There were odd footprints we couldn’t recognise in a patch of mud by the road; not birds, not deer-slots. The number 17 bus had got stuck on a knife-edge half way down the Oxford Road, open sink-holes spitting gas either side, and we’d got out to walk the rest of the way into town, shivering in the grey half-light. The clocks had all skipped forward seventeen days. Everyone else must still have been asleep, and there was a mother elk and her calf strolling through the town centre, blowing out steam. At the station all the buses showed unfamiliar destinations; Wicklow, Hendaye, Lyonesse. We took our places on an empty number 33, passes held tight in our mitts.
—Are you coming down? I whispered. You nodded mutely. The screen behind the driver’s cab flashed up: Next stop: Cantre’r Gwaelod. It didn’t mean anything to us at all. We shivered and sat tight as the engine rumbled into life.

Geoff Sawers has written and illustrated several nonfiction books and maps. His paintings are on Instagram geoff.sawers