There's no such thing as a reality on the Downwards Journey. Forget time, forget place, forget everything because every rule can be broken en route. People dissapear and then resume the journey, they shift from level to level without even realising, they can be both at the bottom and on their way to the top at exactly the same time.

The proof of this? Once you hit the bottom, you're in some damn good company.

Exam piece, written under timed conditions. The task was to write a story titled "Always Together", and to write about an elderly couple. Also, as with all exam pieces, the aim is to show a degree of skill with the written word and use as many and varied a lot of literary techniques as you can think of.

English Standard Grade Creative Writing, done in around an hour to an hour and a half, achieved a Grade 1.
The task was to write a story using the title ?he Road to Nowhere? Prompt was a picture of a traffic jam.