Exeter, Devon

The maddest thing I've done in a long time
Leaving Leeds
When everything seemed so wonderful
A nice home
Two well-paying jobs
Stacks of money piling up in the bank
Squash and football
Forever seeing people I knew in the streets
My dad wanting to give me his shop
But still I left.
I guess we need a prologue...

Prologue

One morning last December
I wake up to a genuine 'vision'
The word KORINTH
Emblazoned massive upon the inside of my forehead
I don't know what it means
Then I think maybe it's an old city in Turkey
And googling shows I'm nearly right
I think about it...
And later on I go
Following other signs
Following the whims of a coin
And it all adds up to something -
unorthodox, yes -
But wonderful
I realise that I can trust myself
Trust my unorthodoxy
And I decide to go for the next one
Which is: EXETER
The way I feel every time I see the word
The way it keeps cropping up
The way I finally notice it - well, Exerta anyway -
Written on the back of my bin-found trainers
And one other thing too
So I fly back to Leeds
Pack my things
And make a wonky bee-line
Via London and Kent
For a town where I know no one
Know nothing about
Research not a jot
Just go

1.

And everything's groovy
And I like the people
And though I'm sort of indistinguishable from a homeless chap
Save for my overstuffed bank balance
I feel happy and content
Walking hither thither
Tossing coins
Following up clues
Playing the "Yes Man"
And doing things I wouldn't normally do
I'm anonymous, I guess
A whole new me
Anyway

2.

One clue takes me to a nearby beach
Turns out you have to walk through a tunnel to get there
And the beach is pretty much deserted
And beautiful too
There I do my usual thing
Of speaking to 'The Man'
Of feeling gleeful and glad
Chortling at myself and my life
And there I find waiting
Written in pebbles
In a sentence forty-feet long
"YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF THE INTERNET"

3.

I'm camping in trees
I'm following the signs
Living one hour at a time
Gumtreeing not
Minimal contact with the past
For the other thing I realised in Greece:
Wow, my life was so much better before the 'net
Before, at least, the way I've been using it
Word of mouth
Overheard conversations
Strange coincidences.

You probably won't agree
But it works for me

4.

It's amazing to feel so much peace
So much glee
So much casual giggling happiness
When outer circumstances are such
But then -
The other thing I realised yesterday
Amongst all the rest
Was how utterly futile it is
To think about communicating these things to the world
The greatest things aren't youtubeable
Bloggable
Filmable
Writable
For instance -
The way my heart moves when I accidentally break a spider's web
I can't show that to anyone
Nor record it
But it is amazing
And one of the best things about me