S.J. SPIRES

Monday morning.

I slump into a cheap desk chair with the tiredness of a man who had seven hours uninterrupted sleep. My back is sore, my joints ache. Loud noises jangle my nerves. The lights are just a bit too bright, the alternative too grey and cold. I am stressed, depressed. Angry.

I have no desire to waste more of my time looking for work which isn't there - trying to find new phrases for letters which will convince a faceless stranger I am worth hiring, trying to guess words which will get my resume past the uncompromising stare of an automated scanning process and before the dead eyes of a real person.

Everyone else has gone to work or school, I am surrounded by their mess - clothes, toys. Stuff. Parting gifts to help while away the hours until their return. The detritus of lives too busy to contend with the wake of their own existence.

Outside cars and trucks churn through the rain, full of self-appointed urgency, unaware of the disappointment of the day ahead. Aeroplanes whine overhead, forced into the sky against their will. Anxiety and anticipation sealed in aluminium tubes.

The overcast skies somehow make a return to bed seem like a smart tactical manoeuvre rather than a defeat. But disguising it with the intellectual furniture of a calculated retreat doesn't make the failure any less bitter, though the surrender is still as sweet.

Another week ahead. Another week of wondering how to break out of this cycle. Another week of playing someone else's game, clinging on to the naive hope that 'something will show up'. Another week pleading that God will act where I am powerless, trying to understand this path, trying to find a different one.

There are, I imagine, a whole lot of words devoted to the subject of fear. Possibly only love rates ahead of this, but I am only guessing. I seems to me that few things have the power to change lives, confront beliefs and alter the 'human condition' like fear and love.

There was once a young guy, a teenager, who lived - by his reckoning at least - untouched by both love and fear. Yes, his parents loved him, and he loved them. Yes, he was scared of things, in a normal, life preserving type of way. These things undoubtedly shaped his life and his perception of it, but they did not move him. They did not shake the foundations of his being.

Then, one warm spring evening, a girl kissed him.

The basic descriptions do not do justice to either the actor or the actions.

The girl was young, beautiful, warm, wise, intelligent, compassionate, talented, passionate and determined. They were good friends. The guy had realised only a few weeks before that the crush he had harboured for some time was indeed something deeper, yet he was content in the friendship they had. He was certain his feelings were not reciprocated and did not expect that they ever would be. She was, in his understanding of such things, out of his league. Yet they were friends, and the friendship was good.

They were walking home from a party or, actually, the after-party and the pub or night-club they shouldn't have been in. They talked about school, the party, the band, music, different people. They laughed, they shared. She told him he wasn't like other guys. He walked on oblivious.

When they reached the front of her house, they said their good-byes and shared a brief hug. She started towards the front door, but got no further than the steps at the end of the garden path before she turned, ran back and kissed him. Really kissed him. With lips and mouths and everything.

This was completely new territory for the guy, the kiss will never rate in any list of technical proficiency, and was over before he had really even worked out what the heck was happening. And then she was gone, turning quickly to put an index finger to her pursed lips, before she darted inside.

His whole world melted.

He walked home in a daze. Elated, confused. He walked around for a little while trying to work out what had just happened. What did it mean? What would happen next? What should he do? Everything had changed, nothing was as he thought it was.

He continued to ponder this new reality for the next few days, the next few weeks. Hopelessly in love, desperately confused, paralysed by fear of the unknown. He never told anyone. They saw each other plenty of times, but they were never alone and he never found the right time to talk to her, properly. Six weeks later she started going out with one of his best friends.

His world ended.

The realisation of what had been lost sent him into a depression which lasted for more than six years and still effects his life today. Their friendship continued, always clouded by an event and feelings they never talked about. His desperation to cling onto something that had never been eventually became a burden. They saw each other less.

She moved on. She went to Uni, met new people, learned new things. Started the career she had always wanted. He lived in what could have been, replaying what was over and over in his mind, unwilling to leave it behind.

Occasionally they would meet and his reaction (internally) was always the same, a potent cocktail of joy and fear. The joy of an old friend, someone he loved dearly. The fear of what those feelings did to him and the dark days ahead after she said good-bye again.

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"We train the factory workers of tomorrow. Our graduates are very good at following instructions. And we teach the power of consumption as an aid for social approval."

“We teach people to take initiative and become remarkable artists, to question the status quo, and to interact with transparency. And our graduates understand that consumption is not the answer to social problems.”

Sometimes, somebody plays a guitar, and you suddenly aren’t alone anymore.