<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Hovercraft.jpg" width=50% alt="A pencil drawing of the hovercraft from the Isle of Wight to Southsea"/>
[[The Twenty Metre Rule->The Hovercraft]]
by Howard Hardiman
Your breath settles like the sigh of the hovercraft's skirts. You shift your weight, testing whether your foot can find the mainland beneath it more easily than it finds the Island's soil.
You take a step, drawing in your stomach, and hoping that the other step falls into place when it should. You smile as the staff wait to let the next set of passengers out onto the slipway. You know that they aren't impatient, but the people crowded inside with their phones ready for the all-important updates.
[[You laugh]]
(set: $health to it -1)(Set: $distance to it +20)You turn left and take a moment to look up at the yellow and blue disc atop the arcade building at Clarence Pier. Beyond the squat tower and the screams and bleeps from the games in the othewise-deserted attraction, the remains of the frame for a big wheel stands empty.
You try to straighten your shoulders as best you can and look forward. You pass a grocer's stall, the owner not even glancing up from his newspaper to see if you're buying. A similarly empty ice cream counter and a snack shop, then the final cabin houses a fish and chips counter outside which your gaze is met by a strange creature.
[[Next->Chip Man Image]]
A cone of chips with a wide-eyed face on the front, two tube legs ending in heavy boots bracing its peculiar weight. It only has one arm and is using it to hold a chip as though it were smoking a joint. Its blue eyes look stoned while it consumes what must be in place of its own brain.
While you wait for the burning pain that scatters around your hip and into your leg to ease a little, you find yourself wondering why this would make anyone want to eat chips.
[[And yet...]]
The young woman behind the counter of the chip shop looks up in surprise, as though she'd closed down for the winter as much as the rest of Clarence Pier. She has been working on a crossword, tapping her teeth with her pen while she's thinking.
"What can I..." she begins, then stops to rub at her lip, suddenly worried that she might have drawn on her face, which she has. Three dark blue dashes and one dot under her nose. Or it might be a drunken tattoo.
[[You smile]]
"Aw, damn. I knew it." She rubs at her face, then looks at her hand, then turns away from you to wash her hands at the sink.
"Well, that was embarrassing!" She laughs, drying her hands. "Sorry. What can I get you?"
[[Cone of chips, please]]
"A cone of chips, please!"
"Of course! I don't know why I ask, really, it's about the only thing we do here!"
You laugh. You pay her and take a paper napkin, resting your walking stick against the wall, just hoping it doesn't fall down.
"It'll be a couple of minutes while it cooks through." She glances down, not at your walking stick, but at her crossword.
"I'm a bit stuck on this one:"
(set: $crossword to (either:('Mobility', 'Chronic', 'Tribunal')))(if: $crossword is 'Mobility')[
'A gang, slightly unwell in a non-capital city.' eight letters, second letter 'O'.
[[Mobility->Right Answer]]
[[Forsworn->Wrong Answer]]
[[Complete->Wrong Answer]]
](Else-if: $crossword is 'Chronic')[
"'Of a hag's ongoing habit' seven letters, first letter C.
[[Chelsea->Wrong Answer]]
[[Chronic->Right Answer]]
[[Chipper->Wrong Answer]]
](Else-if: $crossword is 'Tribunal')[
"'Judging three baked goods from Alabama' Eight letters, last letter L"
[[Judicial->Wrong Answer]]
[[Tribunal->Right Answer]]
[[Forceful->Wrong Answer]]
]
{(set: $health to ($health +1))(set: $hungry to 'nothungry')
}There's nowhere to sit by the counter, so you move across to the bus stop and sit down, shaking your head at the bus driver and holding up your chips.
The driver smiles and waves as she pulls out from the stop.
The chips are fat and hot and salty and are just what you needed. Once you've finished as many as you can manage, you lean your weight onto the walking stick and stand.
[[Next->Climbing wall or further on]]
{(set: $distance to it +20)(set: $health to it -1)}You stand by the chip cone man and notice that he's missing a shoelace as well as an arm. It strikes you as a strange detail to have him made of fibreglass but to then go to the trouble of giving him bootlaces, only to then have one disappear. Like his arm.
[[Next->Climbing Wall Corner]]
As you walk along the decking, you hear the roar of the hovercraft beginning its next flight. The couple ahead are transfixed. The taller woman is watching through her phone, while her partner leans on the rails and smiles.
By the time you reach the corner to view the hovercraft, it is on its way and you watch with the two women as it recedes. The spray casts a sheen onto the pebble beach where there's a warning sign that has rusted to almost meaninglessness to remind you that there is a hovercraft.
[[Next->The couple on the pier]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Hovercraft-Sign.jpg" width=80% alt="The woman with the camera leans forward to take a photograph as the hovercraft lifts and begins to turn."/>
(set: $distance to it +20)(set: $health to it-1)
[[Next->Turn back from the pier]]
There is a path from the decking into the funfair, but the gate is closed. It stops you from getting to the climbing frames and rope bridges that shift as if they are breathing in the wake of the hovercraft.
There was a time when you would have enjoyed clambering around on rope bridges or going on swings, but it isn't just the gate that prevents you from going further.
[[Turn back]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Clarence-Pier-Building-e1484053393106.jpg" width=80% alt="Clarence Pier is a wide building with a central tower. Games arcades and a Wimpy restaurant on the ground floor. The tower is painted in blue and yellow stripes and has a disc on top which covers a viewing area." />
[[Next->L60Text]]
(set: $health to it-1)(set: $distance to it+20
)You stop at the front of the arcade to take a moment to breathe. By the entrance, you see a small toy hot dog van rocking back and forth, awaiting a driver. On the roof, a plastic dachshund smiles with its tongue out.
For no discernable reason, it emits a short, two second giggle in the voice of a child every now and again.
[[Look into the arcade window]]
The lights are dim inside the arcade and the noise is overwhelming. Twenty or more machines bleep, squeal or call out for your attention; your money.
There are no customers, just a tide of carefully balanced coins drifting back and forth on a precipice while the Hillbilly Hoedown yodels its yee-haw.
[[Catch your breath]]
A familiar flash of pain pierces your back like a blade. A heartbeat quickly passes, then your leg feels molten and yet it feels as though ice was rolling down over your knee to your foot.
You could not, if you wanted to, feel the plastic of the brace under your foot that stops your foot from tripping itself up, nor the bloody blister on the back of your calf where the brace rubs.
You try to calm your breathing and swallow the curses that are filling your mouth like bile.
[[Stop]]
This has happened before and it will happen again. You think of the pain specialist's advice on how to accept the grinding awfulness of the pain you feel.
You square yourself, thinking that this would have happened sooner or later had you stayed at home, had you brought a wheelchair, had you brought a friend other than the constant companionship of pain that no drugs can quite silence.
[[Look at your foot]]
(set: $health to it-1)You stand at the base of the tower at Clarence Pier. You wonder for a moment where the actual pier is, since you saw nothing of the sort on the way here.
You are outside a cafe and the smell of coffee appeals, but the steps up are off-putting.
[[Next->L80Text2]]
It feels a little bit absurd to be sitting on the steps to the Pirates and Princesses attraction, but you're quite used to looking absurd.
You lean heavily on your stick and take a few deep breaths. A moment to remind yourself that when you take things slow, you see more than you might if you rushed.
Still, the step is a poor seat, so you move on.
[[Get up->L100Text]]
You managed to walk for $distance metres this time. It feels like an achievement, however trivial it would have seemed before the injury.
Like the tide, it comes and it goes. You've learned to accept this. You've learned to find peace with this. Going slowly. Sometimes going nowhere.
It comes and it goes, but it always, always returns.
You continue along the road and find yourself stood by a map next to a bus stop. A metal bollard, capped with a greenish seal showing a ship, marks a hundred metres from the gate of the Hovercraft.
You look back. It isn't far at all, but you can already hear the next hovercraft arriving.
[[A hundred metres]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Taking-Down-The-Wheel.jpg" width=80% alt="The big wheel that had stood on the pier lies in segments along the back of the trailer. The little cabins for people to sit inside are placed on top, ready to be taken away." />
[[Next->L120Text]]
The building proclaims itself:
PIER OF THE YEAR
You're not sure exactly where the pier is around here. It's on a road with a car park behind it. You're not sure how old the sign is, either.
[[Next->L100R20Text]]
You stand by a large vehicle where a huge flat trailer has the parts of a big wheel stacked up in a series of numbered arcs.
Two people walk past, one with a coffee in their hand, the other with hands firmly in pockets.
Fidgeting their hands in their pockets, one says:
"They had to take it down because it was in the path of migratory birds."
[[Birds]]
As the smell of coffee fades, you watch as a small brown starling perches on the tip of a section of big wheel and sings before leaping into the air.
[[Next->L140Image]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Starling.jpg" width=80% alt="A starling lifts on the wing against the white of the cloudy sky."/>
[[Next->L140Text]]
Another twenty metres and you have only reached the other end of the first of the two trucks. A rack of stacked, white railings waits to be lifted onto the next truck.
Between the two trucks is the closed gate, grey metal railings tipped with spikes. The skeleton of a rollercoaster and the last few bones of the big wheel lie beyond.
(set: $distance to it+20)
[[Look around]]
A tall man with a very small dog walks past, tugging at the lead and yapping at you. The man won't make eye contact, nor does he allow you to approach the dog, pulling it away, saying:
"Leave them alone, Tootsie, will you? Leave them alone."
[[Poor Tootsie]]
(set:$health to it+1)(if: $health >7)[You put your back against the scoop at the middle of the next truck and hop up to sit and watch as a group of children in white trainers race past, followed by a teacher in far more sensible shoes.
You remember running, and find yourself thinking that the teacher has a good cadence and is keeping a steady stride, but that his shoes, more sensible, don't stop him from over-pronating and his ankles leaning inwards has shifted his centre of gravity, so his shoulders carry tension transferred up through his body.
[[Pronating]]](else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[You put your back against the scoop at the middle of the next truck and hop up to sit and watch as a group of children in white trainers race past, followed by a teacher in far more sensible shoes.
You remember running, and find yourself thinking that the teacher has a good cadence and is keeping a steady stride, but that his shoes, more sensible, don't stop him from over-pronating and his ankles leaning inwards has shifted his centre of gravity, so his shoulders carry tension transferred up through his body.
[[He needs better shoes]]]
(else-if: $health <5 and it >0)[
You put your back against the scoop at the middle of the next truck and lean to watch as a group of children in white trainers race past, followed by a teacher in far more sensible shoes.
You remember running, and there are days when you could have offered the teacher advice. His weight falls a little too heavily, but you feel so leaden and sore that thinking about how easily you could run just makes you feel bitterly sad.
[[Next->L160Image]]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Gulls-on-a-Telegraph-Pole-Crop.jpg" width=80% alt="A gull sits atop a telegraph pole while another comes in to land."/>
[[Next->L180Text]]
(set: $health to it-1)(set: $distance to it +20)Another twenty metres. You count your steps as you watch the runners racing ahead.
At the head of the second truck filled with big wheel parts, you're facing another fish and chips shop, this one with its shutters closed. You wonder how many of these are needed at this time of year, but you look ahead and see another.
[[Fork lift]]
(set: $health to it-1)(set: $distance to it +20)You walk slowly past the Treasure Island Adventure Golf and wonder how pirates would manage to play golf if they had hooks for hands. You then wonder if you'd be allowed to use your walking stick, flipped over, as a club.
There were times when this first began when that was all you wanted to do when you were walking. Golf wasn't what you'd wanted, just a clear path.
[[The All New Adult Casino Slot Lounge]]
(set:$health to it-1)(if: $health >5)[
There is music here, in abundance. Treasure Island Golf is playing rock while the arcade plays house in the dark amongst the flashing lights.
Another fish and chip shop plays pop and somewhere you can hear the theme from War of the Worlds.
It's a little overwhelming, especially when you notice the grabbing-claw game where an inept claw hangs over a pit filled with grinning Pikachu and Pokéball plush toys. It looks like a massacre.
[[Rest at the tables-> L200Text2Rest]]
[[Continue along the promenade->Pikachu Grabber]]
](else-if: $health >1 and it <6)[
It's a little overwhelming here, with music coming from the Treasure Island Golf, the fish and chip shop and from the arcade.
You're sore and tired, but you can see the sea ahead. A little further and you'll reach your goal: sitting by the sea to watch the waves' call and answer with the pebbles of the shore.
You think that if you stopped here, the unsteady chairs, the music and the massacre of Pikachu toys in a claw grabber pit wouldn't do much to help.
[[Continue along the promenade->Pikachu Grabber]]
](else-if: $health <2 and it >0)[
You're tired. You stop to catch your breath, resting one hand on the back of a metal chair outside a fish and chip shop. How many of these are there? It doesn't help your sense that you've not managed to get very far.
It's noisy and the smell from the chip shop combines quite poorly with the noise of the arcade, the pirate golf and the slightly unexpected sound of the War of the Worlds soundtrack playing somewhere.
Another Peppa Pig sits in another car, rocking backwards and forwards, waiting for someone to pay for a ride, like an underage uber, realising that the promised money isn't coming.
You know how Peppa feels.
[[Continue along the promenade->Pikachu Grabber]]
](else-if: $health <1)[You're tired. You try to catch your breath by putting your hand on the back of a metal chair, but it is a little too low for you and the movement sends a spike of pain through your back.
You catch the yelp before it leaves your throat, but you know that you have come as far as your body will allow.
[[Next->Health is Zero]] ]
(set: $health to it-1)You take a seat on the metal chair and almost immediately regret it. The chair's leg skips on the slight slope of the road and you land awkwardly.
The noise around you is irritating, and not in the way that it might distract you from the pain and chill that you sense running down your leg.
[[Get up again.]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Pikachu.jpg" width=80% alt="The coin operated machine where the floor is littlered with fluffy toy Pikachu heads below a background painting of a very panicked Pikachu who seems to be reaching for the grabber claw.">
[[Next->L220 Text]]
As you walk, you're suddenly surrounded by a group of schoolchildren doing some long-distance running in a white-shoe-clad mob, followed by their teacher, who runs a little more slowly and steadily.
(set: $distance to it +20)(set:$health to it-1)
[[See how they run]]
Just past the chip shop, there's a "do-nut" shop, but the window has been boarded up with cardboard. Someone broke the window to the do-nut shop.
Someone needed money so badly that they'd break into a shop, and of all of the shops around, they made the decision to break into a do-nut shop.
You know what it's like to make bad decisions when you're desperate.
(set: $distance to it +20)
[[Continue->Gulls on a Wire]]
And yet, you carry on.
[[Next->At The Shore]]
(set: $health to it -1)You turn away from the promenade, heading along towards the park. You find yourself outside another arcade, claiming to have (as they all claim) the "Cheapest ATM Inside Guaranteed" which doesn't inspire much confidence.
You glance to your right, back to the hovercraft terminal, which, at one point, would have been only seconds away, but it already feels like the return journey will be a challenge.
[[Distances shift with time]]
In the window of the arcade, you see a faded piece of laminated paper. It announces itself as a "Notice for the Dispersal of Groups" and describes its powers as including the right to tell people who don't live in the area to leave and not to return. Should anyone remain, they face three months in prison and a £2500 fine. For being the public in a public place.
The notice says it applies from a minute past midnight on the 30th of June 2008 until midnight of hallowe'en that year.
Eight years on, and it feels like that applies to the whole country, not Camber Docks to St Helens' Parade.
[[Next->L100R20Text3]]
(if: $health >7)[You wonder if you could pick up your pace. If, perhaps, once you have a better-fitted leg brace that won't cut your leg open, you might be able to run.
[[Next->L100R40Text]]
](else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[You sigh, fogging over the faded notice for a moment. You've said goodbye to three friends in the last month. Each leaving the country before they find themselves forced to leave.
One is going because their job is moving from this country to a more reliable part of the EU, the second came from a country that had survived fascism and here, she was sent a letter making a list of foreign children in school. The last left because she had stopped answering her phone in public in case anyone heard her Polish accent.
[[You don't know where you'd run]]
](else-if: $health <5 and it >0)[
You sigh, fogging over the faded notice for a moment. You've said goodbye to three friends in the last month. Each leaving the country before they find themselves forced to leave.
One is going because their job is moving from this country to a more reliable part of the EU, the second came from a country that had survived fascism and here, she was sent a letter making a list of foreign children in school. The last left because she had stopped answering her phone in public in case anyone heard her Polish accent.
[[Pain is insidious]]
](else-if: $health <1)[Sometimes, pain seems ridiculously petty. Looking at a notice about people being unable to be the public in public unless they live inside an arcade or on a big wheel.
That's enough to raise the tension in your back to the point where you turn your head to carry on and feel a spark run from your neck to the base of your spine.
You lean against the glass wall for a moment, trying to catch your breath. Trying to tell yourself to not give up.
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
"Oh!" She says, "You're good. That would have bugged me all day."
She eagerly writes in the answer, then looks across to where the chips are bubbling away.
"Ah, here you go."
(set: $health to it+1)[[Enjoy the chips]]
"Oh, thanks!" she says, but she doesn't go to write it in straight away, instead getting up to get your chips from where they're sizzling in the oil.
"Here you are!"
[[Enjoy the chips]]
The cacophany of the arcades fade until you hear the roar and hiss of the tide. The music from War of the Worlds seems incongruous, but absurd enough to be amusing.
You have reached the end of the arcades. There are no more fish and chip shops. No more Peppa Pig rides. No more cheapest ATMs.
Just you and the roll and draw of sea and shore.
(set: $distance to it +20)
[[Sit on the sea wall]]
You look for a way down to the pebble beach, but it is a good fifty metres ahead from where you are. To your right, you see a car park where a man sits watching you, not the sea, then fusses with something when he sees he's been spotted.
No matter.
Ahead, you can see the Spinnaker Tower's longbow pierce the skyline, beyond a long, flat walk.
You know that it may as well be in another country. It is too far.
[[Next->Sea Wall 2]]
Instead, you turn to face the sea, perch against the concrete barrier and look out to the sea.
The Island nests over the curve of the horizon, sails and masts stitching over that line.
Again, another world away.
The pain is a dull thud in your back, and your foot feels as though it is ablaze.
Like the sea, it comes and it goes.
Getting used to this was difficult at first, particularly the turn as the pain recedes and then returns.
[[Next->Sea Wall 3]]
The reach and the hiss. The stone and the tide. The singing pitch of stone against stone. This you know.
[[It will pass.->Measuring Wheel]]
You try not to think about it. When you have found your thoughts heading into that direction, you have felt your back seizing up. You have walked a little further to try to clear your head, threading through the stands outside a tourist shop.
Sunglasses and beach balls fill racks, alongside brightly coloured buckets and spades. You have to twist slightly to fit through and glance at a display of pens with English names on them.
(set: $distance to it +20)
(if: $health >5)[[[Next->BigWheelCafe]]
](else-if: $health <6 and it >3)[The twist to weave through the racks of tourist gifts makes you wince and wish you'd paid more attention. It's the slight movements that always catch you out.
[[Next->BigWheelCafe]]
](Else-if: $health <4 and it >0)[The slight twist to move through the racks of tourist gifts sends a jolt through you and you regret not stopping to plan your route through. You could have stepped around, you should have seen other wider gaps, but sometimes, pain gets in the way of ideas. You will need a rest.
[[Next->BigWheelCafe]]
](else-if: $health is 0)[That little twist seems to snag at something in your back and a jolt of pain makes you yelp. It's absurd, that turning your head to look at a pen is enough to write off the rest of your day, but this is what you're used to.
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
(set: $distance to it +20)(set: $health to it -1)You pass the tourist shop and reach the corner of the road by a roundabout that faces a park. There are some picnic benches here, outside The Big Wheel Cafe. The big wheel is being taken down today, but the cafe remains.
Looking past the cafe, into the city, you can see the D-shape of the Spinnaker Tower marking the port in the distance. Next to the café is a Treasure Island Golf attraction.
On the side of one of the picnic tables, you read a sign:
/THE BIG WHEEL CAFE
These tables are for our customers use only./
There are no customers apart from a crow.
[[Rest at the Big Wheel Cafe]]
[[Turn Left towards the Pirate Golf]]
(set: $health to it +1)You feel a little thrill of rebellion as you sit on the corner of the bench and rest your walking stick on the sign that says you can't sit there.
The crow on another table looks up at you, then hops down to the pavement. It starts pecking at a McDonald's chip box. You're not sure but it's about a mile to the nearest McDonald's. You wonder if the crow brought it here.
You lean forward to adjust the brace on your leg and, as the crow sticks its head into the chip box, you wonder what those little pockets for fries are actually called.
The crow tilts its head and kicks the empty cardboard packet away. It would only call the packaging lacking in chips.
As you re-fasten the velcro buckle on your leg brace, the crow takes flight, looking for discarded fries.
[[Crow with chips]]
(set: $health to it-1)(set: $distance to it +20)Just after the café, you find yourself at the back of the Treasure Island Adventure Golf.
A large sign proclaims:
Treasure Island
Adventure Golf
18 Holes
of Swashbuckling
FUN
Open Daily
It is closed.
[[Don't play Treasure Island Adventure Golf]]
(if: $health >4)[You take a look in at the swashbuckling fun you're being denied. This side of the course looks like crazy golf in a graveyard. You can't quite read the headstones. Not because they're weather-worn, but because they look like badly photocopied cracker jokes.
We may never know what fate befell Long John Andy.
[[Continue->Premier Inn]]
](else-if: $health <5 and it >0)[Looking through the bars to the swashbuckling fun that you're being denied, you see a putting green in a fibreglass graveyard.
A series of stones mark the edge of the putting green, looking like a rugged spine made of flint.
[[Next->Premier Inn]]
](else-if: $health <1)[You lean against the metal railings surrounding the empty adventure golf course. A fibreglass graveyard surrounds a putting green, next to which flint stones cut a ridge that looks like your spine feels.
Perhaps getting as far as the beach is too much for today.
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
You walk a little further along the dirt road behind the arcade. The sign for the Premier Inn is a short distance away. To your right is the sports field that's for Ministry of Defense use only.
Like Adventure Golf, it's empty. Perhaps it turned out that playing rugby isn't their preferred route to world peace.
[[Outside the Inn]]
The stairs are slippery, but the metal finds a grip against the soles of your shoes and you carefully climb down to the level, unrolling concrete.
A tall woman smiles gently and you know she's wanting to tell you, as she did the first few times, that there is a lift that you're very welcome to use if it's easier. You don't quite know whether you want to say you're ashamed or that you worry about getting into lifts.
[[Instead->passage1.3]]
Instead you smile a half-second smile and take a breath while other passengers hurry past.
{
(if: $health >7)[You're feeling pretty good today, just nagging pains that you can deal with.
<br><br>[[Leave the hoverport -> First Steps]]]
(else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[
You're feeling okay, but you wish you could have had a little more sleep, or that the crossing had been smooth enough for you to have closed your eyes for those ten minutes.
<br><br>[[Leave the hoverport -> First Steps]]]
}
''The Hovercraft''
(set: $health to (random:5,9)) (set:$distance to 0)
The floor below tilts slightly as the hovercraft settles down into its skirts. The roar of the engines eases to a rumble and the metal steps are pushed into place.
There is salt and sea in the air. The Island is a green shadow on the horizon, intercut by the blades of sails swaying with the waves.
[[The stairs->passage1.2]]
You laugh to yourself at how awkwardly you had tried to do that. The photograph was blurred, the world smeared from left to right. There were enough photographs already. Standing up was enough of a challenge as it was.
One step at a time. You climb the slipway to the gate, step out onto the street and stop.
[[Set out towards the arcade and the beach->Chip Man]]
You smile, and she realises that you're looking at her mouth. You shouldn't, but you feel vaguely comforted to be the one looking strangely at someone else, rather than being looked at.
[[You... you have a bit of pen on your face...]]
[[A small cone of chips, please]]
"Cone of chips, please."
You pay and she seems a bit too flustered to make eye contact, so a coin clatters on the counter. Once she's scooped it up, apologising for no real reason, she starts on the chips.
"It'll be a couple of minutes while it cooks. Sorry."
She goes back to the sink to wash her face. She checks her reflection in the mirror a few times, each time cursing herself that the marks aren't fading.
[[Wait while the chips cook]]
You take a napkin with your free hand and spend a moment sorting out the change in your pocket, resting your walking stick against the wall so you're not one-handed.
"Ah, sorry." she repeats in the constant, empty way that makes you certain she was brought up in England. "Here are your chips!"
She passes you the cone of chips and some extra napkins.
[["Um, thank you."]]
"Enjoy!"
She sits back down with her crossword and starts to tap at her mouth with her pen, then checks which end she's got, sighs and puts her paper down so she can wash her face again.
[[Enjoy the chips]]
Looking to your left, towards the sea, you see a couple stood on the decking, taking photographs of the hovercraft. Ahead, you can hear as well as see the amusement arcade and the tower at the centre of Clarence Pier.
The building looks like an old factory, with a central tower rising above the two wings. On the top of the blue and yellow tower sits a disc, like an abandoned visitor from the 1950s' ideas of the future.
[[Turn left onto the decking]]
[[Continue ahead to the arcade->The outside of Clarence Pier]]
And yet, you find yourself wanting chips.
[[Get chips]]
[[Move on->Climbing wall or further on]]
You turn back, and along the zig-zag glass walls of the arcade, the twenty metre tall advert for the climbing ropes forms a concertina. "Climbing Ropes" has become "Climbing 'opes".
Back by the chip man, you turn towards the arcade.
(set: $health to it-1)(set: $distance to it+20)
[[The Arcade->The outside of Clarence Pier]]
Through the slightly-tinted doors into the arcade, you see your outline, one hand in your coat pocket, the other holding your walking stick. The "Transformers: Human Alliance" game might frown on someone your age joining in with the slaughter.
(if: $health >7)[Your own car sits back on the Island. You assume it's staying put and not smashing Ryde to rubble.
[[Into the Arcade]]
[[Continue on the road->L80]]](else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[You wish you had your car, though, reliably immutable as it is. An electrical jolt passes up your body from your leg and you see your reflection straighten from its stoop.
[[Into the Arcade]]
[[Continue on the road->L80]]](else-if: $health <5 and it >0)[The shrill giggling feels piercing. A jolt passes up your leg and you gasp. Your reflection looks tired and slouched. You worry you've overdone things.
[[Into the Arcade]]
[[Continue on the road->L80]]](else-if: $health is 0)[
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
Once the intial onslaught has passed, you realise that the carpet is gentler underfoot than the hard slabs of the road and you're able to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
The slots of the machines are too low for you to use and the chairs in the games look as though you wouldn't be able to get out again.
(set: $health to it +1)(set: $distance to it +20)
[[Leave->L80]]
To the side of the cafe you see a sign for a Pirates and Princesses adventure, which, seemingly, forgets that pirates might find the long flight of stairs impossible with their peg legs.
Or, you know, that maybe some pirates want to be princesses but feel a little put off by tedious gender stereotyping.
You have to laugh, though. Otherwise these little annoyances form a knot by the side of your spine and refuse let go.
[[Take a moment]]
(if: $health >7)[You shift the brace around your stomach. Today it feels uncomfortable more than it feels supportive. You wonder if you really needed a velcro exoskeleton today.
[[Continue on the road->L100Text]]]
(else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[
That little annoyance grinds at you like a stone in your shoe. Except that, of course, you'd have trouble noticing it with your leg so numb.
[[Continue on the road->L100Text]]]
(else-if: $health <5 and it >1)[
The thought of the stairs into the cafe is galling, but you really think you need a sit down. You can see through the window that the tables seem bunched up together, so you'd struggle to get through.
[[Sit on the stairs to Pirates and Princesses]]
[[Continue on the road->L100Text]]]
(else-if: $health is 1)[
You consider it, but you know you couldn't manage the steps into the cafe, and the difficulty in getting somewhere safe to sit down is a little too bitter to seem funny at the moment.
[[Sit on the stairs to Pirates and Princesses]]
[[Continue on the road->L100Text]]]
(else-if: $health is 0)[
Even those three steps up to the cafe suddenly seem like an impossible challenge.
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
The path splits at this point, continuing along the promenade to the remains of a big wheel, or around to the right where another ice cream stall sits next to a tourist tat shop where snorkelling masks, oversized sunglasses and the like are on sale.
{(set:$health to it-1)(set: $distance to it+20)}
(if: $health >7)[You see your reflection in the perspex of the map and you smile. A Peppa Pig ride outside the arcade echoes the strange disembodied child's laughter once again.
[[Continue along the promenade->Taking down the Wheel]]
[[Turn right towards the tat shop->The Pier of the Year]]](else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[You find yourself looking at the hundred metre marker and glancing back. You feel like you'll be okay to keep going, but you also know that when you find yourself thinking like that, it's getting close to the time when you'll need a rest.
[[Continue along the promenade->Taking down the Wheel]]
[[Turn right towards the tat shop->The Pier of the Year]]](else-if: $health <5 and it >1)[You look at the hundred metre marker and then look around. Your foot is beginning to feel numb and you're not sure if it'll give up altogether soon.
[[Wake up, leg]]](else-if: $health is 1)[You lean against the map for support and take a slow breath. The hundred metres that you have walked seems like a mistake and you're not sure how you'll manage.
[[Try to wake up, leg!]]]
(else-if: $health is 0)[The hundred metre marker feels more like a tombstone than a milestone. It seems absurd. You lean against the map and watch as someone walks the same distance in a matter of seconds, but that small distance has defeated you.
[[Next->Health is Zero]]]
You hit your leg against the metal bollard and the dull clunk is followed about ten seconds later by the return of sensation in your leg.
The sensation is, briefly, dull pain followed by burning, but it is enough to allow you to map out where your foot is and you know you can manage a little more.
[[Continue along the promenade->Taking down the Wheel]]
[[Turn right towards the tat shop->The Pier of the Year]]
You try hitting your leg against the metal bollard, hoping that you'll get some sensation back, but you feel nothing, not even an ache. You've done too much, you know this, but you knew it from the moment you began.
A little further, though, and perhaps a chance to rest.
[[Continue along the promenade->Taking down the Wheel]]
[[Turn right towards the tat shop->The Pier of the Year]]
Distances shift with time. There was a time when you measured the world in training runs. How many kilometres from Hackney to Hammersmith along the canal.
You've walked only a little over a hundred metres and in that time, your hovercraft has left and the next has arrived. On the far side of the road, a tree has folded on itself in the wind.
(set: $distance to it +20)
[[The Bending Tree]]
Their companion glances at you, blows steam from their coffee and replies:
"Another 'migrants ruin Christmas' story in tomorrow's paper, I guess?"
(set: $distance to it +20)
[[Next->L120Part2]]
As you watch, on the other side of the barricade, a teenage girl leads a nervous boy by the hand. You can't see how they got there, then as soon as you've looked for how they did it, they're gone.
(set: $distance to it +20)
[[Next->L140Text2]]
They pass, and you're alone, looking at another arcade with another sign saying:
"Cheapest ATM Inside: Guaranteed!"
This only now strikes you as devious.
[[Rest->L140Text3Rest]]
[[Continue->L160Text2Walk]]
(if: $health >7)[You remember running. How, after the first hour, the road would rise to meet you and you'd drift, feeling like you could run forever.
You note that the teacher could do with a bit more arch support to stop his over-pronation, but otherwise he seems to have the slow-and-steady approach.
[[Continue->L160Image]]](else-if: $health >4 and it <8)[You remember running, in the years before your foot disappeared from the map of your body in your mind. The walking stick in your hand strikes the ground at the same time as your numb foot falls.
Perhaps tonight you'll have a running dream, and if you're lucky it won't break your heart.
[[Next->L160Image]]](else-if: $health <5 and it >0)[You remember running. The steady pace of the teacher's even stride reminds you of a past that seems like an anecdote about someone else's life.
Your foot scrapes against the concrete, a painful grinding swells in your knee and your hip. While it makes you happy to see the young runners, you feel a heavy sense of regret and sadness.
[[Next->L160Image]]](Else-if: $health <1)[The rythm of the runners' feet seems brutally timed. As you turn your head to look, your numb foot catches its toe against the concrete and you stumble forwards.
You manage to catch yourself, mainly because your steps had become so short. Nevertheless, it's enough to send a blade of pain up through your hip and through your back.
You have walked far enough for today.
[[Next->Health is Zero]] ]
You remember getting custom-made running shoes when you were training for a marathon and how the saleswoman had commented that your hips didn't quite support your weight properly and said you might want to get it checked.
You didn't, of course, because you had a training spreadsheet and after the first hour of a run, doubts like that would disappear and you'd feel as though the road would rise to meet you.
You're glad that you did the marathon, back when you could; a spreadsheet box filled, a bucket list ticked.
[[Continue->L160Image]]
You remember getting custom-made running shoes when you were training for a marathon and how the saleswoman had commented that your hips didn't quite support your weight properly and said you might want to get it checked.
You didn't, of course, because you had a training spreadsheet and after the first hour of a run, doubts like that would disappear and you'd feel as though the road would rise to meet you.
You feel like this was a story someone else told you, though, rather than your own life just a few years ago.
No, wait, more than a few.
Perhaps tonight you'll have a running dream, and if you're lucky it won't break your heart.
[[Next->L160Image]]
By the lorry, there is a fork lift truck parked up and empty.
Behind the driver's seat, there is an orange shoebox asking, strangely, "Are You Scruffs Enough?" Next to that is a gas cannister sat on its side. The nozzle faces you and beneath it is a painted white arrow pointing to the bottom where the word "BOTTOM" is written in stencilled letters.
It's childish, but it makes you laugh.
[[Next->L200Text]]
You arrive at the All New Adult Casino Slot Lounge, which also boasts the cheapest ATM inside, guaranteed. You would go in, but the tables and chairs for the Fish and Chips stand are in the way. Another fish and chip shop. You're losing count, and wondering whether you've walked in circles, but the arcades, pirate attractions and fish and chip shops seem to be on a repeating loop, punctuated only by golf, do-nuts and subtly different Pepper Pigs riding in a toy car, waiting outside arcades for their passengers.
[[Next->L200Text2]]
(if: $health >0)You lean on your walking stick and, after a couple of tries, get back up to stand. There is a grab-a-toy machine to try to claim a mis-shapen Pokémon toy with a clumsy claw. Red and white balls are mixed in with severed Pikachu heads.
[[It doesn't appeal->Pikachu Grabber]]](Else-if: $health is 0)[You put your hands on the arms of the chair and even that's enough to hurt. You blame the chair. You blame the road.
It's a convenient way of holding grief away.
[[Enough->Health is Zero]]]
You look at your foot, willing it to move, to lift, but your weight is held taut and upright by the orthotics and your foot does not move.
You have come further than you once dreamed you could have done, but for today, your journey is finished. You feel in your pocket for stronger painkillers and start to make your way slowly back to the hovercraft.
[[Next->Measuring Wheel]]
(set: $distance to it+20)You pass the dark entrance to the car park and stop for a moment outside the hotel.
(if: $health >4)[There's a low wall next to a bin. You think it'd be a bad idea to try to rest here, and the sea is only a little further ahead.
[[The Brewers Fayre]]](else-if: $health >0 and it <5)[You rest your bad foot on the low wall outside the hotel and take a moment to breathe before carrying on.
[[The Brewers Fayre]]](else-if: $health <1)[You take a deep breath. There aren't any spots ahead where you can rest. Even though the sea is only around the corner, you try to sit on the low wall.
[[A little too low]]]
(set: $distance to it+20)You feel yourself slowing down a little, but you're nearly where you want to be. Right now, though, you're in a small and dirty car park outside the Brewers Fayre restaurant.
The entrance is as elusive as the punctuation in their name, though, and you shuffle along to the corner, knocking a broken wine bottle out of the way with your stick.
[[Almost there]]
As you sit, you regret it. Your dead leg doesn't quite support you and you land rolling to one side.
Deep breaths. Try to laugh.
[[You're not getting any further just now->Health is Zero]]
(set: $distance to it+20)You turn the corner into the car park and can see the sea ahead, just past the entrance to Brewers Fayre.
You feel as though you unfairly judged them for the shabby back yard, but the punctuation still bothers you, so you don't feel like you need to apologise just yet.
[[Walk through the car park]]
You're slowing down, but you'll make it. You can hear music from the arcade. It takes a moment to place it, but they're playing the theme from War of the Worlds.
As you reach the corner of the car park by the blue badge parking bays, you see the steps down to the seafront. The music seems to fit.
(set: $distance to it+20)
[[Down the steps]]
You hold onto the handrail, your walking stick banging against the metal as you go down the steps. The War of the Worlds music eases back from a dramatic moment and you can properly listen to the roar and hiss of the sea.
(set: $distance to it+20)
[[Sit on the sea wall]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Chip-Man.jpg" width=80% alt="Outside the fish and chip shop is a strange statue of a man made of a cone of chips."/>
[[Next]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Curved-tree.jpg" width=80% alt="Across the road, a tree has bent halfway over away from the shore."/>
[[Next->100R20Text2]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Crow-With-Chips.jpg" width=80% alt="A crow with a chip packet from McDonalds who, apparently call it a fry box. Who knew?">
[[Turn Left towards the Pirate Golf]]
You stop yourself.
Pain is insidious, it finds ways to hurt you when you have learned to ignore the blazing blade of pain shooting down your leg. Dwelling on painful thoughts is a warning that you need a rest.
You take a deep breath, noticing that your reflection is leaning over to your right, and carry on.
[[Next->L100R40Text]]
You don't know where to run, and even if you could, you could not run. You shake your head; these thoughts will not help you manage your pain. You just have to keep moving.
[[Next->L100R40Text]]
<img src="http://thetwentymetrerule.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Walking.jpg" width=80% alt="A measuring wheel which clicks each metre you've walked as it rolls.">
[[Next->In The Real World]]