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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Simon Toyne 2015
Simon Toyne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design © Claire Ward/HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Cover photographs © Tim Robinson / Archangel Images (man, foreground); © Shutterstock.com (flames, skin texture)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007551385
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007551378
Version: 2017-02-13
In the beginning is the road – and me walking along it.
I have no memory of who I am, or where I have come from, or how I came to be here. There is only the road
and the desert stretching away to a burnt sky in every
direction
and there is me.
Anxiety bubbles within me and my legs scissor, pushing me forward through hot air as if they know something I don’t. I feel like telling them to slow down, but even in my confused state I know you don’t talk to your legs, not unless you’re crazy, and I don’t think I’m crazy – I don’t think so.
I stare down the shimmering ribbon of tarmac, rising and falling over the undulating land, its straight edges made wavy by intense desert heat. It makes the road seem insubstantial and the way ahead uncertain and my anxiety burns bright because of it. I feel there’s something important to do here, and that I am here to do it, but I cannot remember what.