HANNAH BAGNALL

Someone was saying that they had walked down the same road last time hadn’t they and the person next to them agreed that yes they had walked down the same road the last time. The first person thought that she must have been right and was pleased with her correct observation. That van wasn’t there last time though, another person joined in, and those people hadn’t sold their house the last time either it was remembered by someone further back. Another person was sure that that house wasn’t that shade of yellow the last time they came but they were assured that it was because another person recalled having a conversation about whether it would be described as buttercup yellow or buttermilk yellow. Buttermilk was decided upon as they remembered. It was far too mellow to be considered buttercup. Something else must be different about it then, that person insisted. They didn’t know what, but something had changed.

The person at the front of the walking group was wearing a high visibility waistcoat. Everyone walked in twos behind the person wearing the high visibility waistcoat so that they stayed safe and so that nobody would get lost. Their leader stopped to cross the road and everyone queued behind.

They had crossed in that exact same spot last time, the first person pointed out and everyone was cheered to remember doing exactly the same thing as they had done before. That was right. They remembered standing in that exact same spot. One person was missing this time and there were two new members and so not everyone was walking with the exact same person and so it was also a little different. While they waited, they attempted to place who was standing with whom and in what order compared to last time. Then they could really measure just how similar or just how different this walk was from the last. Their heads bobbed around as they each counted and checked their position in relation to the other people around them and they judged by some innate feeling whether they were further forward in the group or further back than before. They leaned their heads away from their neighbours as they looked at them and tried to overlay this new picture on their memory of the last time to see how well the two matched. The new people even looked around as if trying to help.

It turned out that mostly the group had fallen into the same formation except for the few minor differences that couldn’t be helped because of the members that were missing and because of the new members. The new members searched around themselves for excuses but the road had cleared and the group could now cross.