We work against the university, of course we do. We work against the purple – the imperial purple, the apocalyptic purple, whatever. We’re struggling against it. We need the struggle. It sharpens us. It focuses our minds. And the students’ minds, too.
The fact of the purple. The depth of the purple. Gives them something to work against. They have to go through hell to reach their paradise. So we have to show them they’re in hell. A purple hell, in this case.
What are the psychological effects of purple? Isn’t it deliberately depressing? Debilitating? Isn’t it supposed to keep us down. To keep us here on Earth?
Purple! Deep purple! When did they decide on it? How did they decide on it? Who did they consult? Was it just random? Was it just pick some random colour scheme?
Purple!? what’s their plan? Do they even have a plan? Isn’t it that part of the torture: wondering whether or not they have a plan?
Their plans? … what plans? … What if it’s just random moves, just whims, fancies … Arbitrary decisions, made on the spur of the movement.
Who knows, they might even mean well. Purple might be a gift to us – their idea of a gift.
And the views! What a panorama! Twenty feet of window in my office. There’s St Thomas’s. There’s the War Memorial. There’s the library. There’s a row of shops. There’s the green around St Thomas’s. There’s the whole sky, the magnificent sky, so vast.
The sky, and birds flying across. And clouds moving across. And sometimes blue. And sometimes the sun. And sometimes, a bright day. The sky! Elevation! A view! Isn’t that something: to have a view. To command a prospect.
Is that part of their plan? Part of their non-plan? It feels like pure beneficence. Pure luck. What bad intention could they have in giving us a view? In letting us see out of our prison?
The sky! The whole sky! What a gift to us! What plenty! We’re practically in the sky. We’re practically airborne. Flying through the sky, like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz. Flying to where, in our purple house? God knows!
The purple’s thinking. It’s having purple thoughts. And perhaps we are, too. Is it contagious, do you think?
Work in Progress 