flashback writing - 06.07.2012

some bits writing from my college days. i had some time to kill one afternoon and decided to write about my day like a novel. several months later i was at university and was eventually diagnosed with depression, caused by events that took place at college.

"I watch as she walks around the room, calmly at first but later with some degree of urgency.

“Ah, I must have left it in B15,” she says, “my bag, I mean.”

I hear her scoop her keys up from the desk in her office next door and she heads towards the double doors. They lead onto the main corridor of the building and the thought of walking through them always makes me feel a little bit sick. If I’m telling the truth, since certain things happened the thought of leaving this room makes me feel a bit sick."

"Although I know that everybody (except a dedicated few teachers) has already gone home and will not be waiting for me when I leave the room, I still can’t help but mentally prepare myself. I start by mapping out the quickest and least dangerous route out of the building and to where my lift home will be waiting. Down the stairs, straight out, straight past B block and then back up the main path should avoid making contact with anybody hanging around by the main gates or the entrance. This is followed by a brief rundown of who I am likely to see, if I see anybody at all. There are a few members of staff on the list, but I am lucky today as I can’t think of any students who would be hanging around after college on a Monday."

"Her folders are perched precariously on the edge of the desk, as if they are hanging around and waiting for her return. They’re furious, in my head. She always does this and they’re tired of wasting time waiting for her to retrieve the objects she scatters across every place she visits so they can finally go home."

"I smile not because of her lost bag, but because some people will spend their lives messing up and irritating people, and their inability to function will be forgiven and forgotten by those they know and love because their spark and their general enthusiasm for life will balance out their shortcomings."

"It is almost shameful that we are unable to do this ourselves, but I cannot help but feel that this would be so much different were there not an ever-expanding set of pressures in our college environment. It’s a game of give and take – you accept that you probably shouldn’t make it public knowledge that you like that song or that TV show, or that you don’t study any of the arts and instead study maths and the sciences, and you are free to live your college life as you please. If you stand in the common room fundraising for a charity or help with college events, you probably won’t be able to shake off the stereotypes allocated to you. They are clichés that date back as far as you can remember, but they certainly don’t go away."

"It would be lovely to walk into college tomorrow morning with the attitude of ‘today, I’m not going to care about anyone or anything’, but I’d be dreaming to think that I could act that persona out in each lesson and keep it up until my front door was firmly closed behind me."