Fetch the engines
By Conor Mallon
The sweat is lashing oafay me; another day stuck in this wretched panopticon. Bentham himself coudnta dreamt of this level of surveillance. Constant watching, no respite, no release. Cogs in a money turnin machine. Am dragging myself doon into a pit of paradoxical apathetical self-loathing. Classic hangover stuff.
Maybe the Wordle will help ease us inta this essay session. AGLET, what a loada shite. 6th guess, by the skinna ma teeth. Freddie Jones, Scooby Doo stuff, wee buns. Critique of Pure Reason. Everything goes back to this tripe. I KANT keep doing it. Ma knowledge isn’t shaped by experience; there are no limits to it. I am a God.
A God who’s averaging a 2:2. Can’t wait for ma precious degree to pave the way to that sacred JSA all us failed creatives desire eversomuch. Can’t elp it if everyone is jealous ay me. Who wouldn’t want a gut fulla three white monsters and two americanos? Sticky situation. Can’t make a erse outta maself again. Mumsy and daddy will be most utterly disappointed. Ma NatWest trust fund will be frozen. Out of the clutches of ma alcoholic self.
I think therefore I rot. This deadline is scary stuff.
What is at awful sound. Tinnitus wouldn’t even subject ma ears to ishere misery. Am dying, the light is encroaching, granny is that you up there? Sheep. Moths to a flame. I exit the library emblematic of that Pink Floyd music video for that song ‘Another Brick in The Wall’ on this conveyor belt of human flesh built on the bones of oppression I find the solace of my meat grinder outside the McClay. Faceless children of a faceless generation.
What append ah sais to some American fella outside the library. “Fire alarm evacuation,” he barks out in the worst accent ave ever eard in ma entire life. His voice is worse than the alarm. But ah suppose the uni has to get its money from somewhere, and these naïve international students with deep pockets are easy targets. Cause personally, I don’t need no education, I don’t need no thought control. Ah suppose that’s the point of university, to make you think for yourself. Ma own cynicism seems to be distracting masel from the benefits of tisere privilege that has been so bountifully bestowed upon me. This appened last week too, the same yank says to one of his faceless friends. “We were locked out for a whole half an hour,” in military time that’s approximately 50 war crimes.
Half an hour. You cannae be serious. It’s two hours to this deadline and am still only on the title. Am screwed. Life of retail bound for me.
Staring at the redbrick 8th wonder of the world ah begin to question ma existence in this world. Why was I born? To exert ma purchasing power into the world, to consume, to eat, to destroy. This cold air isn’t doing wonders for ma lungs, neither is the Marlboro, less said the better.
Ma life led me to this situation. Ma life led me to this uni and am glad ah chose it.
Choose Uni. Choose the website photos of smiling diverse faces that will never match your own menacing mug. Choose a tutorial in which everyone talks like they had a thesaurus for their dinner and a dictionary for their dessert. Choose laughing about jokes revolving around Thai gap years and Swiss ski trips. Choose working in an artisanal Café with the macchiato version of Monet telling you your swan doesn’t look right. Choose calling your dad for some professional “networking” while you sleep through your 9am. Choose being told hard work pays off by a tone-deaf Tory whose summer internship came with the family surname attached to it. Choose climbing the social ladder of success only to realize the view is better by the castle on the hill. Choose having to leave an assignment you were procrastinating for a life you were procrastinating because a fire-alarm went off when there was no actual fire happening. Choose sitting behind a Turnitin percentage checker delaying the process of growing up so you can stay in your cushy hedonistic hellscape of human existence.
Entry regained. I grabbed ma laptop and went home. I’ll get exceptional circumstances.
