Epic Trail

Beep beep beep.

The dreaded alarm clock cries out at 6:30am on the dot.
It’s Monday morning and it’s time to get up for uni.

Or is it?

I groan and with my eye’s still firmly shut, proceed to slam my arm down furiously onto the snooze button. The noise stops, and I immediately feel better as I sink further down into my pillow.

There is nothing more instantly satisfying than hitting the snooze button.

Never has sleep seemed so important, so vital, as it does at that precise moment in time.

I roll over, face the wall and pull the duvet up to my chin. 

I am warm and cosy, floating on the cloud that is my bed, and for a few minutes, I am deliriously happy.

I begin to dream.

I am riding a bike through a grassy orchard, the sky is pink and the trees are covered in red cherries and white blossom.

I feel happy and warm as the sun beats down on me, and I look up at the fuchsia coloured sky.

Suddenly I hear a siren in the distance, a high-pitched almost… beeping sound.

Beep beep beep.

I jolt awake, and come back down to reality.

Again, quick as a flash, I hit snooze.

Or did I?

Two hours later I wake up naturally, the sun shining in through my bedroom window, and I stretch and smile for a moment.

Then a shoot of anxiety rushes through my body as I remember that it’s still Monday, I still need to get up, and now I’m late!

Shit.

It’s Friday night, uni is over for the week and it’s time to let loose.

 “Let’s go f*cking mental” is chanted at 10:05pm by a group of lads with spikey hair and stripy shirts outside Oceana, Bristol.

 Fake nails and fake hair and fake smiles, are perched on 6 inch stiletto heels that shuffle a long the cobbles of Bristol City Centre.

They’re all on their way to a night filled with double vodka and coke, and a sweaty dance with someone that they’ll end up regretting.

 Student night, £2 a shot, and a £1 extra for doubles.

You only need to spend a tenner or two to get off your face and end up puking all over your kebab.

 When it gets to 3am, feet start to hurt, the heels are removed, and the streets slowly fill up with stumbling students.

 9 hours later, Facebook is filled with the pictures from the night before.
Untag, untag, UNTAG.

 Back in the center, a seagull picks at a half eaten kebab with relish.

Stick insects walk up and down the red carpet

as a blaze of ties and moustaches scream ‘elegance’.

“Who dazzled at the Golden Globe and who didn’t?”

Woody Allen; best screenplay.

Martin Scorsese; best director.

George Clooney; best actor.

Meryl Streep forgot her glasses

as fame

whisky and eye liner, turn a blind eye to society.

Yet despite this consumerist universe I still write on

paper, and conjure yellow flowers,

worlds where I can float to the highest mountain

and look down to see the green emerald view.

I still write about the file of light shining through the window-

about Felicity, about everyone and everything.

“You do know you won’t find a job with a Creative Writing Degree?”

“A University education means nothing these days”

“It’s all about vodka, glitter and Cameron Diaz”.

I don’t care.

I will make of what I will make with my education,

and the media cannot tell me otherwise!

It’s that day, the day you have dreaded and feared, longed and strived for. All the things, items, objects you hold dear are packed up in boxes riding on the backseat behind you. You count the minutes as they pass, eye on the clock, wishing time would move quicker, wishing it would stop all together. Your stomach cramps up with nerves and excitement, you have waited so long for this day, worked your arse of for the past two years to be here and you did it. You made it; now you wonder if it was such a great idea to begin with.

You are driving forward towards all the things you want, all the thing you were told you wanted: a degree, independence, freedom, but you have left all the things that made you feel safe, that were familiar, behind you. Your leg shakes as you grow impatient, you have reached traffic but you are only twenty miles away. The idea to undo your seat belt, open the car door, and walk the rest of the way crosses your mind. You genuinely consider it for a moment before asking yourself that maybe running in the opposite direction might be the better idea. Then you forget the thought all together as you peer into other car windows and see a back seat that mimics yours. You can tell who is moving, who will be joining you. So while traffic is slow you make a game out of this; counting how many others you can see. Your loving but helpless father joins in to try and ease your nerves.

This provides ample distraction for ten minutes or so until you look up at the road sign and realise you have only crept forward half a mile. Noises of frustration spring out of you and you want to stamp your feet. You’re so close, you’re nearly there and now you need to pee! Perfect! So you tell your unwitting Dad and annoyingly but not surprisingly he states the obvious, there are no toilets and we have past the services so you will have to hold it. You shoot dagger eyes at him and come the conclusion that it is all his fault. Not just that you need to pee (which is obliviously anyone’s fault but yours) but that you are going to university at all, that you are moving out, that you are moving far, far away, that you forgot your hairbrush and will have to buy a new one and, of course, the fact that you are even alive here in the first place, is evidently his fault. So you continue to sit there staring at him with death eyes needing to pee.

When you arrive an hour late at your destination, the horror fully starts to set in. Smiling fresher’s angles greet you and steal your stuff. You are expected to follow.  Shocked and unable to form coherent sentences, you follow obediently hoping no one will ask you any important questions. You look around trying to drink it all in, to really believe it. Then you are sent to get your key, you have to remember your room number, the safety information, a lady talks to you about the fire alarms and another one gives you your post key. Then you are sent off. As you climb the stairs to your flat a new horror sets in, flatmates, in your upheaval you had forgotten about this part. You turn the lock and open the door and the whirlwind really begins.  

April 19^th

“Had a weird night yesterday. Every time I was about to doze off I started hearing something in the corner of the room. I kept looking up, but nothing was there. Maybe that cult meeting Charlie took me to just had me all jumpy…”

April 25^th

“Those whispers have been going on every night since last week. What the hell is wrong with me? In fact, I swear they’ve been getting louder. I can’t really make out anything of it. Nonetheless, I’m consulting the doctor first thing tomorrow. Last thing I want is it to turning out that I have severe schizophrenia or something.”

 April 26^th

“Doc said I’ll be fine. After reiterating the meeting I had with Charlie and his friends, my mind’s just playing tricks on me because I was scared on the inside. Told me to take it easy, do whatever to help ease off; warm milk, sleeping pills, soothing music. I can get behind that.”

 April 27^th

“Took some strong sleeping pills to finally get some shuteye. I must’ve really been scared on the inside, ‘cos while I slept, I could’ve sworn I heard someone saying ‘dream for the shouter’ or something like that. ‘Dream for the shouter’? What the hell does that even mean?”

 April 28^th

“The whispers are still on at night. Hell, the sleeping pills aren’t helping. In fact, they make it worse…”

 April 29^th

“Charlie called, insisting I go for another meeting. I told him to fuck it. I’ve lost weeks’ worth of sleep because of it. And fuck those pills, maybe I can finally sleep without ‘em. Damn nightmares are certainly not helping.”

 April 30^th

“I am officially freaked out! I’ve been off the pills for two days now and I still hear those whispers. In fact, I think they’ve gotten even louder. I can actually make out several of them, many of them pertaining to ‘the Shouter’. Honestly, is there any schizoid who knows he’s…. well, schizo?’Cos I’m getting a CAT scan ASAP.”

 May 1^st

“Won’t have a CAT scan for a whole month. Fucking queues! To think people actually voted for Bush if this is the thanks we get?! I swear if I don’t get any help soon I’m gonna go mad. I’m so deprived that I swear I’m hearing things even when awake…”

 May 2^nd

“What the hell is happening to me?! Last night I somehow managed to finally sleep. The next thing I know I’m in my living room. And what should I find but stacks of papers scribbled with markings I can’t make heads of tails of. Now that I think of it, they look like those weird-ass letters from one of Charlie’s books. I called him to ask what this all meant, but the fucker hung up on me!”

 May 3^rd

“I am not crazy. I thought I was crazy. Turns out I’m not crazy. The whispers are no longer confined in my bedroom. They’re fucking everywhere in my house. I try taking my mind off things by watching TV, the TV whispers. I make a sandwich and the fridge whispers. I take a piss, the toilet whispers! What the fuck did those people do to me?!”

 May 5^th

“It won’t let me be. Whatever’s haunting my house or my dreams it’s not going to leave me alone! I’ve tried to tell people, they think I’m fucking nuts! And what happens when people aren’t talking to me? Those whispers are following me everywhere! Whatever’s doing this to me, it’s not letting me be!”

 May 6^th

“In the mirror! I saw that fucking thing in my mirror! It was not my face! It didn’t have a face! But it had teeth! Lots and lots of teeth! That’s what’s doing this! That’s what’s not letting me be! I smashed the mirror! Still it torments me! I smashed the TV! Still it torments me! I tore the walls of my fucking bedroom! Why does it do this to me?!”

 May 7^th

“Arwassa won’t let me be. Why? Why won’t it let me be? It’s fucking with me! Arwassa’s the one that’s been whispering in my ear. Arwassa’s the one killing me with insanity! Arwassa can go fuck himself! Arwassa can’t get me! No, Arwassa won’t find me! I’m gonna hide. Try finding me in fucking Hell, Arwassa!”

Our flats are always a subject of contention. The fact of the matter is that your flat will always be a mess. There is nothing to be done about it; it’s just a fact of life. Also, curiously enough, the mess left in the kitchen will never be your fault; it will always be a result of our lazy flatmates.

 Ah yes, our beloved flatmates. You love some of them and hate the rest; you can’t help it you just do. If they’re not refusing to wash up their plates, then they’re eating all your food the second your back is turned. Otherwise they are being extremely inconsiderate keeping you awake at night with their awful tastes in music, and their drunken squealing in the early hours of the morning.

You rave about them to your friends. In fact, you’ll rave about them to pretty much anyone who will listen, from your family to the innocent stranger on the train who had the misfortune to be seated next to you. All this ranting and raving gets you very worked up, of course, even though you swear blind to yourself that you feel a lot better for having let it all out.

There seems to be no limits to the effects their behaviour creates. They are responsible for your low marks in your essays. If only, you say, if only they had not distracted you. They are responsible for the hangover you have in the morning. If only they had not forced you to go out the night before. They are responsible for your lack of money as well. If only they had not… actually you can’t quite remember how they are responsible for that, but considering they are to blame for most of your other problems, it is only fair to presume they also had a hand in this one.

Whilst we moan and groan about the people that we have been forced to live with, we still couldn’t imagine anyone else taking their place. We look upon them, sigh and say to ourselves that we only have to live with them until the end of the year so we may as well make the most of it. We even start to relent towards them a little and go as far as to think that we will miss living with them next year. However at this point your eye catches sight of the five-day -old goo that is festering on the baking tray that they keep promising to wash up…