We talked about everything. Car crashes and steampunk and time travel. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, cannibalism, Who To Eat First, Doctor Who, generic horror movie plots. Traps, music, the Middle Ages, Back To The Future, mad science. Inventors and poison gas and suicide. Piracy, death and happiness. Irony, sleepovers and He Has A Problem. Nuclear and zombie and just plain weird apocalypse. Everything.
We walked on the train track and talked. Were they disused? I think so, but I can't remember. We were too busy talking.
We were all lost, but we didn't care. Found our way back. The place has an interesting form of neglect. Inner-city flowers in a concrete wasteland. Protected by barbed wire and a tall fence, as if a heap of rubbish and some grass needed to be. From above, or even from the motorway flyover, the whole area looked so small, simple. Down below you can't see anything but warehouses. It's too flat; I feel lost without my hills. We took the 'Turn Left' sign literally, and now there's a canal blocking our way.
Still talking. The third's lost in a world of music, but we're together, discovering each other. We could invent the Internet, killer robots, meet Tesla and Babbage and Lovelace and Curie and Byron. It's not lost on us that if we really were born a hundred-and-fifty years ago we'd probably be dead or slaving in a mill. We laugh.
The lamp post has fallen. I balance, don't fall. Thistles, roses, weeds. That sounds ominous. Tiktiktik... There's a monster in the shed. Will it follow the cliches Hollywood tells it to?
When we finally find where we're going, we find we don't want to be there any more. Just carry on talking and walking forever.
We arrive. We leave. We talked about everything, but now it's all over but the memory.