migraine
The first week at university is supposed to be a time of rollicksome high spirits. I hid away and read books. I didn’t know anyone at the university and I didn’t know how to get to know anyone. I didn’t want to make friends with people I wouldn’t want to speak to in three weeks time. Retreat felt like the only option.
In the first seminar, the tutor talked through the books we were to study in that introductory term. The first on the list was Conrad’s Secret Agent. He wanted someone to write an essay, or ‘paper’ as they were now called, to read at the next class. No-one wanted to volunteer, so I did.
I spent the following days working hard. To the sound of young men and women running around in nothing more than sheets, balancing bottles of Newcastle Brown on their heads. My neighbour played the new Waterboys album very loud until the small hours of the morning. I started to get a headache.
The headache stayed with me. It kept me company during the day and during the night. The world was swimming around me, people making friends and deciding what sort of an individual they were planning on being for the rest of their lives, whilst I was nursed by my headache.
It got worse. I had a blue cap which I pulled over my eyes to screen out interference. Finally I found myself sitting in the refectory, eating the small mountain of moussaka which student refectories specialise in, the Cure’s Close To Me playing punchily on the jukebox, tears rolling from under my cap. If they were tears of sorrow then they might have been the tears of my headache. Knowing it was almost time to release my brain and let it loose into the world. It had been amusing, in a way, to be so separate from everything else, but it couldn’t be sustained.
I went out into the world. I discovered the sheep badges signified a love of Housemartins. I pretended to be able to dance reggae with the future founder of Faithless. He professed envy to my way with women. I learned to drink neat gin and whisky. Bought second hand clothes. Found myself sitting on the floor of N’s room at three in the morning on a regular basis. People didn’t know where to place me. They thought I was interesting. I didn’t know why. I had successfully become a part of the world. My headache left me in peace.
The paper on Conrad went down well. The work hadn’t gone altogether to waste. My thesis was that the real secret agent in The Secret Agent was … A sense of humour.
In the first seminar, the tutor talked through the books we were to study in that introductory term. The first on the list was Conrad’s Secret Agent. He wanted someone to write an essay, or ‘paper’ as they were now called, to read at the next class. No-one wanted to volunteer, so I did.
I spent the following days working hard. To the sound of young men and women running around in nothing more than sheets, balancing bottles of Newcastle Brown on their heads. My neighbour played the new Waterboys album very loud until the small hours of the morning. I started to get a headache.
The headache stayed with me. It kept me company during the day and during the night. The world was swimming around me, people making friends and deciding what sort of an individual they were planning on being for the rest of their lives, whilst I was nursed by my headache.
It got worse. I had a blue cap which I pulled over my eyes to screen out interference. Finally I found myself sitting in the refectory, eating the small mountain of moussaka which student refectories specialise in, the Cure’s Close To Me playing punchily on the jukebox, tears rolling from under my cap. If they were tears of sorrow then they might have been the tears of my headache. Knowing it was almost time to release my brain and let it loose into the world. It had been amusing, in a way, to be so separate from everything else, but it couldn’t be sustained.
I went out into the world. I discovered the sheep badges signified a love of Housemartins. I pretended to be able to dance reggae with the future founder of Faithless. He professed envy to my way with women. I learned to drink neat gin and whisky. Bought second hand clothes. Found myself sitting on the floor of N’s room at three in the morning on a regular basis. People didn’t know where to place me. They thought I was interesting. I didn’t know why. I had successfully become a part of the world. My headache left me in peace.
The paper on Conrad went down well. The work hadn’t gone altogether to waste. My thesis was that the real secret agent in The Secret Agent was … A sense of humour.
posted by maldoror at 12:45 p. m.
1 Comments:
i spent my first week at university hiding in my room and eating hot-dogs which i boiled in my kettle. best days of my life!
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