junctions one to four were never built

Mary lit the candle and breathed in its scent. Then she looked out of the window and there it was: the graceful curve of a motorway, arcing up over the rooftops like a gleaming, futuristic monorail. A motorway that wasn’t there. She remembered the planner’s diagrams, the consultation documents everyone had responded to with a resounding no. Not Mary. Mary wanted it. She wanted its speed, its urgency. The motorway’s route was burned deep into the topography of Mary’s mind. This section of motorway existed for her. She imagined the tramps that hung about under its flyovers, the kids that graffitied its giant posts and bridges.

Peacocks put out a product recall on the candles. They had been alerted to the effects by a woman in Warrington who had lit one and immediately seen a huge factory at the bottom of her garden, a factory she knew had never been built. But Mary didn’t want to take her candles back. She lit one every night and every night she breathed its scent and every night she saw the motorway again. Outside her door was junction three. If she concentrated, she could hear the hiss of tires as a river of invisible metal ran towards the docks. Something bricked up inside her had been released.

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