Easy fucking street. We’d come in from the cold. The good life! We were ready. We’d been outside. And now – we were inside.
Let the world go fuck itself. It could all go to hell out there, but it wouldn’t touch us for a bit. The outside wasn’t screaming in our ears anymore. It wasn’t, like, total battle stations for a bit. It wasn’t arma-fucking-geddon for a bit.
Standing on our own two feet. Actually launching in life. Living like other people live. We weren’t a problem anymore. We didn’t have to be explained.
A proper job! Now we could do some work -some writing. Now we could see what we were capable of.
Time! Offices! A library pass! No excuses anymore.
Yes, we were happy for a while. The whole honeymoon thing.
Cicero smiled. She knew it wouldn’t last, even as we carried out boxes of books into our offices. Even as we bought pot plants into our offices. Even as we brought art prints for the walls of our offices. Even as we perfected our office décor.
Even as we lined up our Heidegger Gestamsausgabe. Our Nietzsche collected works. Our Kant-in-German (like we could read Kant in German.) All the books we might read one day If we learned the languages …
Volumes of the Cambridge History of Philosophy: Malebranche. Scotus … Averroes …
All the lecturer accoutrements. All the lecturer accessories. All the lecturer general bits and pieces. But Cicero knew it wouldn’t last, our contentment.
Our splendid isolation. Our semi detached splendour.
For how long would we be left alone? For how long would Cicero be allowed to get away with this? For how long would she protect us?
We didn’t want to ask. We didn’t want to think about it. To give it the least consideration.
Our freedom – that was sufficient. That we had a future. That we could raise our gaze from the pavement. That we could look ahead. That we could even, God knows, look upwards.
Work in Progress 