And so I walk.
Out into the corridor, out amongst the gathering throng of pre and post-lecture students, all chattering wildly, all seeming so much younger and more enthusiastic than I.
Outside the thick sunlight tears at my eyes and face. We’re meeting at a café back near the train station. It had made sense when we’d planned it, drunk and disorderly at Katie’s house on Sunday night, but I realise now that I can’t possibly make it on time. I must have forgotten about class, or more likely assumed that I’d simply choose to skip it. Exactly why I hadn’t was becoming less and less clear.
Walking through uni unaccompanied is its own special kind of isolation. There is so much activity, so much noise and colour, and yet I snake through it all without a sideways glance. It’s the same reason I hate shopping malls: there is simply too much going on without me. A surplus of distraction – of choice – is the enemy of efficiency.
I swear in silence at the thought of Katie and Clark. I’ve always liked Katie, and I think Clark knows it, and so every moment they spend alone together is another over which I have no control. I trust Clark – he is, after all, my oldest friend – but when it comes to inadvertent cock-blocking of erectile proportions he has a very questionable track record. Best I move quickly.
After some expert people-dodging I find myself at the back of a long line of fellow pedestrians all waiting to cross Grattan Street. We’re like unwanted puppets left to dangle limply with bags slung on shoulders and heads angled down. We each look the same and yet I feel so disconnected to all of them. It’s as though they’re somehow all in on a joke at my expense, as though this whole morning was pre-planned.
The tram thunders past and I make eye contact with the sole puppet on board. Am I mistaken, or did he just give me a nod?
Fucking Myki.
The dull clicking of the traffic lights returns to occupy my thoughts as the tram moves away. In between clicks I can just make out the fuzzy base of a pop song whispering out of a pair of headphones next to me. A not-unattractive Asian girl is listening to the music, and the slight bobbing of her head is the only sign that she is alive.
“Steven!”
It comes out of nowhere, a call from the Almighty – directionless and immediately gone – and it takes me a few uncomfortable moments to locate its source. I turn around, and there he is, calling out again, so unlike the rest of us, and I am more certain than ever that I should have skipped this morning’s class.
Meet Callan Holmes, aka “Greedo”, a specimen of humanity’s most undesirable characteristics. I honestly thought he was dead.
We called him Greedo at school (my proudest legacy); a combination of traits, one seen and one suspected. We saw the greed in his tuckshop raids, a real-life Augustus Gloop one chocolate river short of heart failure. The paedophile we imagined, or perhaps assumed, a fitting future for one so failed by genetics. It was nasty, yes, and I’d regretted it in recent years, but standing here now I remember why the name had stuck.
I’m caught between two men: one tiny, red, and stationary, the other huge, pale, and lumbering, emerging now from the shadow of the Science Building like some corpulent comic-book villain. Greedo, the fat fuck. God, how I loathe thee!
“Steven!”
He’s collapsing in on himself, rising and falling like a wave and yet somehow remaining, unbroken, on his feet. He calls my name again, a desperate howl that seems to snap the fingers of our grand puppeteer into action, drawing the eyes of a hundred onlookers, all tracing now to me, the clear target of Greedo’s uninvited attention. It’s embarrassment by association, and there’s no escape.
He reaches me at last, just as the lights change, and as the horde moves on I realise with slight panic that I myself cannot; Greedo is clasping my shoulder for support, wheezing pathetically like a lung-cancer patient, and his strength has me rooted to the spot. He drops his bag, looks at me, and smiles.
“S…Ste…Steven…”
It’s a half cough, half greeting, but enough to confirm my resurfaced hatred. First there’s the smell, emanating from deep in his great gut, climbing his throat, escaping between those rotten teeth and poisoning the cool noon air. He’s revolting and rude, invading the space between us, cancelling light like Satan in the Genesis of Hell.
And it’s that face too, laced in dripping sweat, cheeks inhabited by clans of throbbing boils that seem tempted to erupt with each passing second he stares. I try desperately to picture the hammock and that most fortunate of men, but in vain – all I can see is Greedo, a creature as alien as the Star Wars character with whom he shares his name.
“Great class, eh Steven?!”
The repeated name – that classic attempt to bridge separate histories – only works to intensify my disgust. I have only myself to blame. Choices, the theme of the day – of each day really – circling around to spit, just like Greedo himself, right in my face. I should have stayed in bed.
“I suppose…” It’s all I can bring myself to say.
“It’s all so interesting,” he responds. “I never knew you were a braniac.” And he gives an involuntary snort, as if to reassert for us both the memory of high school – a better time – when I sat in peace at the back of the classroom, breathing clean air.
“Um, yeah. Whatever…”
We’re moving at last, and with each laboured step he takes I manage to create a slight gap between us. It’s imperative that this is only a short exchange.
But he grabs my arm again and almost drags himself to the opposite footpath. “Wait…” he manages, and leans against the wall of the Grattan Street KFC. “Just give me a second…”
I glance down at my broken watch. Greedo’s personal musk mingles with wafts of fried chicken – simultaneously pleasant and revolting – and the combination makes me feel sick. I picture that hammock again.
“Sorry, Gre- I mean…sorry Callan. I’ve got to go. I’m meeting some people for lunch.”
He raises himself up, given strength by the promise of that final word. The Colonel looks over us with a wink and a smile. In every way Greedo has the upper hand.
“May I…do you think I could come?”
In the sudden purity of a gust of wind I find myself recalling that morning’s lecture. Choice, free will, cause and effect – questions of a life worth living or futile misinterpretations of what is really preordained? All I know is this: I want, more than anything else I can ever remember wanting, to tell Greedo to get fucked.
“Look…Callan…” But I can’t. “Mate…”
“Please?” Greedo wipes a layer of dirty sweat from his brown. Other beads fall like tears down his fat cheeks. “I’m all alone.”
He clears his throat – and that, it appears, is that.
The transition is immediate and deflating; Katie turns, smiling at first, lifting a hand to wave, and then drops it quickly, her face strikingly confused. Clark looks almost worried, his eyebrows raised at first and now narrowed. I imagine it’s how I must have looked when I saw with soul-crushing disappointment Greedo running towards me at the lights. If only the professor had taught us how to communicate via telekinesis – I’d be apologising to my friends even as I brought this curse upon them. Being twenty minutes late seems trivial in comparison to this evil.
“Hey guys, sorry I’m late.” I’m doing my best to be calm and casual but my voice sounds too high-pitched. “You guys remember Callan?”
It’s a statement, really. No one forgets Greedo.
Neither Kate nor Clark seems tuned to my adlibbed frequency. I had hoped for any kind of greeting, a nod of recollection, a handshake, but they are frustratingly unmoved. This is a problem I must solve by myself.
Greedo appears immune to the persistence of his legacy. He wears a giant grin and sits between Katie and me. She leans away without subtlety. Nobody liked him at school, and he knew it, and stayed away, but for some reason now he seems to be under the impression that we have all moved on.
“So…” I offer, fishing for an interjection. None arrives, however, and the word simply vanishes into the embarrassing silence.
This silence lingers for a minute or two, during which Greedo proceeds to gulp down three glasses of water, revealing with each raise of his elbow an enormous dark patch of perspiration beneath his armpit.
Finally, Clark speaks. “So, Greedo. How are you?”
There is an irony here that goes unrecognised by the object of the question. Clark has not bothered to hide his true feelings with Greedo’s real name, and yet in talking to him he has willingly acknowledged the latter’s presence and thus voided my sole responsibility over the direction of the conversation from now on. I feel like Frankenstein unleashing his monster on the world.
“Good,” says Greedo. “Steven invited me to lunch.”
Katie gives me a cold look. She has giant, dark eyes that I have memorised to the last detail, and I feel ashamed and upset that she’s using them like this on me now.
“We’re in the same class,” I say. It’s an attempt at some sort of explanation, an excuse for what I have done, but even as the words leave my mouth I recognise how feeble they will sound. There is no defence for a decision as poor as this.
“What class?” Kate is looking at Greedo now. It’s a calamitous intersection of beauty and ugliness. Neither should be exposed to something so alien.
Unsurprisingly, Greedo is keen to answer her, and slowly the dialogue evolves. I lean back like an artist critiquing his work. Perhaps this won’t be so bad after all. If nothing else we have uni in common, and that is enough to sustain us through chicken toasties and coffee, and in my head I’m already planning my expert clean-up of the situation after Greedo has left. There will be plenty of lunches on other days, plenty of times to sit next to Katie and talk about something else.
“Steven?” It’s that voice again, calling me like it did before, from just as far away. This time, however, it’s in a completely different tone – softer and almost friendly – and as I return to the moment I see Greedo smiling at me. “Well,” he says. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Cheating,” says Katie. “Together.”
I glance at Clark. Cheating? What exactly had I missed? I’d fantasised all year about a relationship with Katie – had I mastered telekinesis after all?
“Um…” I’m careering through my own thoughts, scratching for any semblance of context.
Katie is enthusiastic, eager for an answer. “Do you want to?”
Or am I dreaming now, back home in that rich bastard’s hammock? Was this all some kind of sordid nightmare? Had I slept through class after all?
Greedo punches me in the arm. This is no dream.
“Okay,” I say, with no idea to what it is I’m agreeing. “But…Katie…do you mean you have a boyfriend?”
The response is brutal in its shock. Clark bursts out laughing, slamming his palm against the table. Greedo snorts, dribbling a marble of snot onto his shirt, which only makes Clark laugh harder. And Katie just stares, those incredible eyes wider than I’d ever thought possible.
“What are you talking about?” she exclaims. “Boyfriend?”
I can feel my face growing red. There is a sudden emptiness in my brain. I literally have no idea what is going on.
“You’re a fucking idiot, mate!” says Clark, still slamming the table. “Oh, man…”
Greedo leans in to whisper in my ear. “The other cheating,” he says, and then reaches into his pocket for his wallet as the waiter comes to clear away out plates.
Night-time. Thin clouds hover in front of the near-full moon. It’s a starless city sky, deep purple and pocked with orange streetlamps. There is no breeze, but I am bitterly cold.
It is the strangest team to which I have ever belonged: Katie, Clark, and Greedo. They appear now like shadows, dressed dark as the night, like I am, head to toe. So this is what it feels like to cheat.
Greedo, it turns out, has been breaking into the Science Faculty every fortnight for the entire semester, to alter his grades. He saw me this morning arriving late to class, fumbling for a seat in my Myki-fuelled rage. He took pity on me. He wanted to help.
I’d spent the evening thinking that it really should be the other way around. I’d bullied Greedo for six long years, looked down at him like he carried some disease. I’d told people he was a paedophile, for Christ’s sake!
“Ready?” he says, handing me a torch.
Clark is chuckling, probably nerves. We were troublemakers, maybe, but we’d never done anything like this.
“Clark!”
It’s Katie, and although I can’t see her face, covered as it is by a balaclava, I can tell by her tone that she’s in no mood for jokes.
“Sorry,” says Clark, but there’s still the tinge of laughter in his voice.
I can guess what he’s laughing at too, and I am immediately grateful of the protection of the darkness of night. I had agreed, pointlessly it had turned out, to a pretend-unfaithful relationship with the girl of my dreams. This fact cannot have escaped her.
“Quiet,” whispers Greedo. He sounds confident, controlled, and any doubt that I had about his true intentions is subdued as I await instruction.
Huddled behind a rubbish bin, swamped by bushes, heads bowed together, we are, in this moment, on edge. The edge of a knife, or a cliff, or of time itself, and I can’t help but look back at my day. I’d gone home after lunch, bought a hammock, spent an hour lying in it thinking over what we were about to do. It’s not as comfortable as it looks.
“Alright,” says Greedo. “This is the plan.”
I still can’t believe we’re doing this.
Had Greedo wanted to sleep in this morning, too? Had he lay in bed, staring at his own poster, finger hovering over the snooze button, daring himself to press it?
He’d asked us to cheat, and we’d all agreed, and now here we were, on this edge, and he’d got it all planned out. Four students with scores to settle, or at least to make up, and it was to be as simple as following orders. No choices necessary, it seemed.
“I’ll go in,” he says. “I know this building back to front. That means we’ll need two people out here to keep guard. Katie, you’re a cool head. You stay.” She nods in assent. “I just need one person to come with me.”
Even through the balaclava I can smell his breath, but it’s mixed this time with anticipation, the thrill of the unknown.
I want to impress Katie, to show her how daring I can be. I should go with Greedo. He chose me, today, after all.
But what if we get caught? Guard duty is the safer option. And I’d get to spend time with Katie, just the two of us, talking…
The sound of distant traffic blurs into nothingness as the bushes brush against my hand and Greedo speaks again.
“Steven, what’s it going to be?”
So do I keep watch with Katie or break into the Science Faculty building with Greedo?
I stopped outside the door and checked my mobile phone. Three missed calls - two from Katie and one from Clark. I was already late.
I felt as if the dust were to settle from my previous bout of embarrassment, I may never take the tram again. Besides, after a day like today in which I received a sufficient amount of shame to make sleep very troublesome tonight I was due some good luck. It was only a few stops.
I kept trying to rationalise my decision to myself as I set a brisk pace to the nearest stop. A tram was pulling up as I arrived and I did my best to blend in with the crowd shuffling on to the PTV can.
I feebly waved my Myki near the reader to give the impression that I’d touched on, hoping nobody would notice. It was noisy, it’d be fine. I spotted a seat and made a beeline for it.
“Mate, it didn’t beep”.
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t close enough, you have to do it again”.
I thought back to the poster of the man in the hammock - he’d never have to deal with this crap.
“Oh, no, it turned green. Don’t worry”.
He cocked an eyebrow at me and gave a wry little smile.
“Whatever you say mate”.
This guy was my age and wearing a suit on a weekday. I'm not sure we'd ever be mates. I broke eye contact as quickly as I could and sat down, resting my legs awkwardly on my bag. Tinkly muzak began to emenate from my phone within, no doubt Katie trying to reach me again. It was feasible I was stuck in class. Or it would be if they’d known me for less than ten minutes.
My hands rummaged around until I found the phone and I swiped across.
“Hey Katie”.
“It’s Clark”.
“Oh right, hey mate”.
“Where are you? You know the lunch specials end soon and there’s no way I’m paying for bloody rice”.
“I won’t be long”.
“Coming from you, that could mean anything”.
“Ten minutes tops”.
“Rightio. They’re out of dosas”.
“See you in a tick”.
It was probably about time I changed my ringtone, but there was nothing wrong with it, really. It was mine, it worked, it was effective. But it was probably also reflective of laziness. I felt like I should care more about it. I felt like I should care more about a lot of things.
One thing I did care about was the odd incident with the professor in class. I spent most of the time in there thinking of a way I could ask “how did you know my name?” without coming off as someone in desperate need of psychiatric help. Of course I didn’t think of anything appropriate and a multitude of possibilities ran through my head.
Did he notice me slacking off? Probably, but there’s 50 other people who are as bad or worse in the same group. I briefly considered that we might have a Good Will Hunting moment, that I was some kind of untapped genius. I liked that idea. It was also the furthest thing from the truth.
“It’s the best time of the year in this city”.
I didn’t look particularly distinctive. I often thought that my hobbies made me distinctive, but they were merely possible means to more hammocky ends. Find me a university student who doesn’t have a keyboard he plays in a band that hasn’t released any music. Or who has dreams of writing that one brilliant play, or novel, or whatever. Or who wants to make the next ‘big thing’ app.
“You only have a short time to enjoy it. It’s always too cold or hot. Candela or freezer. But right now it’s perfect”.
What about an app that helps you make apps? An app to organise your tech startup? I mean, it wasn’t brilliant, but I could be a facilitator. Helping others make the big app could help me make my idyllic island paradise a reality.
“Bon salud”.
I didn’t even notice the man had sat down next to me. He took a long draw from a can of coke and exhaled with great satisfaction. He had dark, leathery skin and a salt and pepper beard.
“Excuse me?”.
“When the weather was like this in older generations, it was the perfect time to harvest the bamboo. Or at least that’s how the story goes”.
The day had already been too long to have to politely smile at the ramblings of a crazy person. I’m all for being friendly but I really just wanted time to think.
“The bamboo was sent to America. They had a game called Waltes that they used the bamboo for, they learned it from the natives. You had one old man, three old women and 51 pieces of wood to play with. And un tiki burl. A little one. For the board”.
I had to admit that this was one of the more odd ramblings I’d heard from the type of person who speaks to complete strangers on the tram.
“There was a hole in the burl so the dice could jump. There were six dice. Two people sat opposite each other and the dice sat inside. They picked up the bowl and bang, slammed it down so the dice jumped”.
He punched his fists together as he said this.
“These dice only had two sides. You would try to get the dice to all, disculpami, all but one to jump on the same side and you would take sticks depending on the side that came up. When you had a bundle of seventeen, you took one out and made a point. Five points wins the game”.
My stop was coming up. I smiled at the man and grabbed my bag.
“That sounds like a really, really great game. I’ve never heard of it. This is my stop coming up”.
I stood up.
“Tickets please”.
My heart skipped a beat. My phone didn’t as it jingled away in my bag again. More large men in grey surrounded by similar looking rent-a-thugs. They were coming my way. The older man smiled at me.
“The problem with the game is that if someone is losing, they can keep adding sticks and changing the count. It was...bad sportsmanship, but they did it. You can play forever”.
I looked at him with panic in my eyes. I wished he would shut up.
“That’s all well and good, but I could do with some bad sportsmanship right now. You’re talking about a game of chance which is something I understand all too well. As you can probably tell, luck isn’t on my side today”.
He smiled and drank from his can of coke again.
“Depending on who you ask it could be a game of choice. The best way is to choose not to play. Unless you have trust”.
The inspector stepped up to me.
“MyKi please”.
I looked around desperately. The man smiled again.
“I, uh, here, I’m not sure if the machine was worki -”
“It was working. MyKi please”.
$219 bloody dollars because Clark didn’t want to pay for rice. I could have bought a lot of rice for that. I don’t even like rice. I handed the card over.
“Thank you. Have a good day”.
He walked back to the other end of the tram, chuckling as he told the other inspectors about my nerves.
The man smiled again. I turned my MyKi over in confusion as he drained the remainder of his coke.
“Maybe it is a game of chance”.
The sun bathed the tram in odd, fractured light as it pulled up to the stop outside Gujarati. I saw Katie and Clark laughing with their phones on the table.
As I went to get off, everything felt a bit surreal. The MyKi was surely a system failure - god knows they have enough of them. But I was torn. As crazy as it was, I felt like I had to ask the old man a few questions. They were out of dosas anyways.
But I also didn’t want to deal with that uniquely shameful guilt from flaking on your friends. I didn’t think “I wanted to talk to this old dude on the tram about his bamboo dice game” would cut it.
Do I stay on the tram or go and have lunch?
Today’s choices are tomorrow’s destinations. Choose wisely
Every morning I look at that poster in an attempt to get motivated enough to leave my bed, after all it shows a successful guy lying in a hammock. But what that man doesn’t understand is just how comfortable my bed is, and exactly how tempting a warm cocoon of blankets can be. So now I have to make my first choice of the day, whether or not to go to my 9am lecture. If I go into uni I can get good grades, become wildly successful, seduce hundreds of women with my infinite wealth, and ultimately collapse into a post orgy mini-coma in the hammock on my privately owned island. Or I can hit the snooze button and follow my dreams in a much more pragmatic way. After all, the guy in the hammock appears to be sleeping, so in a lot of ways we’re on the same page. I guess that means I’m skipping the lecture. But then again the professor takes attendance and I’ve already missed two classes. I am allowed three skips though, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I slept through this one. Plus at this rate I might miss my train, and I certainly don’t want to walk into class late enough that everyone stares. Two hundred sets of eyes glaring at me as I shimmy through the tiny gap between knees and chairs, occasionally forcing the awkward laptop removal and desk lift: absolutely not. Although, I did do the readings this week for the first time ever, and I’m sure as hell not letting that go to waste. That means I’m going to the lecture, and most likely securing my future as a hammock owner.
First I need to get dressed, luckily my pants and shirt are already in a lump by my bed. Even luckier, my belt is already inside my pants. Luckier still, I fell asleep wearing socks. People have always said that I’m lazy, disorganised and unable to finish what I start, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, it’s just how I express my creativity. That’s why I’m already half way through the storyboarding for a movie I’m writing. And have an incomplete watercolour painting hanging off a makeshift easel in the bathroom. And a semi-finished computer rebuild from scrap parts I found at a garage sale. So, maybe I can be a little all over the place, and don’t have the best follow-through, but I still see big things in my future; hammock on my own beach type of things. But first I’ll need to run to the train.
Thankfully the train is on time and I make it with a couple of seconds to spare. It was an athletic endeavour, albeit it slightly hampered by the borderline asthmatic seizure I experienced immediately after the doors closed. By the time I’m pulling into Melbourne Central station I have sweat seeping out of my pores and, strangely enough, only the one armpit. My body has mostly recovered by the time I get through the gates, and now I have my next decision. I only have enough money on my Myki to get me into Uni, so if I don’t top up now I’ll have to walk back to the station after class. Or I could fare evade, but from past experience I only get inspected when I don’t have a valid Myki. Yet I have friends who will go months without ever putting money on their cards and somehow never get caught. It doesn’t make much sense, but I really would be a lot happier if all of them got fines. It’s vindictive and not what a friend should say, but it is probably a perfectly human desire. Either way I need to top up my Myki now, and hopefully quick enough to make the tram so I can scrape into the lecture on time. But as I stand in line at the machine I see the bringer of doom in front of me, an old woman using a credit card. It’s going to be a miracle if I can get to the tram on time with the glacial pace of the MyKi machines, especially when they use cards. I hate watching her stare aimless at the screen as if it is communicating to her in her native language of Morse code. The lady looks stunned as she investigates the machine, searching for the mystical card port that is literally right in front of her. She looks around expectantly as if the MyKi butler is about to come and assist her through the process. Oh no, she’s pulling out her chequebook. There’s no way this is going to take any less than an hour, and I need to go, so I sprint for the tram and make it as the door shut.
After another embarrassing hyperventilating episode I take my seat. But not for long because I don’t have the stomach to stay seated when other people stand. I always feel their eyes judging me as I sit in my comfortable seat whilst they sway from side to side at the mercy of the tram. Although, there’s a chance they will be more understanding after the display of anaerobic weakness they just witnessed. I pull the MyKi out of my pocket but manage to catch myself just before I touch on. I’m still valid for another two hours from the train, but if I touch on I’ll get declined because I’m technically in the negative. I’m not sure if that would actually make my ticket invalid, but I don’t want to take the risk.
“Would you like a hand with that?” An older lady suggests as she goes to take the card from my hand and tap it to the machine. She’s only trying to be nice, and is assuming I just can’t reach it myself, but nonetheless I have to pull my card away from her hand.
“Sorry,” I spurt out to ease her look of insult. “It’s just bec- No you see the MyKi system, because I’m in negative. I’m valid though. I am, I swear. I touched on at the station. So I’m allowed on for two hours”
“I understand,” interjects the lady with a mix of confusion and offense. “Nobody needs help from an oldie like me”.
“No it’s not that,” I shout, “It’s just this stupid card system. Even though I’ve paid, and I’m allowed to be on the tram, and not one of the ‘evil fare evaders’ they talk about in all the ads, I’m still screwed because of an idiotic system”.
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …” Interjected the lady trying to stop my yelling but I’m already to invested in my rant.
“No No. Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. It’s the idiots who made the systems fault. And anybody who has anything to do with them. The ticket inspectors are the worst of all. Too stupid to even understand the purpose of why they are inspecting. They will just scan my card and see it is declined on the top up, and give me a fine. But if they had any intelligence they would understand how the system works, and that the purpose is to see if I have actually paid for my two hours, which I have! But no, they would be far too stupid-“
“MyKi please,” booms the upset male voice behind me. I immediately come to the conclusion that it can’t actually be ticket inspector. Obviously someone is playing a joke on me, I can’t be that unlucky. But as I turn around I realise I am in fact exactly that unlucky, and my rant deflates like a loosened balloon flailing uselessly around the room.
“Look, Im sorry I –“
“Myki please.”
I hand it over to the intimidating man of grey, who is backed by his equally large cronies covering the exits. A feel a look of disbelief spreads across my face as it dawns on me that I am about to receive a $219 fine entirely due to a foolish system. The tram is even more silent that usual as everyone waits for me, the rude man who yells in public spaces, to get my comeuppance.
“It says here that you’re at negative seventy-seven cents,” says the inspector as I let out an obvious sigh coupled with an eye roll. “But. Since it says you touched on at 8:38 this morning, you are valid all the way through to eleven a.m. You see, the system works on the traveller being within the valid time window, not the positive or negative balance. But then again, how would I know anything about the system that I enforce for a job.”
Everyone on the tram is dead silent, too nervous to be the first to laugh, but still using their eyes to put me through the most humiliating moment of my life. I take my Myki back from the rigid grip of the inspector and consider the possibility of making an apology. I am one hundred percent in the wrong, but I’m not sure commenting on it will make the situation any less awkward.
“Look, I’m-“
“Ticket please,” the inspector blurts out just in time to interrupt me as he moves onto the next person. The university stop is coming up, so I’m able to skip out of this terrible situation just in time. Half the tram comes off with me and I silently hope to God that none of them are in my class. I slip in through the back doors of my lecture just in time to see that the professor arriving.
“Hello everyone, slight bit of housekeeping to start with. It’s taking too long to go through attendance every class so I think from now on we’ll just scrap it.”
There is a collective cheer from the entire lecture hall, but instead I groan as I realise I could be in bed right now.
“I’ll find another way to make up the 15 percent throughout the semester.”
There is a second collective groan, this time louder than the first. Not from me though, I’m happy to do an additional assignment as long as it means I can skip morning lectures. The professor has a way of making anything boring, and with a subject like neuropsychology there isn’t much effort required. It’s an elective subject that I knew would be hard, but during an overly optimistic 3am online enrolment I decided it would be interesting. I thought it might help with me improve my brain skills and in turn help with my computer building, play writing, word jumbles and even the tech start up I have been thinking about.
“The brain is most effective when focusing on one task. By paying attention to one objective we draw the stimuli into our frontal lobe for processing. Therefore multitasking, despite what you may believe, is less effective than dedicating mental processing to one full time objective.”
The lecturer is recapping his previous lecture for those who missed last week, but somehow I feel it is aimed more at my own personal choices.
“For today’s lecture we are going to discuss how the brain makes choices.”
Well this is spooky.
“Subjects were given two options, left and right, and told to click at the instant they felt they have made their choice. Interestingly, the readings showed activity in the subconscious elements of the brain, areas outside of the frontal lobe, gearing up for the decisions up to three seconds before the subject clicked their mouse. Thus leading to the contention that the conscious mind, your conscious mind, is not responsible for the decisions you make. Thus giving you the illusion of free will, when in reality you are been dragged through your life with an inability to decide your own destiny.”
The room immediately starts typing away, but I’m just stuck thinking how incredibly depressing that speech was.
“But that’s somewhat depressing.”
Jesus, this guy might be psychic.
“I think a more optimistic interpretation is that these were low attention decisions that don’t require involving your frontal lobe, your conscious, thus your brain delegates the processing to your subconscious. Even the most basic creatures have it, and it determines when we should be afraid, when we should fight and if something is safe to eat; all without having bringing the process into our conscious brain. This is how creatures are able to survive without a frontal lobe, and can still experience a range of emotions and decision-making abilities without cognitive processing. This topic, and the remainder of the lecture, delves deep into the evolutionary purposes of the brain, however we will not cover much of the psychology, and as such this lecture is not examinable.”
I grab my laptop, still in the bag, and start to step over the last row of chairs while the lecturer is still fiddling with his computer. I’m not wasting my whole morning in a class when the material won’t even be on the exam.
“However, we will be having an in class exercise worth 5% at the end of the class. So you may want to sit down Steven.”
The entire class turns to look at me standing here like an idiot, up on my tiptoes straddling the back row of chairs. I notice a group of girls laughing hysterically and realize they were on this morning’s tram with me. In an attempt to deflect some of the embarrassment I give a sheepish shrug before sitting down again. The class resumes after a few more minutes of laughter, and all I can think is, how the hell does the lecturer know my name? There are two hundred of us in the class and I have never spoken to him, but I guess I have the next three hours to figure it out…
Now that the class is finished I don’t waste anytime getting to the door. I’m already running late if I want to make it to lunch with Katie and Clark. They always hate when I’m not on time, and I can’t stand another lecture. The problem is that I didn’t have time to top up my MyKi so if I take the tram I risk getting a fine.
So, do I take the tram or walk?
