Do you have to let it linger

2 suitcases. National Express to Yorkshire down the M6 . Only yesterday you were typing your last byline. It’s midnight and you are searching quarters at the bus station…to make a call for the pick up…17 hours on the trot…an Arab in the pick up van who shares a few biscuits and then you wake up to see Headingley stadium outside your window…welcome to the University of Life…

The Arab and you saunter for registration and accomodation…the lady at the counter offers a last minute offer for 2 who would like to share a room at 35 pounds a week for each….

It takes exactly 30 seconds for you to cut your first deal with the Arab and become room-mates from stangers in less than 6 hours…

An Arab, a French, a Brit,  a German, three Italians and they are now your family…the arab cooks…and you wash up..you are already learning to be a wheeler dealer…

Saturday mornings at the market square…busking with a keyboard…the pennies  pile up…Ayn Rand’s objectivism rears its ugly head.. and music kills itself…evocation…

Fuking Paki..Go Home…and you become aware of who you are for the first time… that’s when you loose your fake indo/yankee/brit accent…cos it’s fake as much as you have been all this while…and you learn to hate in  very simple but constant restrained manner…nationalism hits home harder than any speech on independance day….

Late night from the library…its raining…and you are walking home…and you feel a hand on your face…a swollen eye later you feel a sinking feeling in the gut l…cos your wallet’s gone…

The rent’s late…your suitcases are on the kerb…you got 5 pounds for the weekend cos salary  is delayed by a week…you aint got a home no more…and it’s midnight…and there’s no one to turn to…

4 am: The banshee shriek of the alarm…its snowing..but you got to get to work..the S96 rolls up in the fog…and your eyes are bleary and fingers are numb…11 am..you are in the lecture hall…3 pm…you are teaching the undergrads…by 5 pm you are on your way for the night shift…at the late city edition of the newspaper…cos you promised yourself you would never go hungry again..by 11 pm you are back home ..preparing notes for the next day…by midnight you are asleep on exhaustion…

Christmas Day…and you take up a gig to fuel up at the gas station and run the till…they pay triple per hour…and you have got the vacation to Greece in your mind…it’s 10 pm after a 12 hour shift…you are already 200 pound richer…and then the door opens…and its a hold up…nothing dramatic like the movies…but the gun’s real…and you are learning to cut a deal..to simply live…the whole thing is over in 10 minutes….no heroics…no superman…and then you light a cigarette…to celebrate christmas…and life

Then you go to Greece…

By this time you are changed….only you still dont know it…

So you decide that the damn degree better count…and you learn to really focus for the first time…the hate helps…you learn to  beat the institution at it’s own game…and on graduation day you refuse to go to the auditorium even though you have topped in 6 out of 8 modules…cos now you are calculatively calm…and a defiant dude in your own mind…you ask them to send your degree to the mailbox…

The fancy job comes over a phone call and London beckons…the pounds  and defiance are cashing in…and looking out of your duplex apartment in the west end…u think..hey this was good experience…u feel like you have never felt before…and you thank all those whom you never thanked before…and smile…on another cigarette and some Moet Chandon…

That’s when the Cranberries ask” You know I’M such a fool for you….you got me wrapped around your finger…do you have to….do you have to  let it linger “? and you wonder…and ponder….and understand…

The doppelganger is now you…