A day in the life of two students
being a chronicle of the differing lives of Carl, a geography student, and Neil, a medical student
3.00am: Carl sleeps the sound sleep of one who has not a care in the world.
5.00am: Neil is trapped in a recurring nightmare. In it, a parade of professors laugh at him and tear up his work, he watches all his life's ambitions crumble into dust, and he is confronted by the spectres of every woman he will never sleep with. He tosses and turns. His room is at turns like the tundras of the Arctic and the very furnaces of Hades.
7.00am: Carl opens his eyes briefly. He has been awoken by the gentle chirruping of a chaffinch. He glances at his bedside clock and smiles contentedly. Then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.
7.05am: Neil's alarm blares discordantly. The manic screeching is like an industrial drill boring incessantly into Neil's forehead. Neil stumbles blindly out of bed, bleeding from every orifice. He is late, and does not have time to eat breakfast or put on more than four items of clothing.
9.15am: Carl wakes up, in plenty of time for his tutorial. He decides to go back to sleep instead, though, because it doesn't matter.
9.30am: Neil is trying to take notes as a besuited man spews out nonsense which purports to be a part of the syllabus. The lecturer claims that if they go through the whole two hours without a break, he will finish early. He is lying. Neil tries desperately to stay awake by using pencils to prop his eyelids open. His elbow slips off the desk and the lead scrapes a gouge through his eyebrow and up his forehead.
11.00am: Carl lies on the floor in front of the TV in his underwear, eating chocolate corn flakes. He laughs with delight at the antics of Daffy Duck.
11.15am: Neil is slumped in a chair in his departmental coffee lounge. Around him are countless other medical students. They wear the expressions of those who have given up on life. The occasional moan of pain punctures the deathly silence. They look for all the world like the inmates of a late nineteenth-century field hospital. But they are the medics. Who can possibly save them? With a last effort of will, Neil drags himself to the counter and spends the rest of his weekly food budget on espresso.
12.30pm: Carl strolls into his department to be enthusiastically greeted by all his friends, who love him. He flips through a complimentary newspaper, half-glancing at each headline. A passing lecturer congratulates Carl on his most recent submission, which was of a first class standard. The assignment was to hand in something you had found in the street.
2.30pm: Neil has been doing project work for hours. It is unlikely that he will be able to leave the department before the hours of darkness. Neil tries to remember the last time he felt the emotion of happiness. He offers up a silent prayer, but it is increasingly clear that God either does not care, or doesn't even know he exists. Neil looks at the work he has done so far. It is worthless.
3.00pm: Carl has finished for the day. He is hanging around in the coffee shop until he can motivate himself to walk home. Carl feels the satisfaction of a day well spent, and makes a decision to buy himself a pizza tonight.
4.00pm: A caffeine-deranged Neil crawls desperately through the darkened corridors of the concrete science block. "Help me, help me, please!" he jabbers incoherently as he grabs at the legs of passers-by. Without exception, they each shake him off and kick him in the throat.
6.00pm: Carl eats his delicious pizza in the warm glow of his TV set. As he eats, he ponders on the peculiar genius of The Simpsons. It makes you laugh - then makes you think. He decides to have a Simpsons night of watching the Simpsons. He will watch episodes from his Simpsons box set on his gold-plated DVD player, bought for him by his parents.
8.00pm: Neil has run out of food. He dines on a meal of ProPlus sandwiches laced with amphetamines. His heart races like a terrified rabbit.
9.00pm: Carl watches the news. A new government initiative means that he will no longer have to pay back his student loan, and his home town has won a special award for tidiness. Carl makes a mental note to write about this in his next assignment, a decision which will garner him a mark of 85%.
9.00pm: Neil is watching the same programme, but all he sees is war, famine and destruction. The newsreader announces that God is dead. The weatherman predicts terrifying plagues on a proportion eclipsing anything found in the pages of the Bible.
01.00am: Carl decides to get an early night, as he has to be awake before 11am tomorrow.
01.45am: Neil scribbles frantically at a piece of rumpled paper, chomping down twice the weekly recommended dosage of ProPlus. His fingers race inexpertly through the pages of the gargantuan textbook, whose words blur in his mind. A dark cloud is beginning to obscure his vision. Within twelve hours he will be dead.
3.00am: Carl sleeps the sound sleep of one who has not a care in the world.
5.00am: Neil is trapped in a recurring nightmare. In it, a parade of professors laugh at him and tear up his work, he watches all his life's ambitions crumble into dust, and he is confronted by the spectres of every woman he will never sleep with. He tosses and turns. His room is at turns like the tundras of the Arctic and the very furnaces of Hades.
7.00am: Carl opens his eyes briefly. He has been awoken by the gentle chirruping of a chaffinch. He glances at his bedside clock and smiles contentedly. Then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.
7.05am: Neil's alarm blares discordantly. The manic screeching is like an industrial drill boring incessantly into Neil's forehead. Neil stumbles blindly out of bed, bleeding from every orifice. He is late, and does not have time to eat breakfast or put on more than four items of clothing.
9.15am: Carl wakes up, in plenty of time for his tutorial. He decides to go back to sleep instead, though, because it doesn't matter.
9.30am: Neil is trying to take notes as a besuited man spews out nonsense which purports to be a part of the syllabus. The lecturer claims that if they go through the whole two hours without a break, he will finish early. He is lying. Neil tries desperately to stay awake by using pencils to prop his eyelids open. His elbow slips off the desk and the lead scrapes a gouge through his eyebrow and up his forehead.
11.00am: Carl lies on the floor in front of the TV in his underwear, eating chocolate corn flakes. He laughs with delight at the antics of Daffy Duck.
11.15am: Neil is slumped in a chair in his departmental coffee lounge. Around him are countless other medical students. They wear the expressions of those who have given up on life. The occasional moan of pain punctures the deathly silence. They look for all the world like the inmates of a late nineteenth-century field hospital. But they are the medics. Who can possibly save them? With a last effort of will, Neil drags himself to the counter and spends the rest of his weekly food budget on espresso.
12.30pm: Carl strolls into his department to be enthusiastically greeted by all his friends, who love him. He flips through a complimentary newspaper, half-glancing at each headline. A passing lecturer congratulates Carl on his most recent submission, which was of a first class standard. The assignment was to hand in something you had found in the street.
2.30pm: Neil has been doing project work for hours. It is unlikely that he will be able to leave the department before the hours of darkness. Neil tries to remember the last time he felt the emotion of happiness. He offers up a silent prayer, but it is increasingly clear that God either does not care, or doesn't even know he exists. Neil looks at the work he has done so far. It is worthless.
3.00pm: Carl has finished for the day. He is hanging around in the coffee shop until he can motivate himself to walk home. Carl feels the satisfaction of a day well spent, and makes a decision to buy himself a pizza tonight.
4.00pm: A caffeine-deranged Neil crawls desperately through the darkened corridors of the concrete science block. "Help me, help me, please!" he jabbers incoherently as he grabs at the legs of passers-by. Without exception, they each shake him off and kick him in the throat.
6.00pm: Carl eats his delicious pizza in the warm glow of his TV set. As he eats, he ponders on the peculiar genius of The Simpsons. It makes you laugh - then makes you think. He decides to have a Simpsons night of watching the Simpsons. He will watch episodes from his Simpsons box set on his gold-plated DVD player, bought for him by his parents.
8.00pm: Neil has run out of food. He dines on a meal of ProPlus sandwiches laced with amphetamines. His heart races like a terrified rabbit.
9.00pm: Carl watches the news. A new government initiative means that he will no longer have to pay back his student loan, and his home town has won a special award for tidiness. Carl makes a mental note to write about this in his next assignment, a decision which will garner him a mark of 85%.
9.00pm: Neil is watching the same programme, but all he sees is war, famine and destruction. The newsreader announces that God is dead. The weatherman predicts terrifying plagues on a proportion eclipsing anything found in the pages of the Bible.
01.00am: Carl decides to get an early night, as he has to be awake before 11am tomorrow.
01.45am: Neil scribbles frantically at a piece of rumpled paper, chomping down twice the weekly recommended dosage of ProPlus. His fingers race inexpertly through the pages of the gargantuan textbook, whose words blur in his mind. A dark cloud is beginning to obscure his vision. Within twelve hours he will be dead.
posted by Solid Jim at 2:04 PM
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