She liked to watch us drink, Cicero. She liked to watch us down pint after pint. She like to find us in the zone – the drunken zone. On the drunken plateau. And maintaining it, our drunkenness, for hour after hour. How she admired it! Our pacing. Our deliberation. Our steadiness. The fact we were out for the long haul.
Sometimes Cicero saw the desperation in us. Sometimes she saw our horror, surfacing. Sometimes she saw the despair. Sometimes she saw our deaths – the deaths we carried with us.
Cicero marvelled. She admired us. You have souls, she said. You have … complications. Depths. There was a contortion that was ours. A unique contortion in every case. Each of us, uniquely twisted. Each of us, crabbed in our own particular way.
That’s why she put us before prospective students at our Open Days. They’ll sense it in you, she said. The authenticity. The grit. You are people who’ve suffered. You’ve walked the line. You fascinate. You have some outsider charisma. You’re raw. You’re edgy. You’ve been places. Psychologically, I mean.
Work in Progress 