A Private Dissection of the Public #2½

It's funny how a small room full of people makes one feel lonelier than an empty auditorium. It's the noise. All the voices blend into one horrible noise that sounds like a poorly announcer sneezing down a tannoy. Victoria looked at me very fleetingly, slicing through the sonic shit with her eyes. She then escorted me to another smaller room down the hallway which was very bland and very airy. I nearly suffocated in all the air. We exchanged alot of petty conversation about how our half terms had been and about what we had done for Halloween and if we had seen any fireworks for Guy Fawkes night. I felt very much that I was wasting my time.

The door opened and the air rushed out as a woman with little glasses and plump legs walked in. She was Miss Illingworth. She was going to discipline me but all I could think about was her strange figure and how it would look naked and roasting in an oven. This was probably because it was nearly Christmas and because I was hungry. She surprised me and I didn't like it. For a start, I should have liked to had known who exactly I was to be disciplined by. I could have worked out how to lubricate them into liking me if I knew who they were. Secondly, I was surprised by how she was. All I had to go on was her name, which was alot bigger and prouder than she was herself.

She looked at me with alot of reverence. I thought she might call me sir or doctor and entertained the idea as long as I could without seeming distracted. She began using words far too long and intricate for her little head to understand and asking me all sorts of indecipherable questions. These questions caught me off guard on more than one occasion. I was very busy thinking about all the different ways I could cook her and all the titles she'd give me all the while. Whenever one of these questions came up, I would answer woo-ingly.
"How do you feel you're enterprising here?"
"I don't know really. I think I was quite naughty at the beginning, I think. I think that's changed now though. I don't think I'm being quite as naughty anymore."
My answers got me thinking about girls and how half the things men say to girls they say because they're not thinking about it. They're thinking about how the bitch'd look splayed out. How she'd look waiting for the stake. Maybe I was going to have sex with this fat little woman. I quickly shrugged the notion off as simple curiosity and masculine over-analysis. I blinked lazily and returned to the conversation.

Victoria was talking again and asking questions. I answered more coherently without thinking, though still stifled by the airy-ness of the room. They kept saying how intelligent they thought I was. Soon, the conversation was over and I thanked them both for the meeting and I told Miss Illingworth how it was a "great pleasure" to have met her. She said the same back and I believed her. She thought me a genius.

I left the building out the front entrance and entered the schoolyard. There were boys littered about and playing around and looking at them was like looking at a wall of televisions playing the same tape at different times and tempos. My eyes darted between all the different cliques, watching the warped sketch show that appeared to be the only thing on. The same boy in the same clothes under different skin. I had always been quite intimidated by them but the weather was cold enough now to bring out the reds and the golds of their faces. They looked like summer postcard characters without the sun and the sea and with scarves. I was almost even warmed by the strength of character in that old schoolyard.

***

I had to catch a bus home and when I boarded I found the bus driver to be a kind man. He kept telling jokes. I dropped my cigarette papers in front of him and he reached for them claiming that he thought them to be a twenty pound note and laughing and laughing. I joined in laughing, though, initially, I didn't know how to approach so gregarious and jolly a man. I struggled to produce my pass, managing instead to pull a handful of assorted identification and banking and library cards out of my wallet all at once. This provided ample stimulus for the man's sense of humour and wit and he offered me a game of solitaire. He laughed again and I did as well. He turned after that. He snatched my pass and almost denied me entry into the bus, not believing the little photograph to be me. I protested and he started to smile. I began to think he was mad. I told him that I had had a haircut and that the photo was dated, but he still smiled. I realised then that he was joking and he said that it was definitely me and let me on. I felt a fool for a little while afterwards but was certain he was mad. He was friendly though.

I was usually paranoiac on the bus, but was comforted by the numerousness of the elderly in whose eyes I saw an envy for (amongst other things) my youthful retention of warmth. I saw in their eyes, which flashed at me over and over, a hunger for youth and on their backs, layers and layers of thick coats. The burdens of age I thought, and smiled to myself. I felt happy to be young and alive and fell to sleep very gently on the bus.

D.B.B