A Disintegration Loop

In some sort of wasteland, possibly Malton from urbandead but in reality. The buildings and general lay out of the space appears to be a grid system, dark green, crisscrossing and bisecting the land; it resembles a giant board game. The sky is muted orange, and I have a feeling there is something lurking in the increasing shadows that dusk has introduced. Someone who I am with shows me around their flat. From the window I see abandoned car parks, and in the distance lakes and mountains, though this view is partially obscured by smoke rising from refineries that seem to encircle the town. The light is falling away. No-one is on the street when I am taken to the next house. The view from the window is the other house. Each subsequent place I am shown around offers a view of the preceding property. I am caught in a loop of property viewing, with some unknown menace responsible for the trap I find myself in.

I missed a few months somehow (I blame late-stage PhD write up), so here are two to catch up. One is from relatively recently and the other is from some point midway through the last decade. 'On a large complex train, arranged like an Ikea store. There is, as always, nowhere to sit, but I had to catch this train. There was no other option. I move from carriage to carriage, vaguely aware of someone guiding my hand through the morass of dark green first class seats I am forbidden to sit in, and elongated Moroccan-style benches replete with sprawl-ing idiots. I eventually come across the red carriage, a sort of standard class area, but covered in beds with red duvets. There are people under the sheets but I am unable to see them. They wriggle around and make noise. By the exit, which I walk through, there is one bed with a corpse in it. What I assume is the final carriage contains a food shop like Ikea; it is only when looking out of the window that I realise I am actually in the...

In a complicated lake view complex, I am trapped in a lift. After somehow escaping, I am eating some terrible lemon cake, and go out on a log raft. I am convinced the raft will sink, but the pilot seems more concerned about me drinking alcohol on board. Later I visit a rundown zoo, similar to the knackered fun house in the original Max Payne game. Lin and Zo are there, and another man. We enjoy the zoo, but as we attempt to leave we are accused of theft. I escape, but everyone else is trapped inside. I attempt to remonstrate with the owners to no avail. The fences are too high for me to get in, and I have a vague memory of trying something similar in the past. Zo eventually escapes but is covered in cuts. Following some confusion in the car, someone gives me a hand job. Later still, I wander around the HF building. It is full to bursting with strangers watching the Belgian Grand Prix. There is also an art gallery attached. Inside I am charged six quid for a slice of oddly liquid cak...

'An open day is being held at the University. I am talking with Paul outside my office, which is now in a palatial roof terrace type area. A bearded man akin to Harold Shipman approaches and says that he loves what we’ve done with the place. I think this an odd comment, but Paul dismisses it and wanders off with the man. More and more people arrive through a lift I never noticed before, and as I attempt to fight my way through the crowd to leave, Chris appears, and starts attacking me. He jumps up and over me several times, raining punches down on me as he descends. I am powerless to respond. The crowd simply stand and stare. Each of them is holding a red balloon.' This one actually happened last night, during a relatively sleepless period brought about by the consumption of alcohol.

'Some sort of alien spacecraft is attacking a terrace of houses. It is small enough that I am able to shut it inside the back door of someone’s house. The spacecraft goes about converting the human race in to Combine-style robots despite my clever defensive strategy. Later, hiding in some waterfront properties in a disused docklands-style area, the few remaining humans attempt to form a resistance; instead of helping out, I am hunting an elderly Rik Mayall through flood drains whilst the man is extinguished from existence by robots I sort-of helped create.'

I am an unsuccessful dectective - so unsuccessful I cannot even spell my own job correctly - with a disabled son. I am attempting to find the killer of a woman in Cambridge, murdered by Lion's Yard, her body found grasping a ladle. Somehow I know the outfit worn by the killer is blue/green/grey and I am compelled to look for evidence in the shampoo aisle of a local supermarket. By chance, over the road, I spot the killer queuing to get in to a Pizza Express. I give chase with my partner, who now exists. The killer leads us to a rooftop which seems to be similar to Hadid's re-imagined transport museum in Glasgow, where my disabled son is intent on killing himself owing to my neglect. We attempt to reach him, but before we can he rolls off the roof. I assume he is dead, but when I am eventually persuaded to look over the edge, in an exchange reminiscent of Brad Pitt at the conclusion of the film Se7en, the chair is empty. What sort of elaborate prank is this? When my partner t...

This happened, according to notes, the same week that Margaret Thatcher died. It came to mind as a result of watching Southcliffe. 'With Adam and others. The world is apparently populated by sadistic murderers. We are walking along a country road, trying to escape some unknown terror. We pass a derelict farm house. Up ahead a car spots us and begins slowly reversing down the road. We hide in the bushes. A man emerges from the car, and chases children across a field. Later, I wander about trying to work out – apparently by reading the landscape – how to get away from everything that is happening. The man returns. He has had enough of killing and wants to explain his politics via a power-point presentation. There is no level ground to set up the projector screen.'