Thought Crimes

The two month long siesta was slowly but surely drawing to a close. The D-day seemed more menacing than ever in its propinquity but the mindset was manfully grappling with the thought of overcoming the inertia of rest. Ultimately though, the tide of time turned to be too great to overcome and I found myself back on the road to College.

The arrival was too typical to elaborate. The registration was almost over so I had to hustle. There were five photographs required and after a great deal of effort I managed to find three. Since I didn’t have an identical twin on campus or a beloved who could be counted upon to have a 35x25 replica of my visage there was no option but to hustle again, this time to the friendly neighbourhood photo shop. The upshot of it all was that I missed lunch, though that wasn’t that great a deal considering the mess food. Luckily the mater had packed a sumptuous meal, the finishing of which required an almost clandestine operation to avoid the hungry hordes.

And then again there were the greetings from old cronies, who were treated as revenant souls. No sooner had my presence been noted that there was an outbreak of back slapping, hand crunching, bone breaking and various other forms of affectionate hellos. The ones that were unable to join in were actually contrite.

Now that the academic formalities were out of the way, the practical side of hostel life was left to be considered. Since all my worldly possessions were packed in a little black bag, it was to the cloak room that the self made. However the time to unload had long got over and as some visionary had once remarked (there are so many visionaries it’s difficult to remember which one) – “Time gone past never returns”, I was forced to spend the first day of a new semester without having evinced anything from that all-important black bag. My new room was squalid to say the least and I had to get to some serious snodding to “set my affairs in order”.

Thus, the first day back on campus was about to pass almost uneventfully when the necessity of sleep brought home a cruel fact – my worldly possessions included the mattress which had been my saviour as far as comfort was concerned. So it was a hard wooden frame which turned out to be my bed and I tried to catch a few Z’s as dirge after dirge went through my mind - This was just the first day back.