[Tuesday July 7th]
The hallway leading from my building to the one with the cafeteria is long, empty and painted a depressing clinical white. This gave me entirely too much time to think about things as I walked down it.
I stepped out into the dark brick interior of the next building and headed around the central pillar towards the stairs. As usual there was someone sitting in the lounge there with a laptop. She didn't look up as I went past, allowing me to put this off for another few seconds. The knot in my stomach got that much worse.
The stairs leading down to the cafeteria were also empty, but at this time of day the cafeteria itself would not be. Taking a deep breath I pulled open the door and stepped inside.
There was the usual scattering of summer term students in the cafeteria, maybe six in all, most either focused on their food or on laptops and papers. I passed by one pair of girls who were sitting near the door and noticed the one facing towards me twitch as a went past.
I caught the motion mostly in my peripheral vision and tensed slightly. Mostly because of the tension I was feeling I think, but both Alica and I had been somewhat high strung. As it was I was able to keep the spines from popping out, but it was a near thing. I could feel them itching bellow the surface, ready to come out and I tried to focus on calming myself down as I stood by the hot water dispenser filling my cup. The urge to just fade away and hide was almost overwhelming, but deep, calm breathing during the interminable time it took for my mug to fill helped.
The baked goods/pastry rack was still reasonably well stocked and my eyes brightened as I saw there was a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin left. I snagged it on my way by and angled for the cash register. My day seemed to be getting even better when I saw the cashier was the pretty young woman who'd started working at this cafeteria at the start of the term.
Then she got a look at my face. She was good I'll give her that, the startled reaction was fairly small and the look of shock was only on her face for a moment before she replaced it with a strained smile that didn't reach her eyes. I felt my face twist into its own fake smile as I placed the muffin on the counter and pulled my wallet out of my pocket.
Two minutes later I was back in my office. I gently placed the muffin and mug on my desk and fished a tea bag out of the box sitting next to my books. My hands shook a little as I tore the wrapper open and dropped the bag into the water. I stopped then, staring at the scars on my arms and watched as I raised a hand to trace the ones on my face. The rage at the back of my mind slammed into the barriers I'd placed around it.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
--
History books in Ireland and Scotland are littered with the 'wrong' spelling,
and there is no law that tells you how to spell whisky. The Welsh even spell
it 'chwisgi', which makes sense after two or three large ones.
- from http://uk.glenfiddich.com/world/faqs/
The hallway leading from my building to the one with the cafeteria is long, empty and painted a depressing clinical white. This gave me entirely too much time to think about things as I walked down it.
I stepped out into the dark brick interior of the next building and headed around the central pillar towards the stairs. As usual there was someone sitting in the lounge there with a laptop. She didn't look up as I went past, allowing me to put this off for another few seconds. The knot in my stomach got that much worse.
The stairs leading down to the cafeteria were also empty, but at this time of day the cafeteria itself would not be. Taking a deep breath I pulled open the door and stepped inside.
There was the usual scattering of summer term students in the cafeteria, maybe six in all, most either focused on their food or on laptops and papers. I passed by one pair of girls who were sitting near the door and noticed the one facing towards me twitch as a went past.
I caught the motion mostly in my peripheral vision and tensed slightly. Mostly because of the tension I was feeling I think, but both Alica and I had been somewhat high strung. As it was I was able to keep the spines from popping out, but it was a near thing. I could feel them itching bellow the surface, ready to come out and I tried to focus on calming myself down as I stood by the hot water dispenser filling my cup. The urge to just fade away and hide was almost overwhelming, but deep, calm breathing during the interminable time it took for my mug to fill helped.
The baked goods/pastry rack was still reasonably well stocked and my eyes brightened as I saw there was a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin left. I snagged it on my way by and angled for the cash register. My day seemed to be getting even better when I saw the cashier was the pretty young woman who'd started working at this cafeteria at the start of the term.
Then she got a look at my face. She was good I'll give her that, the startled reaction was fairly small and the look of shock was only on her face for a moment before she replaced it with a strained smile that didn't reach her eyes. I felt my face twist into its own fake smile as I placed the muffin on the counter and pulled my wallet out of my pocket.
Two minutes later I was back in my office. I gently placed the muffin and mug on my desk and fished a tea bag out of the box sitting next to my books. My hands shook a little as I tore the wrapper open and dropped the bag into the water. I stopped then, staring at the scars on my arms and watched as I raised a hand to trace the ones on my face. The rage at the back of my mind slammed into the barriers I'd placed around it.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
--
History books in Ireland and Scotland are littered with the 'wrong' spelling,
and there is no law that tells you how to spell whisky. The Welsh even spell
it 'chwisgi', which makes sense after two or three large ones.
- from http://uk.glenfiddich.com/world/faqs/