Joe goes around in circles on his moped. This is his favourite past-time. Before he started going around, his favourite thing was watching Evel Knievel jump over busses or cars, but now he'd much rather see Evel Knievel go around and around in circles.
   He loves going around and around in the supermarket car park late in the evening, when no cars are around and he can turn on the headlight. He loves looking at the ground as it disappears beneath the moped. Megan often watches him, and sometimes he looks over at her.
   He walked through the park with her one evening. They went around on the merry-go-round. She thought it was great fun. He thought it was nowhere near as good as going around and around on a moped, but he pretended it was fun.
   She said she'd been swimming and he said, "Do you ever swim in circles?"
   "Sometimes," she said. "A little bit. It's fun."
   "Yeah. I must try that sometime." He only said that to humour her.
   They met Jason. He was getting off his new motorbike. "Do you like my new bike?" he said.
   "I don't know," Joe said. "I haven't seen it."
   "It's great. I love feeling the wind in my hair on the open road. Or I would do if I wasn't wearing a helmet."
   Joe tried to think of something to say. The best he could do was: "Do you still have six toes on your left foot?"
   "Yeah."
   Joe and all his friends felt as if they couldn't be any more alive on these summer evenings. Their parents saw themselves as shadows, and they found it relaxing to look at themselves on the wall. It was like looking at themselves through someone else's eyes, someone with bad eyesight who couldn't see details. Their shadows were silent too. At the end of a long day it was nice to be silent, featureless people who didn't do very much and needed a wall to exist.
   Their kids had a very different self-image. They saw themselves as people who never stopped moving, and were full of interesting features. In reality they were just shadows of this image. They often sat on walls for hours, without moving or saying very much. Looking back, they remembered an evening of laughter, loud voices and going around in circles. Joe was one of the few people who nearly lived up to his self-image, but even he saw a lot more when he looked back. He told people about beating Jason in a race: Joe on his moped versus Jason on his motorbike. But in reality they both just went around and around in circles until Jason got dizzy and had to sit down for a while. Megan told Joe she loved the way he handled corners, and he couldn't think of how she could be more complimentary than that.
   When Jason re-told the story it involved a high-speed chase to an abandoned quarry and a jump over a ravine, but he was confusing it with a film. He was probably thinking of another film when he mentioned a pig who could herd sheep.
   Joe and Megan went to a fast-food place to get something to eat, and they met Jason again. Joe asked him if he needed to go to hospital.
   "No," Jason said. "I just needed to sit down for a while. I hope the pig is okay."
   "What pig?"
   "The one... Didn't you see the pig?"
   "No. I mean, yeah."
   "I hope he's alright."
   "So do I."
   They went back to the supermarket car park to see if the pig was okay, but they just saw a dog running in circles, chasing his tail. The dog seemed oblivious to the world around him, but Joe thought that an ability to move so quickly in such a tight circle without getting dizzy demonstrated the dog's deep understanding of the world. The world itself spent all of its time going around and around. The dog obviously felt a connection.
   Jason thought it was obvious why the dog had lost his sheep. He suggested another race, one in straight lines, but Joe just slowly shook his head and looked at Jason as if he was looking at an idiot. Jason thought it was because of the pig thing, so he said nothing.

   Avril and Henry went away with a bag full of intention to stay away, but they dropped the bag at the side of the road and they decided to stay where they were for a while, which was more-or-less staying away as well. They spoke about the cliffs they saw, and they wrote letters to each other about the cliffs, but both of them wrote what the other had said, so that when they got the letters they read out loud what they had already said, and they read it in the style of the other. They felt like a different person, and their own views felt new in a different style. Going home as someone new would feel like going away as someone the same, and staying away, and staying the same.
   So they went home. Their house felt new as well. They looked at the walls, and they could say things about the walls in their new style and feel refreshed. But now they knew each other better than ever, because they spoke and thought in the old style of the other. So they spoke to themselves more often than they ever did before, and eventually their newly decorated selves faded into familiarity, like the pattern on the wallpaper that they had ceased to notice. They decided to go away and stay away. With suitcases full of intention to stay away for a week, they left.
   They spoke about pottery as they walked. It would have been nice to be able to look at pottery as they spoke about it. They saw cows in the fields. It would have been nice to talk about the cows as they were looking at them, but they only had things to say about pottery.
   They stopped in a town and they checked into a hotel. They walked through the streets without feeling a need to go anywhere, so they went nowhere. Their clothes usually determined where they wanted to go, so they checked to make sure they were wearing clothes. They were. "Maybe we're not wearing shoes," she said.
   "We can check later."
   When they got to the harbour they looked out over the water in silence. The silence, like their clothes, had no noticeable style. They felt that they could say as much as they wanted to say in silence, especially if they wanted to say something about cows and didn't have anything to say. They could say just as much if they didn't want to say anything.
   "Will we check our clothes again?" she said.
   "That's a good idea, and I liked the way you said it."
   "Thanks."
   They checked again, and they were definitely wearing clothes. They agreed to check their shoes later, if they felt a need to go somewhere else.

   If you want to know where you are, ask your feet, because they got you there. Jimmy would have asked his feet that question but he was more concerned about the whereabouts of his shoes and how he'd get home without them. The shoes were new and he was still getting used to operating them. He tried to make shoes from a newspaper, but they didn't last long on the wet ground.
   He finally found them in a field. They were right behind him. He was relieved to be re-united with them, but he needed to wash his feet before putting them on, or else he'd ruin his new shoes. This wasn't the first time in his life when he needed to wash his feet. There were many occasions when he had some need to wash his feet, but not a great need. There were numerous occasions when washing his feet would have been preferrable to leaving them unwashed, but it didn't amount to a need.
   He remembered the time his right foot didn't need to be washed at all, and he thought this compensated for his left foot, which did need a wash. But he decided to wash his left foot anyway because his dog needed to wash one of his paws, and the dog had three other paws to compensate for the one dirty paw. It more than compensated for the one paw, and it made Jimmy feel inferior to his dog. So he decided to wash his foot. He could have left the foot unwashed without feeling inferior if he'd waited around to see how the dog washed his paw.
   His left foot was cleaner than his right foot after the wash. This slight imbalance meant he leant slightly to his left, and this made him fall when he leant too much. He needed to wash his head after the fall, and he also needed to wash his right foot to restore the balance with his left.
   He wondered how he could wash his head and his right foot at the same time. In trying to solve the problem, he sought the advice of various people. One of them was Phil. He was looking at milk bottles when Jimmy went to see him. He could have looked at some bricks as well, but he chose to look at the bottles. Jimmy looked back and forth between the bricks and the bottles. Phil was holding an ice cream cone. He could have eaten that instead of looking at the bottles. Other things he could have done included singing a song, turning lightswitches on or off, or standing on a chair. He only looked away from the bottles when the ice cream started to melt. "I could have bought some biscuits," he said.
   His telephone rang. It was Michelle, and she wanted to know if he could do something about her aunt's stairlift. Jimmy went with him to the aunt's house. They didn't know what they were doing to the stairlift, and the aunt didn't know what she wanted them to do to it, but she knew she didn't want them to do what they did. Phil ran back to his house to stand on a chair.
   Jimmy's right hand needed a wash after doing whatever they did to the stairlift. This complicated the matter even further, but he found that it restored his balance. He held his right hand out while he walked, and he could stand on a chair without falling off.
   He remembered this as he wondered what to do about his unwashed feet and his new shoes. He felt he should seek the advice of various people. So he went to see Phil, but instead of asking about his feet he said, "Why were you looking at the milk bottles?"

   His hair was white and he wore a white suit. He cycled a red bike. He cast a Russian shadow but his silhouette was German. He spoke French. He moved towards the west, despite the soutward trend of the time, which made even the westward-bound tend towards the south. Those moving north slowed to a standstill and started walking backwards.
   The draw of the south left him bereft of company in the west. But not everyone started from the centre. Those who began their journey in the north-west passed through the west on their way south. Some had attempted to go further north, and they were walking or cycling backwards.
   As each day wore on, his shadow spread further into the east, and he became increasingly Russian, but he was almost entirely German or French after the sun set. A little Russian lingered on in the light of the moon.
   He saw the Russian in him reach out ahead as the sun rose in the morning. He cycled on, slowly catching up with and over-taking his shadow.
   The shadow was a percussionist. He often watched it play the drums or the xylaphone. He was glad it disappeared in the afternoon and evening. He appreciated the peace then. In the morning he liked looking at the manic motion of his shadow's hands when it played the drums.
   He stopped to have lunch in the shade of a tree. His shadow felt as if it was dancing in the fractured shade, when the leaves moved in the breeze and their shadows reacted on the ground. All the broken pieces of the Russian shadow moved in harmony.
   The captain of a ship, who had the silhouette of a household cat, was passing by on his way south. He stopped at the tree. He said he was following a trail of buttons, but this was probably just an excuse to head south with the rest of them. The captain's shadow was made up of kittens. They were playing in the long grass amongst the daisies and the dandelions and the buttercups.
   He resumed his journey after the captain left. When he got to the west coast he stopped. He wondered what to do. There was nowhere left to go, and he felt a need to go somewhere. He turned around and saw his shadow reaching inland, playing with the kitten at its feet. The captain had given one of his shadow kittens to the Russian shadow. It was a peaceful sight. It seemed like the right sort of image for the afternoon and evening, so he headed east again, and he continued on a straight line despite the trend towards the south.

   His hair was white and he wore a white suit. He cycled a red bike. He cast a Russian shadow but his silhouette was German. He spoke French. He moved towards the west, despite the soutward trend of the time, which made even the westward-bound tend towards the south. Those moving north slowed to a standstill and started walking backwards.
   The draw of the south left him bereft of company in the west. But not everyone started from the centre. Those who began their journey in the north-west passed through the west on their way south. Some had attempted to go further north, and they were walking or cycling backwards.
   As each day wore on, his shadow spread further into the east, and he became increasingly Russian, but he was almost entirely German or French after the sun set. A little Russian lingered on in the light of the moon.
   He saw the Russian in him reach out ahead as the sun rose in the morning. He cycled on, slowly catching up with and over-taking his shadow.
   The shadow was a percussionist. He often watched it play the drums or the xylaphone. He was glad it disappeared in the afternoon and evening. He appreciated the peace then. In the morning he liked looking at the manic motion of his shadow's hands when it played the drums.
   He stopped to have lunch in the shade of a tree. His shadow felt as if it was dancing in the fractured shade, when the leaves moved in the breeze and their shadows reacted on the ground. All the broken pieces of the Russian shadow moved in harmony.
   The captain of a ship, who had the silhouette of a household cat, was passing by on his way south. He stopped at the tree. He said he was following a trail of buttons, but this was probably just an excuse to head south with the rest of them. The captain's shadow was made up of kittens. They were playing in the long grass amongst the daisies and the dandelions and the buttercups.
   He resumed his journey after the captain left. When he got to the west coast he stopped. He wondered what to do. There was nowhere left to go, and he felt a need to go somewhere. He turned around and saw his shadow reaching inland, playing with the kitten at its feet. The captain had given one of his shadow kittens to the Russian shadow. It was a peaceful sight. It seemed like the right sort of image for the afternoon and evening, so he headed east again, and he continued on a straight line despite the trend towards the south.