The woman poured a pink sachet of sugar into her tea, clinking the teaspoon against the mug as she surveyed me, as if still wondering whether or not I was to be trusted. “It’s not as easy as you may think to disappear,” she said, eventually. “To become the fading echo of what you once were, a memory carried in the dying breaths of a previous life.  We leave sticky fingerprints on each surface of our lives these days. Don’t believe me? Then let’s just take a look at your bank account. Straightaway I can see where you buy your toilet roll from, who pays your wages, the size of your overdraft. Your phone bill tells me where you’ve been, who you’ve called and how long for. The bigwigs at Tesco Clubcard probably know more about you than your own Mum does. And you know what the weird thing is? You’re all desperate to let the world know every last minutiae of your lives. Cat chucked up on the carpet? Let’s post about it on Facebook! Which by the way, tells me that said vomiting feline was situated near Quinton.

 

Every step you take. Every transaction you make. Each keystroke, text message, Tweet and status update all adding an extra layer of pressure upon our already jammed lives. How often do you wish you could just turn it all off? The red demands, the bickering kids, the lumpen husband, the unsatisfactory job, the smug status updates from acquaintances and just leave it all behind and be truly free? Thought so. But the difference is, I actually did it.

 

I became that mugshot on missing person’s posters. That pixelated last image on a windswept station’s CCTV camera. I became the subject of those ‘whatever happened to…’ conversations. I walked away from it all. I didn’t go mad, have a nervous breakdown or take a secret lover. It wasn’t a spur of the moment ‘can’t take any more’ thing either. Disappearing in this day and age takes some serious planning.

 

You need to leave your life behind you as if you had simply floated away on the breeze. That means no emptying of savings accounts. No buying train tickets on the Barclaycard. No taking your car. No chance of being recognised in the street in a far away town. You should aim to become the merest hint of déjà vu.

 

Leave your birth certificate behind. Forget about the passport that languishes in your underwear drawer. Put your iPad down. To disappear and become truly free you must become untraceable. A whisper. This is your big chance to discover who you really are. Become who you really are.  By disappearing, you can choose to untangle yourself from what society expects of you.

 

 

 

Pink hair. Nose piercings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because the thing is, for a while at least, people will come after you. They will follow your scent, like a pack hunting the fox.

 

 

 

 

Coward