They say if you travel down 367 miles from the northernmost point of the M1 on a windy April the first night, with a particular cloud arrangement in the sky (my knowledge on this is hazy but I'm quite sure one must be shaped like a crocodile), stop off on the field to your left and then cry to the heavens that your toenails are ingrowing, you'll look like an idiot and possibly be sectioned for having a mental disorder that entails an obsession with abnormal toenails.

If you were sensible and went to Slough instead, to a particular lamp post on a particular street, then swung around the lamp post whilst singing hallelujah, you'd quickly disappear before the man in white coats could even entertain the thought of finding you.

And so it was that a young man in a suit, carrying a heap of posters, stood gasping on this same street in Slough, wishing that his bosses would consider their cock-up in giving him a lamp post in Slough, when in fact he lived in Edinburgh. Parking was nightmarish down here, and already he could feel the traffic wardens watching him, counting down the minutes until they could swarm his car like vultures.

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As soon as Kevin strode out into the classroom and disrobed himself, he saw the same expressions of bafflement cross the faces of the art students, one by one. Not bafflement as in 'what a horrible looking creature; his elbows are positively vile!' - he hoped – but more one of genuine confusion. These looks said 'why is he there?', 'why are we here?' and 'I wonder what I'll make for tea tonight?'.

“This is Kevin; he'll be our subject for today,” said the tutor, a moustached man in a turtleneck who hovered near his own easel. “Let's get painting!”

With that a new silence took over; the silence of concentration and a gentle sonic landscape of brushes scratching canvas. But the old, uneasy quiet was still there, and it was weird. Kevin pondered on it to distract from the draught threatening his nethers. He couldn't help but think sometimes that maybe people couldn't quite place him in the world – like there was something missing or odd that set him apart from some bizarre cosmic balance. But most of his thought went on to the fact that he was unemployed and his life was awful beyond belief.

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And floating through darkness, the faint sound of a clarinet. Gemini lifted her head for just a moment, listening to the ephemeral notes dance around the sounds of the night. In her state of half-waking it was simply a strange composition to her; probably Atlas having a late night rehearsal. She didn't put it down as unusual, although it was. Her mind was just the music, and exhaustion. Her head drifted down into the pillow; her eyes wandered the scattered toys on her bedroom floor and she imagined them dancing as the music lulled her to sleep.

She heard it in her dreams, and it was most unlike anything she had ever heard Atlas play. Another world had opened up from whence the music came; she felt it prising a gulf between body and soul and pushing, widening until her whole being was rushing to pieces. The drumbeat of her heart throbbed sharp and loud.

Light slanted across her ceiling an instant later. Outside a blackbird trilled, another chirped in response. Conversation in song. And then the throbbing came again, this time at her bedroom door.

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