At lunchtimes I sometimes sit on the bench underneath the oak tree at the far end of the grounds. From here, elevated on the brow of Penswick Hill with the shade of the woods behind me, I sit alone and take in the full sprawling panorama of Borealis University; it stimulates a broader perspective of thought when I need to consider new direction in life. How did I get to be here? Where will I go next? What will I achieve? At twenty-eight years of age, I still have my whole life ahead of me and it is as open and wide and sunny as the sky above the university.
I take a bite from my sandwich and chew slowly, studying the somber grays of the building. With its tall walls and barred windows, it looks more like a prison than a place of learning, and today, perhaps because I am anticipating the first steps into a brave new world of enterprise and vocation, it looks more like a prison than usual.
I grew up under the loving gaze of hopeful parents whose material success afforded me private tuition and eventually a coveted place at this prestigious university, and I have studied here for many years, but my obsession with the sciences has consumed me completely. I have withdrawn into a tight and dark chrysalis of my own making all my life. Until now. I have made friends along the way, of course, but in truth I have little time for others, even my family. I am not consciously antisocial, but sitting here, looking at the moody building before me, I see what I really am. I mean to change after today.
After today, when I receive a distinction for my most recent paper, I will leave this place and make my way forward in the world as a new man. No longer keeping people at arms’ length. No longer hiding from the world. My ambitions are considered here, under this tree, but the journey begins down there, in the university.
And now it is time.
I screw up the greaseproof paper that protected my sandwiches and, after placing it back in my lunch tin, get up from the bench and make my way down the hill, through the grounds, and back inside the university. Fellow students nod and say hello as I pass them. I do the same but politely refuse when one or two of them indicate they want to talk. I do want to talk but not to them. My objective is the chancellor’s office.