Resentment

Gladys Johnson was sick of her life. She worked at a busy café and was fed up with her job. She hadn’t really liked it when she had begun, ten years ago. Of course she hadn’t. Yet she’d had the strength to cope. Her children were still living at home then, her life was still buoyant, and stressful though work might be, there were good points to it, quiet periods in the café when you didn’t do a lot, extra money in your pocket, a life to enjoy outside hours. So had it gone for the first six or seven years of her time here. But in the last few years it had become awful. She really lacked energy now, felt uptight, nervous and tense as if she were on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and since her children were now both married and had flown the nest it was as if the wheels of her life had fallen off. Bang! Her journey was over.

She struggled to get out of bed in the morning, suffered migraines, her feet were sore with corns, her legs always aching because she was run off her feet. She had never really liked the clientele, but now they really bugged her, and she could no longer put on a veneer. Instead she snapped at the customers, and was often rude and sullen.

It all came to a head one Friday dinnertime, when, totally exhausted and stressed out, she snapped at two young children who were running around screaming their heads off, whilst their mothers sat oblivious, chatting over coffee.

‘Don’t touch those plates’ she shouted ‘you’ll break them!’ She felt so pompous and foolish saying it, but she just had to, she so resented these noisy, screaming little children, she had a headache, and she hated having to wait hand and foot, whilst those two wealthy, attractive, fashionable young women sat chatting.

She felt relieved to have shouted, but she was incredibly embarrassed, when one of the mothers apologised, and, admonishing the children, told them to come and sit down. The manager, who happened to see the scene, told Gladys to go and take ten minutes.

She sat outside on some steps, at the rear of the building, smoking a cigarette and giving herself up to an end of the world, I’m ready to die kind of feeling. In fact she was quite relieved: in having the argument and in escaping out here into the fresh air she felt a lot less stressed. She sat calmly, serenely watching the world go by, observing shoppers pass through this back street, basking in that feeling of freedom that permeates Friday.

She spent the rest of the day calmly going about her chores. When she got home she told her husband.

‘What a fool I made of myself today. It was so embarrassing. But I’ve just had enough, I’ve absolutely had enough. I need to relax, to unwind.’

Her husband was a genial, sensitive chap: he was the nicest man in the world. And they agreed that she really must relax more and he decided that she would be pampered over this weekend. She had a long soak in a bubble bath, her husband brought her a glass of wine and massaged her feet, her shoulders and her back. He went out and bought a Chinese take away and they sat on the settee unwinding in front of the TV.

The next day they went shopping and her husband insisted she buy some new clothes. She had fun trying on different garments, going from shop to shop wondering what to buy. In the evening they went out for the night, first to a restaurant for an Italian meal and afterwards to the cinema. Gladys was happy with all this, and her husband, who took such pleasure in her pleasure – he was so humble and self-deprecating, a real man – was pleased too. On Sunday morning he cooked her a fried breakfast, in the afternoon they went for a drive and to an exhibit of Chinese sculptures from the fourth century. Again she was pleased by this: she had a desire to broaden her horizons, to be cultured. They went for coffee afterwards. Finally that night they sat down to watch a two hour murder mystery on TV – it was totally engrossing.

Gladys had had a great weekend. Her husband had doted on her. Yet when the TV programme finished at ten and she realised that in the next hour or so she must go to bed, and then tomorrow work, she felt utterly sick at heart. She couldn’t bottle up her feelings, though her husband seemed oblivious to what she was thinking. She looked at him, intently watching the news. For all he’d done for her, she felt a resentment, as if he didn’t really understand her problem. Yet surely he could be made to, he was such a reasonable man.

Eventually it was all too much for her.

‘John….oh John…..look, I can’t face it anymore’ she broke out, being over emotional to try and stress to him that she was deeply unhappy.

‘What is it Gladys? What’s the matter love?’

‘I can’t do it anymore, I can’t face work tomorrow, I just can’t. I want something more from my life. I can’t face it anymore, I just can’t.’

‘Why? What is it love? Has someone said something.’

‘No! No one’s said anything’ she replied a little irked. ‘I’m just sick, fed up, just…..ooh I don’t know, I’m just finished.’

‘Finished? I don’t understand?’

‘Look, I’m sick and tired with it all. I have been for years. My legs are aching, I’ve had a migraine since before we were married, I’m sick of being run off my feet.’

‘Well shouldn’t you go to the doctors love, about your headaches and your legs?’

‘No! What have they ever been able to do? I’ve always had these migraines and I always will.’

‘But you don’t know love, they might be able to help, they might have come up with some new medicines.’

‘It’s not the point. Can’t you understand? I’m sick, sick of doing this stupid work, of scampering around like an ape, waiting on other people, people I don’t really like. I mean they’re alright, but why should I spend my life, like an animal, a slave, serving food and drinks to the well-to-do, the rich, attractive, educated people of this world, who’ve got nothing better to do than come and sit in the café and gossip. Look I don’t want to have a go at them, I don’t. Most of them are alright, I like them. But still I don’t want to spend the rest of my life serving them. I don’t, I want something more from life.’

Her husband was silent awhile, thoughtful. Eventually he spoke.

‘How long have you felt like this for Gladys?’

‘For years!’ she bit back emphatically. ‘I’ve hated it for years. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘Well I’ve seen that you’ve been unhappy sometimes, but I never thought it was this bad’ he said, trying to come to terms with it all. He stared into the distance, thinking, puzzled. Clearly he was somewhat surprised.

‘Well it is bad’ she snapped emphatically. She was desperate to impress upon him how bad it was. She had bottled it up for too long.

In her mind what she wanted to do was pull a sicky tomorrow and for the rest of the week. She felt guilty for it though and wanted her husband to suggest it. Eventually he asked ‘well do you think you’ll be able to go in tomorrow love?’

‘I don’t know’ she replied.

‘Well perhaps you should take the day off.’

And by the by she came to reluctantly accept this, half-heartedly going through the motions of saying she mustn’t, but all the while leading her husband to the point where finally he insisted and she agreed.

She rang in sick the next morning, and had a leisurely day watching TV in her dressing gown, taking it easy. She felt guilty but didn’t really care. She was thinking of having some time off with ‘depression’. A year or so ago, that was exactly what one of her work colleagues had done. At the time Gladys had despised her for it. This colleague, wise enough woman though she was, didn’t quite share Gladys’s cynical take on life. She wasn’t as astute as Gladys. Gladys didn’t regard depression as an illness: she took it as one of the facts of life, and hated those who complained of it for being neurotic whiners. Her philosophy, since she was young, was that you had to work hard and get on with life. She saw life for what it was and simply made the most of it, stoically. This colleague of hers had been sick of her life, recently divorced, fed up with her dead end job, and indeed she had every reason to be depressed. She was a true working class thorough-bred, and had been brought up in a culture of hard work, where complaining was frowned upon. It was not as though she were unaccustomed to the hardships of life. Certainly she had been depressed and she was a sensitive, kind person, who deserved sympathy. Gladys had wondered, on what level her colleague had understood her ‘illness’. Had she been depressed and cynically taken advantage of social views toward it to make her life easier? Or had she genuinely considered herself ill? Whatever the case had been she’d gone on the sick with the illness known as depression, and for that reason Gladys had despised her, for being stupid enough to ‘suffer’ from depression. Gladys prided herself on her wisdom: it was one of the few things she could pride herself on. She imagined this colleague of hers going to a doctor, like an innocent little child, who poked and prodded her and told her she had the mysterious illness known as depression.

So for this reason Gladys slightly despised her colleague: she thought she should just get on with her life instead of being a faker. Yet now Gladys was at the point where she felt like getting a doctor’s sick note saying she had depression, and taking paid sick leave. She felt contempt for herself, she felt like a total hypocrite, and she felt she wounded her pride and undermined her stoic wisdom. But the alternative of going back to the grind was just unbearable and in any case, who in this world had ever admired or even noticed her wisdom, her quiet stoicism?

She took the entire week off – with sickness and diarrhea – and eventually Friday evening came around. She’d wasted her week, spent it in front of the TV, and when four o’clock came, she felt totally dissatisfied and out of sorts. She awaited the arrival of her husband from work. Finally he got home.

He was in a good mood, overflowing with the Friday feeling. Gladys was determined to make him see how she was hurting. She couldn’t pretend to be happy, she wanted him to know of her misery. He entered, looking at her pleasantly, smiling with a sensitive look on his face. For the first five minutes he talked to her about his day in a happy, rambling way. However as she remained sitting in her chair, not offering to make him a cup of tea, deliberately terse, moody and non-communicative, he eventually got the impression something was wrong.

‘Is something the matter love? You seem a bit unhappy?’

‘Is something the matter?!’ she said angrily. He had, so it seemed, completely forgotten what she had told him the other day.

‘Of course something’s the matter. You know I’m not happy, I told you so the other day.’

‘I know you’re not happy love, but I thought a few days off would do you some good.’

‘No!’ she shouted emphatically. ‘Why can’t you understand? I’m fed up with my life, I’m sick, I’m at the end of my tether. My job is tiring, boring and stressful and the only point of it is to serve food and drinks to the rich, educated elite. Why should I do that? Why shouldn’t I enjoy the life that they do? I want something more from my life.’

‘Do you think you’re suffering from depression Gladys?’ asked her husband questioningly.

‘Of course I’m bloody well suffering from depression, you silly man.’ She was really annoyed by him. ‘Who wouldn’t feel depressed by the thought of working a dead end job, run off your feet everyday, serving smug, self satisfied, happy people, people who’ve got everything, who come into the café to gossip and backbite. I’m bloody well sick of it. And I don’t know why you can’t just understand this. It’s not rocket science. Asking me if I think I’m depressed. Of course I am you silly fool.’

Her husband was upset and taken aback by this insult, and Gladys felt sorry to so upset him, especially as he was so sensitive and genial. She was kicking the Friday joy out of him. He had earned that joy, he’d been at work all week. She hadn’t. She felt guilty, yet she felt so frustrated by her life and by his inability to understand what was so obvious. She knew she was taking it all out on him, but couldn’t help it.

They literally had only each other now, they had friends yes, but they were no longer close friends, and since the marriage of their children, a barrier had developed between them and their kids. For example, if she spoke to her son or daughter on the phone, Gladys would never let her true feelings show: she always pretended everything was fine back at home. In fact she and her husband had been dropped off the life flow, and stranded, and unable to get back on, only had each other. They had a Chinese that night as usual, Gladys hoping it would cheer her up. In the end she only felt worse: the Lemon chicken, the prawn crackers, the beef and pineapple, normally such a treat on a Friday, only rebuked her today for her wasted life. Her state of mind was dreadful, she felt bad tempered, sick, sad, ill, totally out of humour.

Another week passed. Again, on Friday she felt tormented and when her husband sensed this and, apparently suffering from amnesia, asked ‘what’s the matter love? Is everything alright?’ Followed by ‘would you like a cup of tea love?’ she had finally had enough.

‘No I don’t want a bloody cup of tea! That’s your solution to everything isn’t it. To have a cup of tea. Good God!’

Her husband felt scared of her and guilty. It hurt him deeply when she was unhappy with him.

The whole week had frittered away again in boredom and lethargy and she was nauseated with daytime TV. She saw that nothing in her life was going to change, there was to be no revolution, and sick to death of her husband and his inability to understand her, she just wanted to get back to work, hate it though she did. It was better to face the agony of activity than to sloth away ones days, just as it was better to endure nightmares than to put the mind on the insomnia horror-rack.

On Monday morning she was back in. She had a headache, felt profoundly angry, was having hot flushes and her nerves were so electric she felt like smashing all the crockery against the walls. More sullen, rude and miserable than before she got on with her work.

*******************************

A year went by. She still had her job and remained just as sick of it. And there had been a gloomier development.

Her husband was suffering from spells of depression. Something had cracked in him, and much to Gladys’s surprise, this man, who had always seemed so calm, positive and sprightly – not one to dwell on his feelings – this man was now beginning to feel the effects of life. He would sit for hours on end in a chair, totally absorbed in himself and you could see, by looking at his face, that he was desperately, desperately unhappy and suicidal, as if he was asking what had been the point of his life, what did he have to live for, why do we exist? He would sit there, hours at a time, with his profoundly morose expression, too deep to be counteracted as though all he wanted was to weep like a little boy.

Gladys felt so tragically sorry, to see that once proud, strong, resilient man, now reduced to this. She was desperately sorry. He was such a good, kind, sensitive man and to see him sat in his chair, his pure, boyish soul sinking lower and lower, doomed and going under, she felt such pity for him. She felt also that it was her fault: she’d introduced him to the misery of life, last year. Like a drug dealer, she’d showed him how low life could be. She’d woken him up to this fact, she felt. As though if she had have kept her mouth shut, he would’ve been alright. She’d looked down the well of doom, saw how deep it was, and she’d been determined to make him aware of it. She could have kept the trap door shut and hidden under the rug. But, like a heartless bastard, she’d went out of her way to show him the hidden horror. Now he couldn’t cope with it. It was too much. She felt guilty. She should have just kept it to herself.

Despite all her sympathy and regret, however, in reality she couldn’t translate this into actual sympathy. She felt anger and resentment toward her husband. She felt annoyed to see this one time strong man, an invincible she had thought, with his native wisdom that she had always looked upon with wonder, this man who seemed to have such a natural understanding of life, as if he knew everything and wasn’t phased, this man who had been so in harmony with the world; she felt so annoyed to see him reduced to this state, where he was helpless, absorbed and confused. When she saw him sitting there like a little boy she felt so, so sorry for him. And had it have been her son, she would have acted on that pity. But because it was her husband, now an ageing man, who had no one to help him, save herself, she simply felt annoyed by him: she wanted to tell him to stand up and be a man, and she felt terrible for these thoughts for she knew her husband had nobody, except her, and deserved sympathy. Yet she only felt contempt for him.

That he hadn’t understood her problems as well, was another source of irritation. A year ago she had looked to him for help and guidance. She had at first been angered and shocked to discover her husband’s lack of understanding. Now it was all crystal clear. She couldn’t rely on him in that sense: she was on her own. Their minds were different. She was cynical and astute, and with that a bit unpleasant. He was nice and genial, but incapable of insight. When he suffered, he suffered alone. Unlike hers, his soul was beautiful still, unpolluted. Yet hand in hand it was boyish, curious, wondering, child like: and it had been hit for six and sent into confusion, by his troubles. He didn’t know where he was. Whereas Gladys knew where she was at, knew the cause of her problem. She was never confused. He was suffering, just like a child, and didn’t know what had hit him. She realised now that she was the one who understood life, and her husband didn’t, he was like a dependent on her. And she resented this.

He would sit in his chair, non-communicative. Sometimes he tried to explain his feelings to Gladys, with the self-absorption of a new initiate, unaware that others, especially Gladys, had trodden this road before. She was often terse with him and unsympathetic. At other times he would read a book about mental illness and depression and Gladys would feel anger then. And then again he would take himself off, and absorbed in his gloom suffer in torments alone.

She was so angry with him. She had immense sympathy for that poor boyish man, that once proud husband of hers, who had treated her like royalty, done everything for her, been 110% loyal and adoring throughout their entire marriage. He deserved all the sympathy in the world, yet there was a gulf between them now: they understood life in different ways, and she couldn’t afford him any sympathy. She resented that he was dependent on her.

She thought back on their life together. Their honeymoon in Morecombe. The sun shining, the two of them on the beach, that smiling, happy young man, in his shorts, perfectly in the rhythm of life’s groove, bringing her an ice cream. In love with her, with everything about her. Completely content and satisfied. Ready to serve his life to her. Happiness. Youth. Love. Where had it all gone too now? Why did it not matter a jot now? Why, when she thought back on it, did it only fill her with nausea? Why did these memories afford her no help now, when she needed to think on her husband kindly?

‘There eat that, I’ll bring you some salt through,’ she said tersely, banging down a bowl of soup before her husband, who sat abjectly, absorbed, and like an invalid. Slamming the doors, she returned to the kitchen.

‘I’m bloody well sick of all this’ she thought to herself. ‘That poor, dear man deserves all my sympathy, but agh! I’m so annoyed. I’ve got no one, I’m sick of everything as usual, and now I’ve got to look after him. I know I’m going to bully him, I just can’t help it. Why does he have to be such a helpless imbecile? I can’t help but hate him. I’m going to bully him, I can see that. I just can’t help it. I’ve got nowhere else to vent my rage and frustration with life.’

It was so big I almost cried

Mike Harper’s girlfriend was away for the weekend, and he found himself alone and at a loose end in their flat. He didn’t know what to do with himself and was bored when all of a sudden his eye fell upon one of his girlfriend’s women’s magazines. Out of curiosity he picked it up and started browsing.

He felt a secret thrill at surreptitiously reading it behind her back and became aroused as he delved inside what he had hither to only seen the front cover of. It was an experience to find himself caught up in this women’s world, and he felt a thrill at it, as though he were going through a girl’s underwear draw or as if he’d snuck into the ladies changing rooms. It was really quite kinky.

But by the by he came to one article in particular. It contained several pictures of a young attractive women – a celebrity who was being interviewed – and there were some extracts from the text in large, bold writing, written here and there across the page. One of these read ‘when I first saw his penis, I thought I was going to faint with happiness. It was so big I almost cried.’

He was outraged and incensed by this. He felt anger at hearing such sluttish talk. He had been browsing with a feeling of erotica as though he were spying on women getting changed. He was browsing to satisfy his own interest in women. But this! This was not flattering to him at all. He felt outraged, morally outraged to hear a women talk like that. What a total slut! He wanted to strangle her. Beat her to a pulp. It was disgusting, and he felt anger and bitterness toward that young girl. Who the hell did she think she was to speak like that! What an a arrogant piece of trash. He felt humiliated and cut out of the world of women. So this was what they were really like then?

Despite his anger, or perhaps precisely because of it, he made a point of thoroughly reading the entire article. He had never heard of the girl in question, but she was obviously a minor celebrity and the interview concerned her relationship with another minor celebrity.

‘Tell us about your relationship with Adam?’

‘We first met at the Blue Texan nightclub. From the moment I first laid eyes on him I wanted to sleep with him. I mean he was so good looking, very fit and with such a gorgeous face, everything a women could dream of in man. At the time I was single and was just enjoying myself playing the field and having one night stands. It happened that a friend of a friend introduced me to Adam, we got chatting and he asked me out on a date. Although I’m the sort of girl who likes to go to bed on a first date, most of the time the sex is so crap. But with Adam it was like, amazing, we both knew what we wanted.’

‘What did he think of your job as a lap dancer?’

‘He was totally cool about it. Some guys really have a problem with it, but Adam just loved it, he finds it a turn on. It even got to the point where he wanted me to dance for him and we had a lot of saucy sex sessions. I’ve always practiced lap dancing, ever since I was a little girl, and it comes in really handy when you want to control a man. They all sit up and take notice when you dance. I would recommend pole dancing to all women, it’s a great way to keep fit. And I was happy to please Adam. He’s hung like a donkey, and I haven’t had to use a vibrator to orgasm since I met him.’

And despite himself Mike read the whole article. He was enraged by it, felt belittled and was shocked that a woman should talk like that about men, as if he were just a sex object who was either satisfactory or not; either something worth having or a useless reject.

That evening in the pub, he stood chatting with his mate:

‘What a bunch of slags women are. They’ve got tests you know, to find out how big your penis is. No, I’m serious. These magazines of theirs are full of it. That’s why they’re so avidly reading them all of the time. To find out ways of working out how big your penis is when they first meet you. So that they know if they want to sleep with you or not. They’ve got tests’ he said bitterly.

‘Women can have sex whenever they like’ he continued ‘it’s easy for them they simply find a man and drop their knickers. And when they’ve had their satisfaction they say thank you, you’re no good anymore. I’m moving on to someone else now, that was rubbish sex we just had, I need a man with a bigger penis. And then they get into bed with someone else.’

‘Men reach their sexual peak at twenty-one and after that they drop off. But women are just as much at their sexual peak at forty as they were when they were sixteen. That’s why they’re always having sex, why they’re so obsessed with it and why they’re always reading about it, about how to achieve an orgasm. That’s all they ever think about, how they’re going to have an orgasm. The silly bunch of cows.’

And so he went on, bitterly, angrily and dissatisfied, ranting to his friend. He was really out of sorts.

He was twenty-four and lived with his girlfriend. He was tall, well-built, dark and handsome. And he was incredibly egotistical. He wasn’t given to smiling much, but always appeared uptight and dissatisfied with his life. He was one of the lads, liked to drink in the pub and drove a fancy little red sports car. He worked as a management consultant, made good money and was always dressed to kill, looking lean, mean and dangerous in his sexy suit, and incredibly scary as well. People, women especially, were terrified of him, and he seemed oblivious of things such as common courtesy, was stingy with his pleases and thankyous, and people, for example shop assistants, were often annoyed by his rudeness and arrogance, especially since he was so dark and sexy. Women, if they felt they had a chance with him, found him incredibly attractive, being so arrogant, sullen and oblivious of everyone else, so thoughtless; if they didn’t feel they had any chance with him, they hated his guts for lacking any form of gentlemanly conduct. His world seemed to be centred around shallow affairs, such as money, cars, drinking and women. He sort of wasn’t switched on to other things, was caught up in his own world, and had no idea that people around him disliked him so much.

He read glossy lad magazines, looked at pictures of women with oversized breasts and loved to see naked women sprawled over a Mercedes Benz or a Bentley. He bore a perpetual look of dissatisfaction and was low and miserable as if he’d just masturbated. He lusted after beautiful women and had every chance to satisfy this lust, yet he in no way seemed contented or fulfilled, but rather the reverse; and in time, as he got older, you felt he would just became a cantankerous and lecherous old man, reeking of testosterone and manly bile, sort of like a sex addict, unable to retain the high of his former years, his mind being to narrow to conceive of any alternative forms of satisfaction. At night he would often sit with a beer in his hand and watch comedy shows, his especial favourite being one in which a man went around insulting ordinary members of the public, quite a lot of whom happened to be women. He would sit there loudly guffawing as the man insulted a middle-aged, unattractive woman to her face asking if she was a lesbian, even though it was just an everyday, decent women who wasn’t aware that the presenter was just winding her up for a laugh. It was disgusting really, totally humiliating to have an honest and unassuming woman poked fun at and insulted, simply for the crime of being unattractive; a pathetic and cheap way of making a joke, and a slap in the face of human decency, but in fact the show was spot on, since Mike found it hilariously funny and sat there in stitches laughing.

He hated ugly women, didn’t have a kind word for them and would often stare at them if they really aroused his hate. He would often joke about them, spoke of fat cows and ugly mingers, and dismissed certain women as lesbians, crudely suggesting they had hairy armpits and moustaches, and that it made him sick.

As for his girlfriend, she was a secretary, young and incredibly beautiful. Although she was a decent enough person if you met her or had some small dealings with her, at heart she was pretty shallow and consumed by fairly lightweight affairs. The following evening she arrived home. When she got inside the flat Mike was waiting for her. He sat with his feet up drinking beer, looking at the TV and not at her.

‘Back from your little slag’s weekend are you? I hope you enjoyed yourself you little slut’ he stated peevishly after a while. His girlfriend looked at him with questioning eyes: they shone, bemused, like a little vixen’s. She was totally perplexed by this attitude of his and was scared.

‘Have you been cheating on me you little tart? Eh?’ he said threateningly, standing up and grabbing a hold of her skinny little arm roughly. She was terrified and didn’t know what he was talking about. There was a look of terror on her face.

‘Of course not’ she said ‘what’s wrong with you?’

‘What’s wrong with me?’ he shouted angrily, shaking her violently so that she shrieked. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. I’m sick of sluts like you dropping your bloody knickers, left right and centre for every man you see. Well you’re not going away on any more of your dirty weekends, you little slag.’

His girlfriend had utterly no idea what this was about, was terrified, and he got angrier and angrier by the second. They had a long, long argument that night, his girlfriend breaking into tears and becoming hysterical, totally oblivious to what this was about, whilst he vented his spleen, yet it in no way cheered him up and at the end of the night he only felt worse.

Cosmetic breasts

I received an email a few months ago from a lecturer friend in America.

Hello X,

Well how are you my friend? How is it going? Are you still writing that new novel of yours? Look, I know we fell out a bit over my comments on your last book, but what could I have done except been honest? And what does my opinion matter anyway. Others may well like it. Perhaps it just wasn’t my cup of tea. You know you should really learn to handle criticism better. You can’t expect us all to just say it’s wonderful, now can you? After all I thought you valued truth above all else? Do you want us all to lie? Anyway if you are writing another novel, and you feel it might be more my thing, perhaps you could send me an extract. I’ll be happy to read it for you my friend. Like I said, I thought your last book showed a lot of promise.

All is well here, the new semester has just begun. My friend, how can I say it: Autumn is arrived. The most magnificent season of the year. Its arrival and the subsequent commencement of the Fall term always does such wonders for me. It’s so invigorating and I feel almost as though I’m back in the womb, so comforted am I by autumn’s presence, so at peace with the return of this dear old uncle of a season, this quiet and sedate period. It’s such a sadly calm season, and its power is that it is able to induce this calm in us all. He is quietly potent, is Autumn. And after the dreary dissipation of August, when you’re sick to your back teeth of the back end of summer, and when the university is deserted, and day after day after day goes by monotonously, it’s always refreshing to see the students back. There’s an air of excitement, of freshness, of anticipation. They’re enthused once more, recharged, ready for the calm comfort of learning, the soothing regime of study. At least for the first few weeks. No, tell me my friend, is there anything more harmonious in this world than the dark peaceful nights of Autumn, and sitting down at one’s desk to work with a new set of pens and paper? Hmm? That complement between Autumn’s all pervading calm and the soothing solace of study? It is magnificent. Yet this year I’m afraid to say, something spoilt it.

One afternoon, a week prior to the commencement of term, I found myself alone in my office, preparing notes for a second semester course, Continuum mechanics and Lagrangian systems. I had been reading through a text book and making notes, and I was in that pleasant mood that follows in the wake of a few hours spent in quiet study. That sated feeling, you know, when you love a subject, and enjoy refreshing yourself with it, when you’ve read awhile and feel happy at heart. Calm and as if all can be dealt with. And feeling thus, I decided to have a stroll to the staff room and make another cup of coffee.

With empty mug in hand, I left my office and plodded through the deserted corridors to the staff room. Although the term had not begun, in the week preceding term, as I’m sure you remember, a few students start to appear around the building. I walked by one table, sitting at which were a handful of returning sophomores. They were eagerly discussing something, the drift of which was that someone or other had had breast augmentation. And you know when I first heard this, my immediate gut reaction was to think that they were talking about a fellow student. I don’t know why I thought this. Of course it was much more probable that they were talking about a celebrity. Yet I couldn’t help believe they were gossiping about a fellow student and I had a bad presentiment. However I soon dismissed these thoughts, reassuring myself that they were speaking about some celebrity or other. I knew I was being oversensitive; and knowing myself well, I saw that the mere idea of a student undergoing cosmetic surgery so appalled me that some perverse part of me wanted it to be true; in order that, I don’t know, I might feel desperately depressed over the sheer depravity of humanity. I knew I was being silly. Experience has taught me that in real life people are a lot more grounded and normal than on TV. This was the university. The students were good, intelligent people. I put aside these thoughts.

You know I can’t say I’ve ever been comfortable with the notion of plastic surgery – in my youth I was mortally depressed by the issue – yet in some ways I think that as a society we’ve come to accept it. At least with celebrities that is. The rotting vegetable celebrity world, the world of vanity and egotism, of brainless and mindless stupidity; in this world, this world we are removed from, I think it is at least possible to come to terms with this sick procedure. And one of my most reassuring thoughts that I held in my youth, was that this world would never permeate the real world, and that one could be happy and alone in this life, isolated and cut off from all the sickening acts of celebrities and their plastic surgery. And especially for me, the university, which has been, for all my adult life, a place of immense charm, a place of peace, solace and learning, a seat of honesty, freedom and tolerance, where one can educate oneself – within this pure world I always felt invincible and leagues distant from all that was worldly. Yet this belief of mine has now been destroyed.

Over the next few days I heard more conversation amongst the students about a girl having had plastic surgery, and I started to become convinced that it was in fact a student they were speaking of. It kept coming up too often for it to be otherwise, I thought. Naturally, I felt really troubled by this, yet I was beginning to quietly accept the depressing truth of it. It seemed to be the one and only topic of conversation. (The students I might add, were evidently upset by it; but I’ll come back to them later.) And as I began to accept it, a new feeling crept into my heart: curiosity. I wanted to know who it was who had done this. I felt revulsion for the act and for the person who had committed it; yet I have to confess I was terribly interested in the girl in question, and felt a mixture of revulsion and attraction to her. I don’t mean physical attraction. I mean I was attracted (and revulsed) by a personality so warped and wicked as to do such a thing. It seems to me that when a woman enlarges her breasts she does two things: the first is too physically impress men with her new assets; the second is to get men so worked up, so repulsed, and hurt, that they are naturally attracted to such a vulgar creature. At least I think so. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For the present I still wasn’t certain of the truth, and that all of this wasn’t just in my head. Then on the first Monday of the term, at around noon, I was in the staff room and it was confirmed to me.

Three staff members were having a very heated discussion. Asking what was up (though I had a strong presentiment of what it was), Dr Porter, one of the three, told me that ‘Kelly Huntington had had her breasts enlarged.’ Even though I had fully anticipated this, the moment was an awful one. As though my world had ended. Do you remember when how you were little you used to imagine one of your parents committing adultery? Well I do. I used to lie awake at night worrying about it. That awful moment when I would be told that my father had ran off with a harlot, my mother left alone and in tears, the family at an end. My parents splitting up: the end of the world. I used to lie awake for hours contemplating it. And this was how I felt now. Such feelings I have never felt since I was at school, when I was so often in trepidation and in fear, as when on the few occasions I did something naughty and was told off. Your heart pounding and sinking to the stomach as though your life is over; a feeling of sickness and disaster, of regret, my face growing hot and, I imagine red, these were my feelings when I kicked to the point of seizure my best friend, an asthmatic, whilst playing football at school, and this was the sensation that reoccurred to me when I heard the news.

I felt incredibly, incredibly embarrassed, my face felt hot and red, and you know I have one of those faces that cannot, I mean absolutely cannot hide my true feelings, so that all my sensitive thoughts on the issue were mirrored on my face. People could see how this whole matter deflated me. I felt so embarrassed, but also humiliated, as if belittled. I felt degraded somehow as if it was an insult.

‘Oh! Horrible!’ I exclaimed, never liking to hide feelings. ‘Who is Kelly Huntington?’

Porter gave a curt response, but I couldn’t work out who the girl was, the name meant nothing to me. I was desperate to know who she was. Yet I desisted quizzing Porter further. I don’t really like him to be honest. He’s okay I suppose, it’s just, he’s so smug and self satisfied. He’s good looking, incredibly popular with the young ladies. But personally I think he’s a bit simple. He’s very clever. And he genuinely believes that his good looks make him cool. Yet he’s so not cool. He’s more the conceited and boring mathematician than anyone. He’s got a superiority complex. He can’t take people for what they are or act naturally. Anyway he doesn’t think much of me and wasn’t going to explain to me who this girl was. Instead he resumed his conversation with our two other colleagues, Mark Albright and Dr Irena Pravalova.

Irena Pravalova – I think you met her once? – is a highly intelligent, strong minded, strong willed woman. She’s a peculiar mix of glamour and intellect. She’s good looking, dresses exceptionally well and in lots of ways is very much at home in the world. Yet what endears her to me is that in equal measure, she is a true mathematician: I mean she adores the purity of the subject, the elegance of it, she loves to explore its stark, barren, yet rewarding terrain. And she is an outsider, aloof from mainstream society. She is pure, she’s not afraid to appreciate the finer things in life, and as well as this she has that natural love of justice, that is common to the mathematician, that desire for equality for all, for social justice, even I might say that communist streak, that extremist sentiment. Yet she’s wise enough to balance these with an astute understanding of reality, and like I say in her dress she’s very elegant. She’s also nice, like most quietly successful people, she’s a student of Functional Analysis and Toeplitz matrices, she’s a hardcore mathematician, and you’ll be lucky if you find maybe two or three other women in the U.S. as brilliant as her. She is friendly to all, a true disciple of Christ, being in charge of disabled student’s welfare for maths and science. Anyway, she was really pissed as they say here, by the whole issue. I was glad she was. She always speaks her mind. She is strong enough to.

‘Well it’s disgusting, it’s revolting, it’s unnatural. There’s no place for it, full stop’ she said angrily and enraged. She was very stirred up and beside herself. I’d never seen her so at sea. And although I was glad she was taking it like this, I was a bit surprised to see her reduced to this contemptible state. Usually she’s so calm. I didn’t know what to make of this, this hissy-fit, this display of moral outrage come feline jealousy. I felt sorry for her and contempt for her in equal measure.

‘Oh come on, it’s a woman’s choice, if she wants it done. I don’t see that there’s any harm in it,’ said Porter.

‘No harm in it! What are you saying? You are wrong! It is disgusting’ responded Pravalova. Normally so calm, she was so disorientated by all this and was getting nowhere in her argument with the smug and lying Porter. In the end, sensing that she was all at sea, and that it was contemptible to argue with him, she stormed off. She was livid.

When she’d gone Porter passed some comment to Albright and myself about her being oversensitive. What a complete cocksucker he is! What a fucking toad. He’s such a false, fake loser. You see he’s playing a game where he pretends to be perfectly at ease with the thought of a young woman getting breast implants, and pretends that others like Pravalova can’t handle it. Why can’t he just say it’s sick, it’s revolting, it crushes my soul? Instead he pretends it’s the likes of Irena, someone who is strong enough to own up to her feelings, who’ve got a problem. He’s such a dick, he’s always making her out to be a lesbian feminist type and can’t appreciate any of her grit, her strong mind, her character.

Anyway as Porter and myself stood there, Albright took up his rant.

‘It’s such a disgusting, unnatural operation. I mean please! It’s these foolish magazines with all their pictures of women with humongous breasts which make a young girl so insecure that she has to rush out to a clinic over the summer to have silicon stitched into her breasts by some pervert doctor, some money-making good for nothing son of a bitch. What ever happened to the Hippocratic oath for Crissakes! These doctors they’re subhuman filth. They should be telling these girls to get on with their lives, to be happy with what they are, but instead they’re pocketing thousands for butchering them up and sticking shit down their bodies.

‘Honestly these doctors are creepy. They’re such perverts, chopping women up and cauterising them, and then moulding their breasts to perfection. They’re complete perverts. The problem is they’ve all got such incredibly small penises, that this is the only way they can satisfy a woman. I’ve seen them on TV, these old, lecherous, filthy, fucking Frankenstein’s. They reappear at the end of the operation when Miss rat girl is awake and joyously enraptured in her new breasts and the Frankenstein comes in and starts fondling her breasts and saying how’s that my dear, have I satisfied you now? Motherfucker! Fawning on these vein women like dirty old rats.

‘And they take all that dough as well, and buy a new Lexus and a luxury apartment and holiday five times a year in Hawaii. And the whole sickening procedure is dangerous. These people aren’t regulated. No sir, they’re frigging cowboys. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that the procedure is dodgy. I mean come on, sticking silicon into your body! For God’s sake! What if it leaks into your bloodstream? They don’t report it in the press, but most women who get breast implants become ill; they get gross back ache, they can’t even walk let alone run, their hair falls out, their faces burst out with a rage of acme, they start vomiting, they suffer severe chest pains, they’re more prone to cancer, their children are born blind, dumb and brain damaged, they have nervous disorders, suffer spasms, it can even lead to kidney failure. And yet these mother fucking doctors not only help them to do it, but they get paid a bomb for it.’

‘And these rich girls with their rich daddies, who are gonna pamper their daughters and give them boobs – God it’s so disgusting!’

And on that note he ended, having worked himself up to utter peevishness. His rant was bold but by the time he’d said that last he was beside himself. By ranting he’d actually got himself even more worked up, and by the end he looked at no one, he seemed to be miles away, looking down and inwardly as though into an infinite abyss. And he sounded so peeved as those last words dropped out of his mouth: he could barely spit them out. He just couldn’t take it. I stood there saying nothing, but just looking downcast as if I commiserated with him. Porter said

‘I don’t see why you have to be so troubled by it. Nowadays the procedure isn’t so risky. In fact there’s evidence to suggest that getting cosmetic surgery improves your health, your mental health that is. If it makes people feel better about themselves, I don’t see what’s wrong with it.’

But Albright was having none of it and gruntingly dismissed Porter’s words. He was besides himself. So much so that he thought he suffered alone, that he was the only one who felt it. He couldn’t see that others, for example myself and Irena felt exactly as he did. The meeting eventually broke up.

My sympathies were totally with Albright: I felt the same way as he. Whereas that worm Porter infuriated me, by his smug and fake way of pretending everything was dandy. I mean moral issues to one side, any woman must have a natural horror of having breast implants. Can you imagine the thought of getting silicon stuck down your nice, natural, childish chest? Psychologically a girl must feel averse to it. Yet in terms of what they were saying, the truth is, I’m afraid to say, that Albright’s arguments are flawed and Porter’s are correct. The operation does not appear to have a bad effect on a majority of women. (Or at least it seems that way to me. To be honest though I don’t think anyone knows. There doesn’t seem to be any official word on this; and it’s such an emotive issue, that you don’t know who to believe. It would be easy to say it’s bad and those who deny it are protecting the industry; but then again, those who have an understandable aversion to it and who feel it’s revolting, well perhaps they are the liars, blinded in their judgement and wrongly believing there to be risks where there are none. It’s a propaganda war for sure.) But like I say, it doesn’t seem to affect the majority of women, and even if it did that does not mean a perfectly harmless technology could not be invented in future to do the same. I mean the procedure is so improved now – and will only continue to be so – that in the foreseeable future, not only will it get safer and safer, but it will also become dirt cheap so that anyone can afford it. Imagine that, aye, my friend? Every girl having it done. Every single girl. A standard procedure. Just like having a filling or getting your hair dyed. And of course, in time perhaps people will just be genetically manipulated, with a little bit of tinkering here and there, to look like that: so you see it’s all possible. Sick yes, but at the end of the day we’re just animals, we are evolution’s whore and nothing more.

And yes, these doctors may be perverts, but you see they remind me of artists. Do you see the parallels? Watch those documentaries and you’ll see what I mean – in fact many of these doctors are painters as well. And especially, I can’t help being reminded of Renoir, one of my favourite painters. Look carefully at his work and you’ll be impressed by what a pervert he was, the way he has women’s breasts constantly in his paintings. Even I recall, there is one of his baby’s Nanny, her dress slipping over her shoulder to reveal her breasts. It’s easy to imagine Renoir, sensually unwrapping this nanny of his, never satisfied with allowing the breasts to remain uncovered. Plus all his women have large and excellent breasts. And I remember in one picture he seems to deliberately have someone lifting up the nappy of his child in order to reveal its soft, fleshy buttocks. Pervert! Really you can feel the sensual pervert in him. I mean don’t get me wrong, part of me has always found nudist painting, especially by these brilliant French artists, vulgar and base, a corruption of their talent, as though they were selling out. Yet another part of me is attracted to it, and enjoys the sensuality of it. I guess we’ve returned to some timeless questions: what is beauty? Is it profound or base? Where does a natural and platonic love of beauty give way to sordidness and vice? What is the difference between art and pornography?

And of course it is pornography that is to blame for much of this. You and I both misspent a good part of our youth looking at porn magazines, and if you haven’t realised it yet, all those incredible naked women, with their beautiful breasts, well, they’ve all had cosmetic surgery. Did you know this? I have to confess I never did. So you see our generation has grown up with unnatural expectations of what a woman can look like. The majority of women, skinny ones especially, have no breasts whatsoever. Really if you don’t believe me, pull out that dirty magazine from beneath your bed and flick through some pages. I promise you all the women have artificial breasts. Look closely and you can tell. It’s our fault my friend, is it not? Women always say we’re nothing but a bunch of arse grabbing, sex obsessed perverts, and though we vehemently deny it, we know in our hearts it’s true. We judge women on breast size. It may not be the only criterion, but it is important. Like that joker once put it: given the choice between a blonde, a brunette and a red head, then every time, without a shadow of a doubt, ‘I would choose the one with the largest breasts.’ Sadly there’s some truth in it.

And so why should the average woman in the street not feel dreadful, insecure and insignificant when comparing herself to these women. Of course she too will want more cheese on her pizza. And if most women may have the good sense to avoid cosmetic surgery, still there will always be some who succumb. It only ever takes one crazy person to start a trend: once one has done it they all want it done. You have to have strength to resist.

Anyway I’m getting side tracked. If the staff were upset, so too were the students. It was their sole topic of conversation, guys and girls both. So many of the girls seemed put out by it as though it really cut them up. They were moody and huffy and didn’t speak much. They seemed low and cheerless. The boys on the other hand spoke of it. I heard many speaking honestly, admitting that they took it badly, that they had real issues with it whilst others would try to be one ahead of their peers, explaining the reasons of Kelly, and how, if you looked at it reasonably, you could understand why she’d done it.

My sole preoccupation now was to know who Kelly Huntington was and at various times, as I walked the corridors and passed students, I was secretly on the look out for her. I just had to know. Last term I had taught two mandatory first year courses, so I would know her when I saw her. I’m not good with names though, and there seemed an abundance of Kellies and Kerries in the school: it was a name you might give to a typical, faceless, non-descript female student.

As it turned out, my lectures fell on Mondays and Fridays for this second year class, and it being week one, Monday’s class was cancelled so that Friday’s was the first. So I would be kept in suspense till then. In the interim I was constantly thinking on the issue.

You know it yourself, the ladies at this university can be categorised as those who are attractive, those who are very attractive and those who are stunning. These girls may be intelligent and educated and so forth, but equally they possess the most graceful and elegant of female forms. It seems that brains beds beauty, wealth weds charm and eventually all these factors amalgamate, forming the creatures I find in my class. I guess I’ve always held dual feelings in regard to the girls in my class. That they should often be so vivacious and feminine seems to go against the grain of true intellectual rigour, of everything that the purity of academia – and most especially of mathematics – stands for. On the other hand it’s nice to teach and mingle with such honeys. It’s just I can’t say that I’m totally at ease with it. I’ve heard stories in the past of some of the girls doing modelling in their spare time; which, however you want to say is no big deal, doesn’t quite sit right with me.

As to the academic capabilities of the girls, well, this year, as in most, there are none amongst my flock who command a hard, strong mind. There are no Irena Pravalovas in the making. Two girls are good, they nearly have the necessary grit; but a miss is as good as a mile really. They are decent thinkers, fairly bright, but not the complete article. The majority of girls are pseudo-intellectuals. I don’t mean that as any slight against them, and I should point out that I like most of them, they’re ever so pleasant by and large. But they are only pseudo-intellectuals. Not just those who will obtain thirds and two-twos, but also those good enough to get two-ones and firsts.

As I say, with the exception of one or two bitches, the girls are decent, friendly, and thoughtful, they work reasonably hard – harder than a lot of the boys anyway – and I don’t mean to belittle them by describing them as pseudo-intellectuals. Any deficiency in intellectual grit is compensated for by an equal dose of emotional intelligence, an ounce of motherly good sense: these girls will make excellent teachers.

So then my friend these are the girls. And it was one of their number who had committed the sin of having implants put in. Though I desired to get on with my life, and to ignore such impure goings on, the mystery consumed me and I knew that until I had discovered the girl’s identity, I could in no measure move forward. Like a reluctant but absorbed Sherlock Holmes I set out to uncover the truth. Three possible suspects came to mind.

The first was a bitchy young blond, thin and sexy, a vixen if ever there was one. To describe her: she is white trash by nature, petit bourgeoisie by birth. So is my impression anyway, though I have to confess I’ve never spoken to her at all. However her body language, her propensity to huff and scowl, would lead anyone to think that she’s a bit of a bitch. She’s leagues off from being a liberated thinker. Her all round good looks and slim figure, her lack of bosom, made her a prime suspect. However, was her name Kelly? I wasn’t convinced it was. Despite her trailer park heritage, vixen white trash, is by the way, quick minded and likely to get a first.

The second candidate was again one of the few girls I didn’t like. This has a lot to do with her ineptitude in math. Whenever I’ve made an effort to try and explain things to her, she never understands, she seems to resent it, huffs and puffs, and blames me as though I’m an annoying bore. It’s one of the few things I hate about my job, this sort of deteriorating relationship with a girl. It would be nice to know these girls better, and not through the medium of math. Perhaps she’s awful, but still, I hate this sort of restricted relationship where you’re limited to communicating with people like this, where friendship seems to rest upon the random proviso, of aptitude in mathematics. Anyway, her coursework is always a nightmare to mark. She is I believe studying mathematics and business, and hates the mandatory mathematical component. She always presents an unhappy, sullen face, seems to despise academia and me personally and all that I represent. Yet could even she descend so low as to have plastic surgery? One thing I did know however was that she was called Kelly. I tried to recall her surname from her coursework papers; but struggle as I might it eluded me.

The third suspect I had in mind, was, I was sure, another Kelly. She’s attractive and bright, fairly rich and pure bred. How can I say it? A light of joy shines through her, a radiance, a zest for life. She’s lively, and though lacking true grit, is good at her work, a candidate for a first. She’s a bit of a diva, a flirter, you know the sort who likes the concept of sex rather than the deed: likes to read and think about it, to flirt, to be admired, to have attention. Her ambitions are abstract: she revels in being a queen, to always command power over others, forever on the periphery of having sexual encounters, but only occasionally indulging in them, maintaining her position and reveling in the potential off it. She harbours dreams of fame I believe, she’s good at dancing – I once saw her execute a pirouette at the end of a lecture, in front of a guy she walked over to chat to. She’s pleasant and warm to some, including myself, bitchy to others, especially some of the girls, and shares my disdain of vixen white trash for example. But more than this, I specifically recalled she had something of a spat with one buxom coquette in the class last year, who is in every way her match. She’s generally pleasant and happy but also has that narcissistic streak, that will to be the alpha female.

So then I had my possible suspects. Yet in all honesty I wasn’t convinced it was any of them. Sadly, the whole tale engrossed me, and I couldn’t stop thinking on who the girl was and the implications thereof. You see if it was girl one or two, vixen white trash or the academic-hating business student, then that would be soul crushing since these people were so trashy, so petit bourgeoisie. On the other hand if it were girl number three, the diva, that represented something different. I felt at least that I had something in common with this girl, she was pure bred, intelligent, alive, demanding, egotistical, she has that passion for life. So with her it would be depressing to see her sink to such depths of vanity, when she might be expected to know better. I will say this though, peculiar as it may seem. If it was her then I could perhaps forgive her, I would understand why she had did it; whereas if it was one of the first two, then I couldn’t forgive them: they were alien to me.

In fact the more I considered, I realised it would be soul crushing whoever it was. In my mind’s eye I ran through all the girls in the year, and frankly it could have been any of them. You see there are no Irena Pravalova’s in my class. Make no mistake about it my friend, Madame Pravalova is as rank an egotist as anyone; but her mind and soul are hardcore, and if she craves power at all it is in a very abstract and pure sense. And to be honest I think she is beyond such petit measures. She has a passion for her subject; and the joy, the quiet joy of studying and exploring the vast unknown of topology, the richness of analysis, of sitting at her desk deep in thought, this is enough for her. It is a pure source of energy, of spiritual happiness off of which to live. All worldly things such as power are beneath her. Whereas, to be honest, just about all the girls in my class are lightweight and I don’t, at the end of the day, have any real trust or belief in them. So any one of them might have committed this heinous crime; and then it would be soul crushing because it would prove this essential, underlying truth to me: that in fact all the women in my class were foreign to me, soulless, different, coquette’s at heart.

It could even, I reflected, be one of my two most intelligent girls. One especially, Laura was a good outside bet. I like her because, one, she seems to have the hots for me and often bedecks herself in fashionable attire especially for me to admire; two, she’s almost a hard core intellectual and asks me questions after lectures; three, she’s a rank egotist, hates the other girls and mixes only with the boys, and I have to say I find that personally trait so attractive. And it’s this egotism, this low self esteem come narcissism that led me to think it could be her. She craves power you see. And though she’s attractive her looks are totally eclipsed by the spectacular beauty of the other girls.

My mind became diseased by the whole process and I started to imagine all the girls in the university, including Laura, including Irena Pravalova having fake boobs put in. Anyway so much for my thoughts. I should cut to the chase.

Friday eventually came. The lecture was at four. Though keen to know who the girl was, I was incredibly cautious of looking that way, of appearing to scour the rows of girls, inspecting their breasts, and didn’t want to let the cat out the bag as to how much this meant to me. So I taught the lecture, deliberately focusing solely on that, as if nothing were amiss. It being the first lecture, sheets had to be handed out; but though I usually walk around the lecture hall giving them to individual students, today I intentionally did not. I kept my distance.

When you’re lecturing, although you make a point of making eye contact with the audience, you don’t really see anything but a blur, at least at the time. Thus the lecture passed, I talked emphatically and half passionately about matrices and vectors, tensor notation and material properties. I absorbed myself in writing, shunning the students as I wrote on the blackboard; I deliberately made no attempt to look at the girls. Eventually the lecture came to an end.

When it did I seemed to drop back into the real world. Recovering myself, I now had the opportunity to ogle my students as they left. As I stood there and looked out, I think there was something in my manner and voice, when I said ‘okay that’s it for today’ that suggested to them that I was saying ‘alright, now let’s turn to the real issue: who is the girl with the cosmetic breasts? Stand up please!’ At least that’s how it felt. My oversensitive face, I believe, gave the game away.

One or two students acknowledged me, we exchanged brief glances; most hurried away, and none descended to speak with me, very unusual for the first lesson of term, and I put this down to the fact that everyone was so depressed by events. I saw my girl Laura looking downcast; she didn’t come and ask me anything but like the others rushed off with a black face. I felt tragically sorry as if something was wrong.

The class soon emptied, I stayed behind handing out sheets to students who had arrived late, and then tired and satisfied that the lecture was over, and that it was home time on a Friday, I walked back to my office. I would have to wait for another day to determine the identity of the mystery woman.

Yet as I approached a door, I saw a girl walking along in the opposite direction. Something told me – I just had a presentiment all of a sudden, I was giddy and my legs wobbled – that this was her. We exchanged eye contact through the glass of the door, and there was, I don’t know, meaning in it. There was a moment of hesitation as we both approached the door, both of us too respectful to just barge through; then I opened it for her and allowed her to pass, and she did so thanking me and smiling. She was very pleasant I have to say, it being Friday I guess, plus she was clearly pleased with her self, her new found source of joy.

In that smile I read that this was she. It was a very pleasant smile, as if she were the happiest girl in the world. Plus I caught sight of her bosom and it had that fake, rigid, shadowy look to it, that sinister, devilish, artificial breast look. So then it was over.

I was relieved. Exhausted after the lecture, not wishing to engage my mind in any new mathematics, desiring to be out of the building at all costs, to give myself up to reflection, I left the department and went to the graduate bar.

It’s really plush in here, with stylish décor and dingy lighting, and at five o’clock on a Friday it is so empty and chilled out, that God, I could just sit here for hours on end recovering myself, replenishing my adrenaline stores. I ordered a scotch and soda and took up a seat in the corner by myself. It had that soothing, end of the day, Friday feel to it.

And here I mused. I now knew who Kelly Huntington was. She was neither of the three suspects I had in mind. She is a business and mathematics student, a friend in fact of suspect number two, and, I might add, just as light weight at math. To be honest I don’t really like her, though to be fair, I can’t write her off as a no-brainer either. She had smiled genuinely at me as I passed, and I smiled back. She is alright you see. She is attractive but no stunner, and ultra skinny, probably anorexic in her teens, so that probably the boys would have teased her for having no bosom. I think, to be honest, I didn’t like her before all of this. I’ve heard she wants to be an actuary.

And so that was that. I spent a good three hours or so drinking and unwinding in the bar. Reflecting on what I’d seen in the lecture theatre, now that I was far from it, I saw clearly that Kelly Huntington had been sitting in the middle with a posse of three or four boys, whilst all the other students were visibly perturbed by something. As if the lecture hall fell into two distinct camps: the superior, radiant, everything’s hunky-dory, Team Kelly Huntington, and then the others, put out and saddened, but united against her. So many of the girls seemed really, really down. As if the sunshine had been knocked out of them, their faces wan and pale as if dying.

The term moved on. Initially the girls united against Kelly. Old hatchets were buried, long standing bitch-quarrels put aside in common fear and hatred of her. Kelly’s girlfriends deserted her. I admit I was pleased to see the chief coquettes unhappy, their noses out of joint. Amongst these some of the naturally large breasted were being very catty and haughty, calling Kelly a pair of boobs on a stick, saying that all the dog needs now is a face lift and a nose job and she’ll be perfect. I should tell you that suspect number two, who had been Kelly’s friend, was no longer speaking to her. She sat apart from Kelly, with a sad face, her spirits drowning. I felt especially sorry for her, to see her take it like this, especially as I had deemed her a suspect. Truly this girl has taken on a new aspect for me now, I’m sorry to have ever accused her, and she is clearly upset, and as such I’ve found something in her to like.

I even half like suspect number one, the vixen, now, even if only on account that she hasn’t sunk to the depths I accused her of. As for suspect number three, the pure bred: I’m really sorry I ever could’ve accused her of such depravity, clearly she is better than that.

So has it gone with the girls. I am pleased by their reaction. If they had have thought Kelly’s actions cool or normal I would’ve been upset. So I’m glad of their bitchery. Yet on the other hand part of me feels delighted to see the old order upset. The born and bred beauties, the inheritors of all that is golden, having their power usurped. And I feel sorry for Kelly a bit now, as no one seems to like her, the things they’re saying are dreadful, viz., she’s a stick, she’s got a dog’s face and I can’t help feel sorry for her, after all she just wants to look beautiful and who in this world doesn’t? Recently though, one or two girls have been understanding of her, deliberately going out of their way to make friends, and realising that it’s not the done thing to be nasty to her. They have accepted things, and I anticipate that others will too in future.

In herself she seems fine and still as buoyant as ever, though I anticipate that it will catch up with her in the end, the nasty comments of her piers, the pariah status she’s been afforded by the other girls. And probably the buzz will ware off and then what? How will she fill the void? With more surgery? She still has a loyal regiment of three or four boys, ready to be her toadies. She is incredibly happy, joyous over the state of her body.

I have known people mortally depressed over the state of theirs, and perhaps, the flat chested Kelly was likewise before. That such deep and meaningful states of mind can spring from that which we all know to be thoroughly shallow and meaningless, our bodies, tells us I think, something of our flimsy nature. It is a clue, a clue to our existence.

The majority of the boys are taking it badly, as well they might, they’re so, so young. They’re evidently peeved by it, can’t accept it, and I like them for being honest, for saying that it’s sick, and what have you. Kelly’s toadies are no doubt telling her how wonderful her breasts are, that she’s an amazing, perfect girl, but I’ve seen these boys – they’re all a bunch of fakers as well, like Porter or the plastic surgeons themselves. They know fine well it’s sick, but I guess this is their way of making peace with it. Anyway they’re liars and I’ve much more a liking for the peeved, frustrated boys who are upset.

And so has the pack unfolded itself, and such is life. Yet I can’t help worry about one student’s reaction. My girl Laura. Since the return of term she’s been downcast and wan, fading away. She is sick at heart and soul, it has had a profound effect on her. She never cares to ask me a question any more, she seems to shun me. She doesn’t believe anymore, she is taking it out on me. She doesn’t talk to the other girls so can’t unite in their bitchery. The boys in her group all hate Kelly and are loyal to Laura, but that is not enough for her. She is dumbstruck. It has deeply upset her. These are 19 and 20 year olds after all. And I can’t but worry – although I think I’m just being silly – that she might do something foolish and have an operation herself. That might be her only way to come to terms with it. And you know the parallels are there between her and Kelly: they’re both egotists, they both have their little gang of boys. But the difference is that Laura is made of purer stuff, she is noble of heart and mind, she is better. Yet I can’t help imagine her with large oversized breasts – my mind has become diseased by events – in place of her natural, ever so little ones, that, flat, childish but lovely chest. For me she’s perfect as she is, being imperfect and natural. But I fear for her. She’ll listen to her own mind, not the opinions of men such as me.

So there it is my friend, a shattering start to the semester. I’ve somewhat come to terms with it now, especially by writing this letter to you, and I’d have loved to have written off Kelly as a no-brainer, petit bourgeoisie, but it’s not quite true. For sure she is a bit simple, a bit shallow, but she’s along way from being devoid of good.

You know just as prostitution has aroused and inflamed moral outrage since time began, cosmetic surgery, and especially breast enhancement seems to do the same now, to strike you right to the core. Take the whores of Babylon for instance: much maligned and hated but why? Because of their immorality or because they were only available to some? You see, where does moral outrage end and man’s sense of his own inferiority begin? I’m telling you moral outrage and the human ego are inseparable, they’ll never be held apart. They are intertwined, intermingled and throw something like cosmetic breasts at them and the two will react in duality, so that you will never know which it is that is upset. The whole dilemma, the rights and wrongs of the matter, the morality, the jealousy, the cat-calling, the bitchiness, the prudishness, the priggishness, the sense of injustice, the sordidness of it, yet the underlying fact that beauty counts for so much in this world – all are bubbling around in one overcooked cauldron. The whole dilemma is unfathomable, unsolvable. It is a deep human enigma.

Here is something I read on a confessions website:

I went to Bangkok three months ago for a bit of a no bars bender. In the event, I didn’t really have the balls to get up to all the things I’d planned, the reality of sexual encounters always being a let down. But anyway I came into contact shall we say, with both female and male prostitutes. It’s fairly common for the women here to have breasts implants, and I have to admit that I was never that comfortable with them, and thought it vulgar. But the things is, is that often the lady boys also have breast implants; and if they had had them put in, and you could see their penis under their breasts, I found that I didn’t have a problem at all; in fact I understood these men, saw the breasts were merely an artefact and felt at home with these lady boys. What is all that about?

I think this encapsulates that enigma.

All the same my gut feeling remains the same and I stand by it: it’s disgusting and unnatural and there’s no place for it, especially at the university, a place of peace, refinement and learning. It is an abuse of science, an abuse of the science of anaesthetics: a brilliant innovation designed to better the human condition, has been hijacked and prostituted for such tawdry gains. Then again what am I saying. The university has, since time immemorial, played host to the rich, the vulgar, the well fed dunder heads of the bourgeoisie and the sword of scientific advancement has at all times been dual-edged. So perhaps nothing has changed. And this cosmetic surgery is the future, however sick that may be. Believe me it is coming. It is the beginning of the end for the human species as we know it. Soon we’ll all have the bodies we want, and then ironically appearances will cease to matter. Cosmetic breasts somehow get right to the crux of what it is to be human and tell us something profoundly banal about our existence. They are like a bad omen, a scientific clue, to the randomness of our lives, and cosmetic surgery cuts right to the heart and sole of our beings. It betrays the lie of our existence.


Yours

Stephan.

Chekhov: a farce in four acts

To the theatre this evening. I happened to be in London, and discovering that Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ was playing at the National theatre, the last performance tonight in fact, I decided to go along. I was fairly enthusiastic.

I shouldn’t have been. No sooner had I been ushered in belatedly by an irate and stupid young women, I realised my mistake. A young actress was scampering around the stage apparently naked. On closer inspection it transpired that she was wearing a skin-toned, body-hugging suit; but evidently the effect had been to make the audience ask, with soul crushing sadness, is that girl naked? Since the audience was comprised mainly of older generation this was a stupid and tasteless thing to do.

Not to mention that it’s shockingly out of place in Chekhov. Immediately, I was suffering torments to see just how these people were ruining the play. They evidently had no love of it, couldn’t care less about doing it properly and were more concerned about themselves, and their trick of looking naked. Children. A brief glimpse of the play was enough for me to see that this was not going to be Chekhov: quite apart from the fact that the actors and actresses were running around the stage with astonishing levels of neurosis, like the characters in Friends, and achieving new levels of annoyability, the like of which I have never in my life witnessed, the producers had decided – for incomprehensible reasons – to rewrite the play, to bring it up to date. I should have realised this when I saw the play being touted as a ‘version’ of the Seagull.

Of course it’s every writers dream to have their play rewritten according to how someone else wants to see it. Why else would a playwright deliberately set out to write a complete play, to give his or her characters specific words to say, that should be followed to the letter, if it wasn’t in the hopes of some buffoons, one or two centuries later being able to change all they wrote, bring it up to date and so make (a frankly dull play) interesting and accessible to the common mind?

So not only was the script ignored but cue lots of endless running around the stage, constant fuss and commotion in contrast to the serene, quiet, calm and intelligent way in which the play should be presented. The audience – at least those at the front – responded with laughing and much merriment, having, (like the production team and actors) utterly no clue what things were about, but laughing all the same as the characters buffooned their way through the play, in a sort of limp pantomime version of it; the pinnacle of which saw Doctor Dorn stand up on the table and do a monkey dance. The audience were unsure of the piece. The less pretentious scoffed; the more pretentious and the more sensitive laughed. They wanted to engage in the play.

Clearly everyone involved in the production had no respect for and no interest in Chekhov. They probably found it a chore to do, but nevertheless did it out of mixed feelings of guilt, and of reverence for the greater things in life and in theatre: deep down, I felt, they appreciated that the play was, in some way, magnificent. However, that inner feeling deeply buried, their everyday feelings towards the play, must have been that it was boring, slow, un-sexy and out of date. In reality, as their lives passed them by, and they trudged their way along the bridleway of life, the play offered no escape to them, nothing to enliven their miserable journey.

Thus they would do it, but their hearts were not in it. And they would rewrite it since it seemed so slow and boring. And moreover bring it up to date for the modern audience. If there’s one thing that brings out my bile it’s this notion of needing to update the classics. As if to make them understandable to our modern minds, since people were obviously such over pompous, sexually repressed bores in the old days, and it’s essential to make things hip, trendy and sexy for US, the modern generation, the first, real people born upon this earth. Especially given our modern attitude toward sex. I mean we’re all having so much sex these days, unlike in olden times, when people never even thought about it. These days it’s just sex, sex, sex, sex, sex.

In reality, all this rewriting of the play is just a fruitless, dumbing down process, a making of a meal into a soupy sludge, all so that it’s palatable for general consumption. It is a process of dumbing it down for the masses; though in the minds of the masses, the audience and the producers, it is Chekhov who is stupid and naive, an over pompous, sexually repressed professor and egg head and this version brings the play a little more into the realm of the masses, who of course believe they know everything. It makes it more like Friends.

It was evident that the actors had no respect for the play or their characters, and injected them with especial pomposity. They stood apart from their characters, despising them: they didn’t embrace the role. Rather, they played them as fools, they played them as bores, they played them with the contempt humans tend to reserve for the dead, the people of the past.

Acting is something I’ve never done, and is therefore, like music, a pursuit which I’m simply free to enjoy the product of, without any of the hassle of the background work. Anyone who’s ever got thoroughly involved in a hobby, be it sporting, artistic, or academic will know that getting too much involved, ultimately taints it. For example, my passion for literature has diminished due to over reading, trying to write, and being a Failed novelist. Whereas something like music still retains its purity for me, it is not contaminated by the everyday. I simply listen and admire and don’t wish to understand or take part.

And good acting, I absolutely love it. To see the immense skill of actor or actress in repeating under the spotlight, some facet of human emotion, as if no one was watching – I am gratified by it, by such honest human brilliance. But bad acting I hate. It incenses me. And this was bad acting.

The thing is, put the same actors in a modern day soap opera or film, where their characters are cool and sexy and they’ll immediately embrace the roles and act passionately and with conviction. They’ll give perfect performances. But put them in Chekhov and they become a little scared. They are scared of the play and what it represents. At the same time they have contempt for it. So they don’t embrace the roles: they won’t give themselves as Chekhov characters, because it would mean admitting something they just don’t want to admit. Like removing the floorboards from beneath their feet, the shaky foundations on which their lives are built. They are at their truest when playing the cool characters. For there they can escape.

The audience were mostly middle aged. There were those near the front, who were really trying to take an interest, the theatre aficionados. They maintained the laughter, trying to engage in the play. You see it’s a comedy, so there must be lots of laughter. In fact this is at least partly Chekhov’s own fault: he should never have labelled any of his plays as comedies.

The bulk of the audience, those toward the rear, had obviously come along to serve a penance: they would be glad to get out afterwards. Feelings of guilt, had brought them here, in the same way that adults will often take their children to museums and when their children complain that it’s boring, contradict them, even though they too are immensely bored. This was why they’d come. They knew it was good for them. Yet it was obvious they were very bored by the production and thought the play a load of rubbish. The thought that these people would go away with the idea that this crass adaptation, neither true to classic tastes nor something for the masses to enjoy was Chekhov, really irked me. They would leave with their prejudices confirmed: Chekhov was boring, stupid and doesn’t know anything about real life.

So then this farce of a play, disliked by both the Chekhov fan and the common man: ironically, despised by both. I love caviar; I love pot noodles; but put them together, try and mix one into the other and disaster strikes. They both have their place. Both should be respected, left as they are.

The man next to me had come along on a penance with two women and sat, from the off, typing away at his mobile/ipod/MP3 player, totally uninterested. And he didn’t, like so many others, resurface after the interval.

Peculiarly this was after three of the four acts. Having paid the money –17 British pounds – I decided to see it out. I stood alone in the vestibule irritated. Clearly none of these people had read or appreciated Chekhov, they couldn’t care less and weren’t even aware that the play was being grandiosely butchered. It is funny that we are sometimes at our most loneliest when we expect to be in the company of like minded people. Anywhere else with these people I wouldn’t have cared. But here I felt lonely. I just wanted to leave this gloomy, empty, building, this grand theatre devoid of all spirit and go and drown my sorrows in the hubbub of real life in Leicester Square. Like the literary world, the world of theatre is equally as hollow and lifeless: there is nothing to it. It is better to drink from the cup of the common mortal, than to imbibe the tasteless poison of the pretentious.

The buzzer went and we were all called in, returning to the theatre like Pavlov’s dogs for their din-dins. I was annoyed, bitter and angry by this: to feel like one of the herd, a clueless monkey plodding along with the others: some of whom were superior people, who in no way were aware of their imbecility. Tailing along after the other non thinkers, the herd, for our next portion of Chekhov’s soup sludge. Huh! I felt such anger! I wished to stand up, to flee the herd, to shout at these people and bring them into line. I should have been a general. The general of the theatre. Barking out orders to let the people know that this is all wrong. Demanding they give me twenty push-ups for their disrespectful indifference; a hundred star-jumps for failing to be nauseated by this rubbish; a million burpees for refusing to revolt against the production team. And then, like a good leader, to show them how it should be done. But I’m powerless.

Afterwards, I was glad to escape into the fresh, night air, and the atmosphere of the South Bank. I do love it here, there’s an atmosphere unlike any other I know. As if here there is a pervasion, a coming together of great artists. And yet scratch the surface, as I had done today, and you realise it’s no more cultured than Blackpool. It’s profoundly lonely, and insipid in fact. So best I guess in future only to soak up the ambience from afar.

I was depressed. What on earth was the point of Chekhov writing such a play if literally no one was ever going to understand or appreciate it. Rather, here we are a century later and it is being grossly misrepresented. Is that his fate? Is it the fate of all good writers, to be acknowledged yes, but then to have their works misrepresented and misunderstood in perpetuity?

I recall however that there was a film version of the Seagull made in the seventies; and though at the time I thought it had simply been performed as it should’ve been, now I looked on that film, its directors and actors with a happy hope, as if all was not lost. They had performed it correctly, they had embraced the roles and they were like a ray of sunshine to me now.

It seems that the players of history will always be remembered but their ideas, values and philosophies never understood but simply misrepresented. The Turner prize is another example of this phenomenon.

Yet more heinously this peculiar form of human behaviour occurs outside the arts, and should be considered a greater injustice here. Thus for centuries men have got together to go and rape, pillage and murder others. And in order to sanctify their behaviour and lend to it greater import and magnificence, they have done this under the banner of Christ. They have acted in complete contradiction to his tenets, yet they steal the name because they know of his importance, he was a great. His name glorifies their behaviour.

Thus so many of our great thinkers and philosophers will have their ideas utterly misrepresented. Yet in truth I guess, all great thinkers are selfish egotists, narcissistic glory seekers and so why should they deserve to be understood or appreciated more than anyone else?

Chekhov in particular was in many respects narcissistic. At least it seems that way to me. His works are difficult to read, can appear boring and uninteresting, a drain one one’s energies. It can’t be expected that he would be read by many, life is difficult enough for most people, they don’t need to know about Chekhov. He will only ever have a handful of fans – and they, on some level, will be insane.

And when I think back to when I first began reading Chekhov, and recall my attitude back then, I can’t really have any complaints if it now feels cold and lonely on the peaks of abstraction. Back then I desired to better myself, to read works of magnificence, to acquire wisdom. And I specifically recall feeling insecure: inferior to those who had already read Chekhov; and hoping that others, the common herd around me, weren’t going to read his works and gain his wisdom. I wanted the power all to myself. It was a secret potion, only for my advantage. I read out of a sense of elitism. I wanted to better myself, sure; and at the same time I wanted others to stay where they were. And though I did enjoy it on some level, Chekhov was a tough read to begin with, and it took a lot of concentration, energy and damn right insanity to wean my mind of its diet of junk TV and onto his works. And of course, when I began reading Chekhov, my mind was pretty much in the mould of the audience’s: that is why I understood their way of thinking.

I stood on a bridge overlooking the Thames. When I’m here on the South Bank on a Saturday night, I’m at my most relaxed, and nonchalant, I feel at home and in the zone. So I stared out over the river, contemplating, just meditating calmly.

And I always imagine that people look at me and realise that I’m something a bit different, that I know something they don’t. Perhaps they just see me standing alone and staring, and think I’m a mad man and a fool. But anyway, I like to flatter myself, like to believe that I stand out and that people see this.

One middle aged woman seemed to understand this. She saw me in such calm, relaxed meditation, and interrupted her walk to stand next to me, resting her arms over the railing and trying to look out on the river and the night city as I did. Trying to get into communion as I was. Her husband, a high powered, white collar man, lost in this world of Saturday night reflection, didn’t seem to understand her desire to stop and do this, but obliging her, stopped beside her.

And this had happened during the interval as well. A middle aged woman, also married to a white collar man, out of his element and bored at the theatre, came and stood next to me. Viewing me, I felt, as some sort of symbol of knowledge, someone who stood out, someone who knew, who held the key to culture in his hand.

And so both women yearned to be like me, to have what I possessed. To know something more, to be able to contemplate, to be in communion with life. Yet it is too late for them unfortunately. They can’t read Chekhov now. They are washed out, their lives are over. So I am sorry for them, but they are probably better off having lived as they did. They are middle aged now and perhaps regret their lives and want something more. But they lived in their youths. Had they’ve read Chekhov they would only have been flirting with craziness.

Vegetarian (part 2)

On a dark, cold winter’s evening, a solitary figure could be seen walking hurriedly along the empty streets of town. The figure, a man, seemed agitated and possessed as if he was stealing off from some crime he’d just committed.

It was Christopher Hirst. He was deeply depressed with everything in his life, felt troubled and tormented and only one thought could comfort him: he had to have a kebab. He was exhilarated and thrilled by the prospect of a delicious Donna kebab and, a mile or so distant from the shop, he found himself breaking into a run, so excited was he to get his hands on it. He knew it was wrong but didn’t care: the only thing that mattered to him was to eat the kebab, to taste that, essential, delicious meat.

He had the money in his pocket, he was excited and nervy, like a man who sets out to visit a prostitute; driven only by carnal urges, the primitive in him usurping the helm, and heading him off to Hades in a handcart. The adrenaline pumping, he ran through the dark night to the holy ground of fulfilment.

Eventually he reached the shop, and approaching with trepidation, his legs wobbling, he stepped inside with the same feeling of guilt, excitement and almost religious awe, as if he were going to sacrifice his life to the devil, that he would’ve felt had he been entering a brothel.

He was terrified he might get caught, that someone he knew would see him, but he had to take the risk. He stood in line, fidgety and wanting the deal done.

Three weeks had elapsed since Chris had turned vegetarian. Two nights earlier, on Wednesday evening, he had found himself out of humour. It had been a pitch black and a bleak February night outside, and he had been indoors having to do an essay for Thursday. At that point he hadn’t even started it. He had been unable to face doing it, and a pile of musty old text books that he was meant to read through first, had stood heavy as a tombstone on his desk, eyeing him reproachfully. He couldn’t be bothered to read them and he had known that he should have started work weeks ago, but he had had no enthusiasm for it. He had been annoyed at having allowed this situation to arise due to laziness, and irked that he had had to knuckle down to work for the evening and all day tomorrow in order to get it done, wishing instead that he could have had a relaxing evening like his flatmates. As he had sat at his desk trying to concentrate, he had felt annoyed, angered and frustrated. And loud music had started blaring out from next door: Bomber’s room.

He had tried to concentrate but couldn’t, and had paced angrily up and down. Eventually, however it had all been too much for him, and, wishing to vent his anger, he had gone to the kitchen, hoping someone would be there.

Gary had been there, in a pleasant mood as usual.

‘What a tip this place is! It’s absolutely revolting’ Chris had blurted out angrily. ‘Do people not care? It’s like living with bloody animals!’ Gary had felt scared. He was accustomed to the quiet, sensitive Chris and had been shocked to see him act like such a psychopath.

For Chris, the sight of the dirty kitchen had been the final straw. The thought of having to write the boring essay he should’ve started weeks ago and the gloomy, cold February night were sufficiently depressing; but the filthy kitchen that iced his cake had been too much to bare.

‘I tell you who it is’ Chris had continued, angrily, not looking Gary in the eye, ‘it’s that bloody fool Bomber. He can’t make a slice of toast without dirtying all the benches, slopping sauce everywhere, sullying every piece of crockery in the frigging kitchen and then leaving it to sit on the benches. Look at that!’ and he had picked up a dirty saucepan, half full of water and sauce, lying lazily on the bench.

‘Look at that’ he had barked, showing it angrily to the terrified Gary without looking him in the eye. ‘That stupid animal thinks he doesn’t have to clean up after himself. This pan’s been here for days! It’s revolting! Well let’s see what he’s got to say for himself.’

After having poured the contents of the metal pan down the drain he had marched out of the kitchen with it in his hand. Gary had gone in tow.

Chris had gone to Bomber’s room, and banged the pan against the door. Eventually Bomber had opened up, his music blaring out behind him and pouring out of the room.

‘Yes?’ he had said, almost pleasantly.

‘Is this yours?’ Chris had asked indicating the pan.

‘What?’

And without even thinking on it – Bang! Chris had raised the pan and brought it down – bang! – very satisfactorily on Bomber’s head. It had been an impulsive outburst, and before he had known what he was doing, he’d brought it down on Bomber’s head. It had been so, so satisfying, yet he had felt utterly, utterly ashamed and guilty. Bomber had been so innocent and unsure of what was going on, and had fallen away, dazed and confused. Chris had felt such immense sympathy for him, as he had hit him, such immense human sympathy.

Chris had then rushed off to his room and locked himself in, sitting down at his desk and trying to collect his thoughts. Meanwhile Gary had seen to Bomber. He had been a little dazed, but okay. What with all the commotion, the entire flat had appeared outside Bomber’s door, and had stood, inquiring if he was hurt.

Chris had sat at his desk, sad, remorseful and confused. He had acted rashly, on impulse, and though it had been satisfying to fully strike Bomber, afterwards he had felt dreadfully guilty. Strangely, he had felt such compassion for the simple Bomber. He had expected him to open up the door like a grouchy, insolent bear. In fact when he had, he had borne such a pleasant, simple expression as if he was genuinely pleased to see swot-knot, and Chris had felt like a psychopath for hitting him. He had felt so remorseful, as if all he had wanted was to hug big Bomber and cry tears with him. As they stood around he had listened into their conversation.

‘I just opened up and saw it was swot-knot, and he’s asking me about some pan when all of a sudden – bang! – he’s hit me. And it bloody hurts as well. Argh! Mother fucker!’ and he had rubbed his head in pain. ‘It really fucking hurts’ he had said, sincerely, genuinely upset.

So had Chris begun the spiral of events that had brought him now to this. He had sat in his room wondering if he was in trouble, if Bomber would report him, sad and deflated, unable get on with his work. He had overheard his flatmates and had had the impression they thought him a psycho, which was exactly what he had felt himself to be. Desperate to talk, later on that evening he had ventured out to the kitchen and loitering there eventually spoken with a flat mate.

‘Did you hear that I smashed a pan over Bomber’s head’ he had said guiltily, smiling and trying to sound like a naughty little boy. There had been a colour in his cheek and almost a tear in his eye.

His flatmate had listened to him politely, but it was all too evident he was now afraid of him.

‘Yes, sir, may I take your order?’

‘One small kebab please’ replied Chris.

There was such a look of guilt in his face, and such an inflection of guilt in his voice, that the man serving him eyed him in puzzlement. He was given his kebab.

It was a small portion (he wanted to minimise his sin), and with it wrapped up in paper, he left the shop. He walked briskly, all consumed, and entered a small park opposite. And heading into the park, in the dark of night, and leaving behind him the noise and lights of the streets, he felt happy and alone. He trotted to a tree right on the far side, and there, solitary and at a distance from humanity, he stood with his kebab, like a fox with stolen morsels in the night. Excitedly he tucked in.

It was like being in Heaven. It was pure, pure ecstasy to eat it. That thin, gangly, meat, hot and greasy – God that was good. The tender, dripping meat was gorgeous. He absolutely loved it. He was passionately crazy over it. The chilli sauce, the pitta bread, the salad and the chilli – they were good. But the meat itself was Heaven sent, so greasy and hot and satisfying.

The day after the pan incident, Chris had gotten up early and worked all morning and afternoon to get the essay finished by five o’clock. He had handed it in and went to a lecture.

When the lecture was over at six he had felt tired and wanted to relax. He came out the lecture theatre with some friends, and when the cold, dark, February evening had hit him, he had felt disinclined to go for the run he had planned to do. What with working all day, coupled with his depressed state of mind over the previous night’s incident – he still found himself feeling guilty, befuddled and confused – he hadn’t had the energy to go out running. And when his friends had asked him to go to the pub, he had gone with them.

They had sat in the noisy, smoky, pub chatting. Chris had tried to be positive, happy and relaxed, and initially, due to the fact that he’d ducked out of going running, he had been relieved, and felt happy and in good spirits. But this had soon worn off, his true feelings had begun to shine through, and he had been very evidently unhappy.

Nevertheless he had been determined to wind down and enjoy himself. He had gone to a friend’s house, where he and another boy had sat playing computer games. They had sat on the carpet in the living room of the house, with the lights switched off so that only the illumined computer screen before them lit things up. Outside, through the large window, it had been pitch dark.

Chris had played for a few hours, before deciding he must get out. He always felt utterly deflated when he played computer games for long, long spells. It left him almost suicidal. It affected the others too. As the gaming had worn on, those good spirits that they had been in when they first got here, the humorous banter that had accompanied the early stages of the game – all of that had been sucked out of them, and later on they had merely sat there, with straight, miserable faces, totally engrossed, like automatons, on the game. As if to give up the game would mean an awful, awful return to reality, the thought of which was so unstomachable, that they had desperately wanted to play on.

In the end Chris had left. Those two could continue playing, he had thought, but he had to make a move pronto, he must get out. He had said some miserable goodbyes, not looking his friends in the eye, and then stepped outside.

When the cold, fresh, February evening had hit him, it was like a stark wake up call, reminding him about life. It had reminded him, like a rebuke, of all the good things in life he might have done but of how he’d wasted his opportunities. He had felt a dreadfully profound sinking feeling, as though he had betrayed the God-urge, as if suicide was the only option. He had felt infinite regret that he had not gone running. This time, just a week earlier, that was exactly what he’d done. What he wouldn’t have given to be returning home now from his run, purified, fresh and rejuvenated for having embraced the elements and exercised; clear headed, satisfied, and looking forward to tomorrow, Friday. Yet he’d squandered his chance, and had opted out. And as if to ram all of this home, on his way back, he had seen a jogger, in shorts, running calmly through the dark night air. It had been a dispiriting reproach.

Then when he had reached home, feeling dissatisfied, depressed and very low, he had watched the TV, flicking between the channels, unhappily.

The next day he had slept in until eleven. He had awoke feeling depressed and with a headache. Missing two morning lectures, he had made it only in time for the one at two o’clock. During the whole lecture, he didn’t pay attention to anything that was said. Then at three o’clock, depressed by having wasted an entire day, he had returned home.

Tonight, Friday, the flat mates had intended to go for a night out on the town. Despite the fact that he had been depressed by everything, for having wasted today, for having skipped running last night, and for having struck Bomber – it had all been swimming round in his head, and he had felt nauseated, at sea – despite all this Chris had still wanted to go. Partly because they’d all been looking forward to this night out for a while now, and partly because he had felt guilty over the Bomber debacle, and wished to show his flatmates he was still friends with them all, that he was normal, not a psycho. He had felt a cold shield drop down between himself and the others and he had been keen to dispel this notion.

So he had gone along with them. Clearly they had anticipated his absence tonight, but they had been willing to allow him to come along, even though they all now bore an instinctive wariness of him. He hadn’t spoken to Bomber, as the group headed into town, they kept at different ends of the pack. Chris had felt as though he were tagging along, as if the others didn’t want him there. He had tried to make conversation, and to pretend that all was well, but his flatmates didn’t appear to listen to him, and he felt foolish and guilty, like an unwanted dog as he walked along at their ‘heels’, ‘begging’ for them to listen to his words. The pack had marched manfully on, and he had felt unwelcome. He had deeply regretted having come.

All throughout the evening Chris had been on the waltzer, the compass of his soul spinning and lost. He had been tormented, dissatisfied, and not in the mood to party. They had sat in smoky, dark pubs and clubs, the music deafeningly loud, so that you couldn’t hear anyone speak. Girls had come over and sat at their table and talked. But Chris had not engaged in any of this. He had just sat there silently, looking miserable.

And when an attractive lady, who was talking to the group, had happened to look at Chris and see his miserable face, and then scowled and sighed and asked ‘what did he come for? What a misery’ he knew it was time to be off.

He had quitted the club they were in and had been momentarily happy to be out alone in the fresh, cold, evening air, his head feeling so much clearer after the noise and smoke of the club. And it was then, his spirits low and his soul confused and all at sea, that he had decided on cheering himself up with a kebab.

He walloped it down. He hadn’t eaten meat for nearly a month now, his fat supplies were depleted, and he gorged himself like a cave man on it. And as the meat ran out his heart began to sink. He wanted more! He should have ordered a big portion! He was full of regret. He polished it off desperately and when all the meat was gone, he licked the paper like one possessed, trying to suck up the fat. Finally he had to admit that there was no more. He craved more, he wanted more, but for tonight that was it. He’d had his kebab.

Yet after thinking things through, he decided he must, he absolutely must have another one, and headed back to the shop. This time he would order a large one, and not only would that fill him up, it would also keep him sated for a while, so that he would no longer suffer these cravings. After this one that would be it. He’d return to being a vegetarian.

He stood in line sheepishly once more. When he was served, the man looked at him puzzled and with disgust, at seeing him again. But he was determined to have another kebab and so put up with these disparaging looks.

However just as the man was preparing his meat, Chris was caught in compromise: his flatmates entered the shop.

‘Swot-knot!’ they all cried, headed up by the irrepressible Bomber, who after a few drinks, seemed to have forgotten that any animosity existed between himself and Chris.

‘Swot-knot! What are you doing here?’ he asked.

Chris felt mortally ashamed and wished the earth would swallow him up. He was trying to think up an excuse when Bomber said

‘Argh! You’re not having one of those awful veggie burgers are you?’ Chris felt terrible. He was smiling guiltily and muttering incomprehensibly when he was served his kebab. Bomber looked with confusion at the meat, looked at Chris who looked back guiltily in return, and then finally understood. He was happy.

‘Hey swot-knot! Whey! I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist temptation. You get stuck in son. Hey you lot’ said Bomber turning to the others ‘Swot-knot’s having a kebab!’

And all his friends, as well as everyone in the shop, studied Chris, who attempted to appear amiable and a tad guilty, as if to say he was human like they were and fancied some meat.

When the others were served their food, they all walked home together, eating. Chris felt awful and wanted only to run off, but knew there was nothing for it but to face up to the music and walk home with his flat mates. After eating a little kebab meat he’d become sick of it, realised the large portion was far too much, and was no longer in the mood to eat it anymore. It wasn’t as thrilling as eating it surreptitiously.

And Bomber, well, you had to hand it to him, he didn’t hold any grudge against Chris or angrily chide him for his hypocrisy. He simply teased him a little in his boyish way, and Chris conceded that Bomber had a certain amount of wisdom, in the way he just forgave his hypocritical actions, and dismissed them as human. It was almost as if Bomber was welcoming him into the human race.

‘You get stuck into that son, get that kebab down your cake hole. See, I told you, it’s bloody delicious. Absolutely gorgeous. Never mind what they say about the lambs, it’s bloody delicious meat that’s what I say, the perfect way to round off the perfect evening. Hey next week lads we’ll have to take swot-knot to a whore house. Eh? What do you say about that lads? See him get his head stuck into some pussy. You’ll love it swot-knot’ he said putting his arm around Chris, ‘you’ll love it son, kebabs and pussy it’s all a man needs in life. Now get tucked into that kebab mate.’