Outbound Street

What it looks like, and what it does

A long street of identical lamp posts receding both ways. A lone figure walking away, and behind him the same street continuing. Signposts with distances that only increase. A bench with a coat folded on it.

Quiet, ordinary street until walked. Lengthens from the start, in whichever direction the walker takes first.

What is known

Mill Lane is a street of four hundred metres. Compasses spin on it. A walker who sets out from one end finds the other end farther behind them with every step.

Eleven walkers have been recorded entering and returning to the start eight years later, unaged, with no memory of the interval and shoes worn through. Seven have asked to go back.

What it can do

• Extends a street indefinitely in any direction taken from its start
• Returns walkers after exactly eight years

Where it stops

• Cannot be entered by a group; each walker walks alone
• Does not extend for someone who sits on its bench first

An encounter

Leeming walked Mill Lane in 2011 with a flask and a notebook. Eight years later, on the same Tuesday at the same time, a woman with her coat, her flask and her notebook was found on the bench at the start. Her notebook had one page of writing: a grocery list. She was perfectly well and asked what had been the matter.

Ruth Leeming, retired walker, Mill Lane, Avonmouth, A walk begun on a Tuesday

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Eleven returns at intervals of 8 years (±1 day) are recorded by police and by registry.
• incomplete: Seven of the eleven requested to return. Their subsequent whereabouts are not recorded.
• rumor: That the street has an end and it is a long way from here.

Still unresolved

Three of the eleven returned carrying things they had not set out with. None will say what they are.

Where it has been recorded

• Avonmouth (confirmed) — Recorded by Ruth Leeming, retired walker.

Connected entities

• Hourbehind — Both exchange time for passage. One lends an hour of warning. The other takes eight years and returns the walker.