An excerpt from a new mystery novel I’ve started writing. This is out of my comfort zone, but something I feel I need to do, to push myself to explore new genres. I am excited about it, but at the same time entirely at a loss as to where it may end up.

The new junction was big, it spanned the width of the motorway and more. From the ground it was difficult to get to grips with its many on and off slips. Even to recognise familiar landmarks proved impossible. I’d used it maybe six, seven times in the past, each time I’d had to make a conscious decision, as to which exit I took, using the junction signs. Oh, how I longed for the old junction, even with all its faults. It’s far too short off slip, it’s completely unsynchronised traffic lights and the strange way the lane markings would disappear halfway around only to reappear in a different order. We all knew it’s quirks though, we the locals would jostle for our lane, as we drove hell for leather to the next set of traffic lights. We could, as the saying goes, do it with our eyes closed. We always had our exit in sight. When you entered this new junction though, you had no such clue as to where your exit was. It was big, it was barren, it was overbearing.

The ambulance appeared from nowhere, it’s blue lights flashing, siren blaring, it tore up the off slip taking the right lane, sign posted to nowhere. I took the signposted lane heading left, on the new magical mystery tour to the hospital, vowing this time to commit it to memory, but then, without thinking I followed in the direction of the by now, long gone ambulance. I drove blindly around the oval junction, each exit dropping a lane to the left, until at last I exited.

Unlike all the other multi lane exits I’d passed, this exit was small. The resulting road, cluttered with barriers and cones giving off a sense of abandonment. I felt fear, I had deviated from the approved path, made a decision for myself, more to the point, I had no idea where I was. There was a mist in the air, a fine drizzle hitting the screen cutting visibility. Then out of nowhere, ahead of me loomed the old junction. Exactly as it had always been. Instinctively I drove around it to the hospital. As I parked I tried to make sense of what had just happened, but that was just it, it didn’t make sense, it couldn’t. The junction no longer existed. It was as if the abandoned lane I’d driven down was a link to the past, but that was impossible, wasn’t it?