overture

[helenic]

The Calling was grand, although FAR TOO HOT. The sweat was sliding down my legs and I was swigging icewater and pissing off the bar staff by asking for "just ice cubes" every ten minutes. I felt slightly guilty for flaking early but I've been drinking pretty much every night for the last two weeks, and tomorrow I need to post cheques and take ID into the renting agency and get stuck into painting if I want to stand a chance of getting this commission finished by the time I go to Sweden.

My heels were giving me blisters so I took my shoes off on Pembroke Street and walked home barefoot. And I realised I'll miss this. Miss being able to slip into college via the kitchen gate and B staircase, through the door I know is always open, stopping in the downstairs toilets there to splash water on my face. I hopped painfully across the gravel and onto the paddock. There were groups of people out, still, sitting on benches in the dark or in loose circles on the grass, the low murmur of their conversation and the occasional burst of laughter drifting through the darkness. The May Week marquee was still up and lit and empty, the grass was soft and cold under my sore feet, and I picked my way under the trees by feel. My skin and the damp, firm ground, feelings its pulse beat against mine: there's nothing supernatural or sublime about it, it's just this place, this life. I'd forgotten my keys but the french windows next door were open and our corridors link on the second floor. For all I never really bonded with many of the people here, however little time I've had for the hockey girls and rugby boys and drunk rowers and socialites, I'll miss knowing this college's secrets, its night-time stairwells and empty rooms, being able to cut across it barefoot on a summer night. It's pitch black outside and there isn't the slightest breeze.