In this story a young man, older than a boy but not so mature that he would be expected to have as many regrets as he in fact carries around with him, leaves his home town, Hull, for an odyssey he himself cannot see the end of but in which the reader or listener of the story thinks they can predict where his story will take him.

The young man has friends in Bridlington. He goes to in that direction by bus. Instead of stopping at Brid he goes onto Flamborough Head. He spends some time at the chalk cliffs, thinking about smugglers going snow-blind at the white rocks rearing up from the sea. Looking at the waves beating and beating and beating against the coast reminds him of times in his life in which he himself has been frustrated and, he feels, cheated.

The land gains a gradient. The young man feels himself lifted. He hails a car. The car is driven by a family: parents around the age of the young man’s parents although the two daughters are much younger than the young man. They are heading towards Brimham Rocks. To look for fairies, the little girl says to which her older sister responds insultingly. The young man stares out of the window at granite bursting from the flesh of the land.

He travels to the rocks with the family. The parents seem worried about him and want him to tell them about himself. They try to include him while asking him questions. He evades them. He sits on a bough of a tree. He thinks he sees a girl turning away from him. It’s just a glimpse between scenery.

He walks to the car park and finds another lift. This time it’s with a wiry bodied rock climber who is driving home to Wetherby. The rock climber begins friendly but the young man is tired and has a weight in his centre. He doesn’t speak much. The rock climber lets the young man out somewhere on the outskirts of Leeds.

This is the summer so the night isn’t cold. He wanders. He gets to the canalside. It smells strongly of chemicals. He thinks about the river that cuts across Hull, and how at a certain point the area smells of cocoa.
The young man is picked up by a group who run a co-op gig venue. They let him live in the top room of the venue. He cooks vegan food when there is a gig on. He’s allowed to eat whatever he wants from their supplies. Despite this he becomes thinner. He doesn’t speak much. There’s a girl who comes to the gigs now and then. He can’t bring himself to speak to her. She looks like someone he knew once.

One day an older woman comes to the venue. The gig on that night is a cider punk band. It doesn’t seem like her scene. She is the young man’s aunt. His mother’s sister. She convinces him to come with her. In fact he wants to leave Leeds. It has helped him in ways he can’t yet acknowledge but the longer he stays the stiller he becomes. He’s scared of not being able to leave. He goes with his aunt.

She lives in Hebden Bridge, alone. Her way of living her life has nothing in common with her sister’s, the young man’s mother. She hosts gathering at her house where women read poetry and knit and talk. The young man stays in a room on the ground floor, just off the kitchen. From his window he can see a road that leads to the cemetery where Sylvia Plath is buried. He goes to her grave but feels nothing out of the ordinary.

One morning he wakes up with the feeling of muffled ears. It’s snowed. Everything is standardised beneath the layers of white. When his aunt wakes up she agrees to drive him to the train station. Although the trains are snow-bound he insists on waiting at the platform. Eventually a train comes. He travels back to Hull.

On approaching Hull the curve of the Humber Bridge rises up as the land flattens under the weight of the sky. The evening light is red, reminding the young man of a rhyme about the weather: red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.
He walks to the hospital. His father is dying in a bed in a ward on the eleventh floor. The young man is his only surviving family member. There are no more scenes in this story.