Warning: Please Remove Your Heart from Your Sleeve
October 4th
I woke up early that next morning because my mum started vacuuming the landing at half past nine. Perhaps she also heard my brother sneak into his bedroom this morning. Perhaps she was pissed that her son is such a sexual deviant and was intent on waking him up early as moral punishment. My brother only works evenings at the pub, so he tries to get away with burying himself in his sweaty duvet all afternoon and only emerges when it’s time for dinner.
I decided to get out of bed only once my mum had finished vacuuming the life out of our already-threadbare carpet. The light that seeped through the gap in my curtains told me that it was one of those nice October days, when it’s been raining the night before but now the sun is out and the leaves look all bright and orange even when they’re mushed up at the side of the road. It was the sort of day that I didn’t want to stay inside for, especially considering I’d got the weekend off work.
I stood on my tiptoes and peered over Mayfield Park, as I do most days. My house is along a terrace of old-style Victorian houses that back onto Mayfield Park. Mayfield Park is this big stretch of grass lined with shrubs and trees where they set off fireworks on Bonfire Night and have fairgrounds in the summer. On the other side of Mayfield Park is Spring 6. Spring 6 is a three-story hall of residence for university students. Their noise curfew is 11PM but nobody ever adheres to it. This year’s freshers moved in last month and every morning since then, I check for signs of life outside the front doors.
It was ambitious to expect to see anyone, considering last night was a Saturday and on Saturdays the town’s nightclubs are overwhelmed with girls in neon tutus and boys dressed as Lego men and Smurfs. It is the obligation of these club managers to obliterate these students with free shots and drinks for only one pound, which they do successfully.
“The state some of these girls end up in is disgraceful,” my mum would say. My mum works in A&E. “Bruised, battered; they can barely stand up. God knows what could’ve happened to them if they weren’t dragged off the street and thrown into one of our ambulances.”
“Not to mention the lads,” my dad would pipe up. My dad has a job he could only wish was as exciting as my mum’s. “Punch ups, fights, scraps. You’re telling me these kids will be the professionals of the next generation? It’s a surprise they haven’t lost all their brain cells getting their heads kicked in.”
Perhaps it sounds bizarre, and perhaps I don’t have my priorities straight, but every day I pull on my work uniform a part of my heart aches slightly. If only I could’ve seen the state that these kids wind up in on a night out, running around with reckless abandon and drunken regrets, before I sat my A Level exams, perhaps I wouldn’t have let my academic potential go to waste.
I decided to get out of bed only once my mum had finished vacuuming the life out of our already-threadbare carpet. The light that seeped through the gap in my curtains told me that it was one of those nice October days, when it’s been raining the night before but now the sun is out and the leaves look all bright and orange even when they’re mushed up at the side of the road. It was the sort of day that I didn’t want to stay inside for, especially considering I’d got the weekend off work.
I stood on my tiptoes and peered over Mayfield Park, as I do most days. My house is along a terrace of old-style Victorian houses that back onto Mayfield Park. Mayfield Park is this big stretch of grass lined with shrubs and trees where they set off fireworks on Bonfire Night and have fairgrounds in the summer. On the other side of Mayfield Park is Spring 6. Spring 6 is a three-story hall of residence for university students. Their noise curfew is 11PM but nobody ever adheres to it. This year’s freshers moved in last month and every morning since then, I check for signs of life outside the front doors.
It was ambitious to expect to see anyone, considering last night was a Saturday and on Saturdays the town’s nightclubs are overwhelmed with girls in neon tutus and boys dressed as Lego men and Smurfs. It is the obligation of these club managers to obliterate these students with free shots and drinks for only one pound, which they do successfully.
“The state some of these girls end up in is disgraceful,” my mum would say. My mum works in A&E. “Bruised, battered; they can barely stand up. God knows what could’ve happened to them if they weren’t dragged off the street and thrown into one of our ambulances.”
“Not to mention the lads,” my dad would pipe up. My dad has a job he could only wish was as exciting as my mum’s. “Punch ups, fights, scraps. You’re telling me these kids will be the professionals of the next generation? It’s a surprise they haven’t lost all their brain cells getting their heads kicked in.”
Perhaps it sounds bizarre, and perhaps I don’t have my priorities straight, but every day I pull on my work uniform a part of my heart aches slightly. If only I could’ve seen the state that these kids wind up in on a night out, running around with reckless abandon and drunken regrets, before I sat my A Level exams, perhaps I wouldn’t have let my academic potential go to waste.