Cat

I was an evening commuter, returning home on familiar B roads through twilight fields and villages. The sky was a powdery dark blue and the buildings in S_ sank back from the road in the gloom. Hedges blurred out as I drove past them and the pale pastel rendering on walls became matt, subdued and damp.
Streetlights flickered on orange then yellowish white. The beacons for the crossing flashed a dull orange. The speed sensitive sign had a single spark of red lit up, but didn't flash a warning.
Suddenly, something white on the road flapped, feathers or fur blurred and made a soft sound against the windscreen. Did I see paws? In the mirror a tiny scene of destruction shrank into the distance. I felt nothing and continued. Rising over a hill I was caught up by some flashing lights, blue and red. I pulled over.

Gang fight

I was a gang member, part of a disorganised group in a strange urban place. The roads dry and dusty, the air hot and the dawn sky an oily yellow. The shuttered buildings and alleyways giving shadows but no welcome. Walking as a group we were purposeless after an organised fight hadn't happened. We stopped in a first floor coffee shop for drinks and to rest.

In a large garage or warehouse full of packing containers and junk, I found my bike. The proper bike and another wrong one, parts broken and ill fitting. It had to be returned but it wasn't possible yet, so I had to keep it in storage. Every time I saw them I had to check to see which was which, superficially the same yet on closer inspection, different. If ever there was a problem with the real bike, maybe parts could be exchanged with the other, but maybe not, it was so full of flaws.

Like the bike, there were two cameras. It was an easy mistake to pick the wrong one, to attach and remove parts, to get the cards ready. With all the components in place, I realised that I had the wrong camera, this one had old firmware and the other was new. I couldn't change the firmware like the other parts - by hand - so I had to strip and rebuild the thing.

In the coffee shop the open windows gave a view out of the city and towards a hill where a strange architecture like a great cemetery sprawled. All up the hill rows and terraces of ruined buildings and structures clustered together. The near ones, destroyed, almost completely ruined, had been partly rebuilt in crass undressed breeze blocks, anachronistic and inexplicable. The more distant ones grew in size and complexity, details hidden yet still clearly ruins. A track or way led straight up the midline towards the centre. In the centre of the layout, a temple, pyramid or ziggurat towered over the ruin like a small mountain. I finished the drink and grabbed my bag with the camera, to head to the track, already seeing the angles and shades of the ruins in my head.

Hacker

I was a hacker. Part of a team tracking someone across the A roads and villages of the UK. Tracing with GPS and cell sites. Living off fast food and sleeping in motels. Keeping in touch with email and Twitter. Dog tired we ended up in Scotland at a hotel and a remote beach. The chase was called off - it had all been an exercise. Back to the hotel for rest, playing pool and my back against the cool chalky walls. The subject was revealed - we had been tracking a renegade with an illicit cheese. With crackers it made a fine snack

Tara PT

I was a student, green, a player. Inexperienced but willing to go along for the ride. I queued, I walked, I bought fast food. I roomed with three other guys in a shady loft full of boxing memorabilia. I walked formal gardens and took an aerial ride on a spacehopper. I met Tara PT who was inexplicably interested in me, and we spent the evening partying. Returning to the loft I found there was no room for me or my stuff...

crab

I was a fighter, a traveller, sort of migrant, not quite fugitive. In a field of stubble a righteous assault. The back of my hand injured and infected. A parasite growing there. I sought help in a hospital and a small crablike creature, folded on itself, dormant, was removed.

I watched as the creature unfolded and melted away leaving what looked like armoured plates or leaves of a coppery metal. Prodded with a pencil the articulated plates barely hinted at the vanished creature. Having to move on, there wasn't the time to understand or dwell on who made the creature or where it came from.

A fire alarm, evacuating through corridors. A car park, outdoor air, huge concrete pillars and suspended roads. A child grazed by a vehicle in the car park, the irony of an injury provoked by an evacuation drill, at a hospital.

factory

I was a factory worker, though trade was slack and there were fewer and fewer designs coming in those days. Others had been laid off as the orders slowed down, and the lucky few who stayed on had to work harder to make up for all the idle machines still costing money. Looking up from the machine, where once there were rows of co workers, now there were odd arrangements of work stations, walkways cluttered with disused equipment. No-one knew how to operate it; could tell if it was working properly; or even how it was supposed to work.

At break time a walk through buildings, past dusty offices and storerooms, followed by the click and hum of automatic lighting firing up. Not so much for the change of scenery as to service the habit, the comfort of the familiar. A moment sitting on cold steel treads, watched only by the blinking PIR and CCTV. The smell of old cardboard and young pine, pallets and packing cases.

day zero

Some things have a clearly defined beginning. Black, white, off, on; discrete. The first day at a new job. The start of a contract. The start of a story.

Others are harder to pin down, they fade in gradually or you realise they are important some time afterwards. Looking back it's not clear if there is a start or a first that you can remember. When did you start liking a band? When was the start of a love affair? When did the first leaf fall? When did hope fade? When did a trend start?

For so many things that defy analysis there is a coping strategy - we can take a best guess. If we can't say it's right or wrong, definitively, perhaps it's good enough. Call it day zero.