[Kaimee]: 5.Contest Entries.Staying Lost

A likely to stay unfinished bit of something for the famous first lines contest.
I'm not sure if it makes any sense. It's definitely not terribly crisp and coherent.

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The wind was howling around the corners of the buildings, whistling between trees, bending the flagpole sideways, and generally making going outside a really bad idea when I got the notice.
I almost hadn’t gone outside. To think, if I’d stayed it’d all be over by now. But I went because I always did, and because I had this horrible habit of only ever not doing things on the days I most needed to. So I always did them, even on days like today when leaving the warmth of my flat seemed insane.
After all, who would be hunting on a day like this?
My flat was really only a small room at the top of an old townhouse, with my own tiny closet of a bathroom that was also a laundry and the kitchen sink, the rest of my kitchen being located on an old bench table. It was all I could afford, and all I could find at the time that didn’t ask for any proof of identification, that I could pay in cash at the end of every month. I’d been paying that cash at the beginning of every month for years now, longer than I thought I’d stay. I liked to pay at the beginning just in case I wasn’t here at the end. You know, be prepared.
I had thought I would be prepared to read the notice, when it came. I’d known it would come.
Go, it said. The worst word in the world, and it belonged to me. I stood for awhile, still in the stormy evening. I had no idea what to do, and so I stood there wasting time, in the lee of the wall my mail box was set in. There were strict rules we all lived by, and the first was Drop Everything and Leave. But did I have to? Who would be hunting, on a stormy Sunday evening when everyone else was tucked up inside with their family, celebrating the holiday season?
I pretended to sort my junk mail but gave up as the wind threw each flimsy paper against my hands. They all shouted Sale! And Santa has Left the Building! Things from a world I had just then lost all contact with. I stood and quietly, inwardly raged against a situation I couldn’t change, and couldn’t escape. I watched the weeds bend low to the ground in the wind, and the careful drivers on the road, on their way to family dinners maybe, fighting the sideways pull of wind. This wasn’t weather to be outside in and I didn’t even own a car, so how could I travel?
Never mind that I didn’t know where I was going. Pure spontaneous escape is the best way to stay lost. Never have a Plan, that was rule number two.
It had worked last time, after all, for awhile at least. But in weather like this, how would I get anywhere?
A low silver car slowed to a near halt and pulled into the private road that led to the townhouses I’d been living in, and I watched from my shadowed corner as it turned onto the branch that led to my flat, and parked in the driveway of the friendly old couple I rented from. I caught a glimpse of suited shoulder and a strong line of neck that I knew well, and hated.
I thought briefly of the ginger cat still curled up by my heater, and the half finished book lying open on my warm and rumpled bed. I thought of all the bits and pieces accumulated in the six free years I’d had, and then I turned out onto the street and bent my head to the wind, and walked calmly away. Turning down streets and ducking down alleys, I wended my twisted way to anywhere that was far from there.
As I walked I thought briefly of the owner’s of the house I’d lived in, kind elderly people who had often lent me sugar, or asked after my mother - not that they’d ever met one. We had conversations during which I made up relatives and stories, and they nodded understandingly at the fallacies of the family we didn’t get to choose, patted me, and talked about how expensive meat was getting. 
They’d be sitting down to their tea in their homey kitchen, and would look up and say “Whoever could that be at this hour?” as they pottered along to answer the tacky Christmas carol doorbell. They’d both be very concerned and helpful when they opened the door to my uncle, friend, boss, whoever he told them he was. They’d no doubt find the keys to my room and dig out my address book, my notepads, anything.
Frowning slightly, I tried to think if I’d left the paper with M’s hotel address on it by the telephone. With a frustrated shake of my head, I realised I couldn’t risk it. I’d been careless and now I had to move on. He knew I was running, and when I didn’t show up I hoped he’d run too.
Or maybe he was how they’d found me. Maybe there were more dangerous silk suited men waiting in that anonymous hotel room for me.
Brushing between a parked van and one of those spiky branched hedges that people seem to think are a good idea, I almost fell into a garden gate and caught sight of a woman I vaguely knew, struggling to pull her washing from the line, swearing as it whipped out of her hands and into her face. She worked at the public library and often set aside books she thought I’d like, we had polite conversations about all the surface things in life, but I’d had no idea she lived so close. She was a face I knew, but not much more. All the better, no one would look here.
Calling out something friendly sounding and plastering a grin on my face I pushed open the gate and ran the few steps to help her. Between us we got her washing into a basket, and with her yelling something unheard behind the deafening wind, we ran into her kitchen. Looking out into the darkening day I saw no one, and shut the door behind me.

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