Tuesday, September 23rd 2014

Jack slumped into the corner of the cramped classroom, wedging himself into one of those ancient school desks where the chair was fused to the table. The whole thing was an awkward upside-down L shape, designed with right-handed people in mind. His elbow kept slipping off the too-short ledge, and the one left-handed desk in the room had already been taken.

Of course it had.

The place was falling apart. The air was thick with the musty scent of old carpet and faded chalk, even though there wasn't a blackboard in sight. A single strip light flickered overhead, making a faint buzzing noise that drilled into his skull. The walls were exposed stone, cold and uninviting, and the ceiling was a patchwork of discoloured styrofoam tiles, sagging in places like they'd absorbed one too many years of rainwater. The whiteboard was barely white anymore, permanently stained with ghosts of old lessons no one had bothered to scrub properly.

Jack exhaled through his nose. This was UCD? The great, prestigious university his mother had practically wept with pride over? The science buildings were like something out of NASA, the business school a shrine to rich kids, and here they were rotting away in the Arts Block, like some rejected, inbred cousin of the campus.

They were taking enough of his money—surely they could've sunk a few quid into basic facilities instead of pumping it all into overpriced student accommodation that none of them could afford.

His tutor was going around the room, having them read their work aloud. Jack kept his head down, hoping she'd run out of time before she got to him.

'Hi everyone, my name is Savannah, and I've written a poem about my experience as a woman.'

Jack glanced up as the girl beside him stood, a small, wiry-looking thing with a sharp nose piercing and a battered notepad in her hand. Her short brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and she wore a faded band t-shirt that he couldn't quite make out. She was pretty in an unusual way—'ugly hot', as Wham Bar would say. Something about her stood out, though he couldn't put his finger on it.

She cleared her throat and read:

'In the mirror's reflection, I await the morn',

And I seek the strength to weather this storm.
I've never felt right, it's time to shed old skin.
To transcend old labels, and embrace the 'me' within.
So strip me down, and I'll find self-love.
I'll finally spread these wings, and I'll fly like a dove.'

The room fell silent for a second before their tutor started clapping, and everyone else followed suit. 'Thank you for that, Savannah. Beautiful words.' She nodded and sat back down, unbothered. 'Thoughts?' the tutor prompted.

Jack felt his chest tighten. He hated this part. Talking about poems like they were equations to be solved. He preferred when writing was left alone to be felt, instead of pulled apart like a frog in a science lab.

A few hands shot up.

'I loved the idea of rebirth,' said a girl with short, electric-blue hair and more piercings than Jack could count. 'I'm bi, and I never really embraced that or who I knew I was when I was back home in Clare. I feel like coming to Dublin was that rebirth for me. I shed the old skin—what people expected of me—and actually lived my life for myself. So I really resonated with Savannah's piece.'

Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

This was the kind of class where people spoke like that—where they had these big self-discoveries, these moments of awakening. Meanwhile, Jack still felt like he was waiting for something to happen. Like everyone else had gotten a head start on figuring out who they were, and he was stuck behind the starting line.

The discussion carried on, words like 'trajectory' and 'reinvention' getting thrown around. Jack stared down at his notepad, barely listening. They all fit into a certain mould—the artsy types, the ones who spoke like they were writing an essay in real-time. He felt like a fraud sitting here.

'Next?'

The tutor was looking at him.

Jack's stomach clenched.

'Eh, hi. My name's Jack. I'm from Galway... so yeah. Here's my poem. It's not finished. It's a bit messy still.'

'That's okay, just read what you have.'

He gripped his notepad. His arms were shaking. He wasn't usually bad at public speaking, but something about reading your own words out loud felt exposed. Vulnerable.

His voice wavered slightly as he read:

'It's always darkest before the dawn,
But you never saw the morning.
There were no signs, how could we have known,
You gave none of us a warning.
But that's the cruelty of this life,
And so you're not returning.
You faded out into the night,
And left us all in mourning.'

Another polite ripple of applause. The same tone as Savannah had gotten. Measured. Routine.

Jack sat down, his pulse pounding. A single bead of sweat slipped from his armpit, tracking an uncomfortable path down his side.

'Thank you for sharing that, Jack. Any thoughts?'

A few hands went up. Jack didn't look up.

He didn't want to know what they thought. Didn't want to hear them dissecting it. It wasn't about reinvention or transcendence or whatever the fuck everyone else was talking about. It was just something that sat heavy in his chest, and saying it out loud made it feel even heavier.