Preface

I’m not sure how I’ve made it this far. Not that I’m successful, or happy, or have achieved anything. On days like this, when the sky is pale blue and the air feels like frost, and the autumn canopies arouse a melancholic nostalgia that sticks in my throat, I’m just surprised that I’m still here.

            I take a long, hungry drag from my menthol cigarette. The smoke mixes with the October air and fills my lungs; it feels clean, satisfying. The bench I sit on is frosted with a fine layer of ice, and it slowly melts into my jeans. I’ve put ‘In the Sun’ by Joseph Arthur on repeat on my phone as I watch the blur of strangers walk by from this campus bench.

            Some walk in groups of three, linking arms, heads bowed against the cold. Here, a boy on a skateboard weaves between those coming from their 9 a.m. lectures; next, a young girl in a blue beanie buys a coffee from the campus vendor; now comes a couple of housemates running self-consciously, probably late for their 10 a.m. seminar. I wish I was enjoying this time as much as everyone else seems to be.

            The tip of my nose is numbed from this October morning. My hands are a bluish-purple, and stiff as I stamp out the last of my cigarette and take out my Gold Leaf box to roll another. The menthol filter between my lips burns softly. ‘In the Sun’ begins again.

            I remember coming here with her, one February many years ago. I was still fresh then – vibrant, excited, full of potential and drive, my only poison the occasional Kopparberg. I look at the student union opposite me. We went in there together once. We ate lunch in the canteen, and talked about how I might be here one day, fulfilling my dreams. I don’t know anymore what it’s for.

            I lick the edge of the skin and roll up the tobacco. I hold the cigarette between my fingers for a moment as I stare ahead, thinking in deep. These days, hollow thoughts always enter my head, and speak to me like familiar ghosts that hide in my chest, and crawl into my brain when I’m alone. I’ll see a truck, or a car, or a train, and I’ll think – hey, that would do it. A girl who lived in the room next to me during my first year at university tried to overdose on her medication, and I told myself – that would be the best way, like falling asleep. But I’ve always reasoned – if guns were legal here, that’s what I would choose. One shot. Instant.

            A delicate wind sweeps across the bleached stones. A trail of crumpled brown leaves twirl together, dancing across campus and falling between gutters. I bring the cigarette to my lips. My lighter’s running out, and it takes a few tries before I can even catch a flame. ‘In the Sun’ begins again. I feel so empty these days, and at the same time I feel so much. As I sit here this morning, simply existing, it feels as though my chest is being torn open; as though my shoulders are being anchored to the ground; as though a demon needs to tear through my ribcage, rip apart my skin, and burst passionately into the world. But all I can do is sit.

            I just continue to sit. Continue to smoke. Continue to breathe. Someone is calling me, and momentarily interrupts Joseph Arthur. I reject the call, desperate for this moment where I can just exist, frozen in time, to last forever. The song continues. I feel as though I am sitting at the bottom of a wide ocean – no one can hear me, and everything is muffled. I’m moving in slow motion, trying to push upwards; trying to reach the fragmented light that plays on the surface somewhere above me; trying to find anything that I can feel; trying to find anything that I can believe in.