're watched here by the Exacid, monitored by the hive mind, and out in The Dark Peak by the organic network, and you never know when or by whom. Daft as it sounds, that's why the seven have started to feel like a safety blanket: at least they recognise me and stop for a chat, as if I'm not the stranger in this strange land I sometimes feel.