The Debt

It felt good to return to return to UCD for Second Year of my Bachelor of Commerce Degree, anything to take my mind off the summer’s events.  It is the largest university in Ireland with approximately eighteen thousand students.  During the day there is a constant flow of activity and at night The Student Bar is the place to be.

Just like my first year I would live in a ground floor apartment on campus with fellow student Lucy and Personal Assistants.  It is close to the centre of everything which makes my college life that much easier.  The only drawback is that almost all the rest of the student accommodation is inaccessible.

Lectures provided an opportunity to exercise my mind without feeling a cold sweat pour over me.  The Student Bar was once more in full swing with queues forming before lunch hour to get in.  Just the way I liked it.  My friends were  thrilled to see me if a little amused that I had made it this far after spending so much time in the pub.

Casey gave me a big hug when he saw me.  It was the second night back and I was reacquainting myself with my favourite table and my beloved vodka.  The music was pulsating through the bar and the large crowd were in vibrant form.

At times shouting into my ear as people barged past he told me about him summer.  He had spent it in Lyons in France teaching English and had become besotted with a French girl.  He had told her that he would return but now looking forlorn was doubtful he would.  He never asked about my summer; perhaps wanting to distance himself from events.

The party atmosphere continued throughout the night.

Fortunately fewer hours of lectures were scheduled than my first year at the university.  There would be plenty of time for recreational activities between lectures which would probably consist of drinking tea and watching daytime TV for me.  I had different subjects than last year; but being a Commerce student; there was nothing, not related to business or which I felt could give me a sleepless night.

Economics was always a subject which made total sense to me and business organization couldn’t possibly be arduous.  Hopefully accounting wouldn’t be too boring this year.

But a shadow constantly lingered over me.

Just a week before I started back, the mission had been outlined to me.  It was a bomb plot to murder the British Prime Minister.  Originally there was a different target but this was apparently too good of an opportunity to let pass.  He was to give a key speech about the peace process in two months at the Langton hotel near Belfast city centre.  One month from now I would be attending a disability related conference at the same hotel where my co-conspirator would plant the bomb.

All I was told was that there was a republic sympathizer involved in an organization called People with Disabilities in Northern Ireland (PDNI) who would ensure I would be invited and that suitable accommodation was booked.  I would be accompanied by another IRA agent who would both seemingly look after my needs and plant the bomb while I was there.

“Where?”  “Why?” and “How?” is a summation of my parents’ thoughts regarding my forthcoming trip to Belfast.  Telling the truth that I was on an IRA mission was totally out of the question so instead I told them that I needed time to get over Karen’s death; that a trip away would be cathartic for me, that I needed to spend some time away from everything, where people didn’t know my name or what I’d been through.  When they started to accept that the questions about who I was going with started.

These were far more difficult to answer.  I was only meeting my “handler” every two weeks at best, sometimes beside a bench in the town park in Mullingar and other times in the Arts Centre on campus.  He gave little information away stressing that people had to be protected.  He had seemingly been assigned to me by central command and had a long terrorist history.  Shabbily dressed with a long white beard and ever present blue cap he liked to remind me endlessly that I should be honoured to get a chance to serve my country. That the British had been oppressing the Irish for over eight hundred years and it was now time for them to leave.

He suggested telling them that I was going with “Jimmy”; a mature student.  The rest of the details were to be kept as vague as possibly lest they were to guess for instance that “Jimmy” had no idea where UCD even was.  This was not very reassuring.  Pointing out that I needed someone who understood how to use a hoist and could drive the family’s accessible van drew a quizzical look before looking away and saying it would all be sorted.

Eventually he told me that my accomplice would be a masquerading as a mature student who had some previous experience helping people with disabilities.  Whether he actually had any experience helping someone with a disability was seemingly another thing entirely but the leadership were confident I could direct him appropriately, something which reassured me little. The date of the conference was now fast approaching.

Two weeks later I got the call.  My Dad called out my name to tell me that “Jimmy” was looking for me on the phone.  I nervously drove into the kitchen to take the call.  My Dad had to had to hold the telephone to my ear which made me worry he might hear something he shouldn’t.

The first thing I noticed about Jimmy was his thick Dublin accent.  It was unexpected as I thought it would be a Northerner but nevertheless the sense of familiarity made me more comfortable.  The conversation was short and snappy.  He would be calling at 10 am the following Saturday and driving me up to the conference.   We would be staying for two nights; he had used a hoist before and there was nothing to worry about.  In response I just responded that was fine and I would see him then.

That ended the conversation and I nodded to my father that he could put down the phone which led to him looking at me a bit bewildered.  Seizing the initiative, I then informed of my plans for the following week.

He was concerned but then said he hoped everything would go smoothly.  That it would be good for me to get some time away from things.   It made me feel sick to lie to those closest to me.

Yes that’s the title of what I’m thinking for my latest novel.  It will be far darker than what I’ve previously written.  But then my own life is not going swimmingly.  It will be with relish that I have the opportunity to enter a truly black world.

So the main character or dare I say “hero” in a normal novel will be a contemptuous, vile character who becomes paralyzed in a night of passion with a police colleague.

It is the villain that truly excites me.  He will be based on a mixture of the “Golden State Killer ” and “Jack the Ripper”.

I intend the finished product to be my homage to “Silence of the Lambs”.  It was a true work of terror that I saw on television but never read.  I did read the sequel “Hannibal”.

These works greatly increased my appreciation of the literary arts and it is something I want to emulate and perhaps surpass.

There will by necessity be depictions of extreme violence of all kinds.  Yes I am looking forward to it.

Regular readers will be kept occassionaly updated on progress.

The Horror

It was the serenity I had loved; the silence.  That is except for some branches gently shaking in the wind.  It was only a short distance from the house and used to be a secret refuge.  But now the thought of going there would terrify me. I needed noise to drown out my thoughts.  The shame and guilt for what I had done.  My parents had never intended to raise a monster but that is what had happened.

There was simply nowhere else to go.  My parents were anxious for me to spend some time outside perhaps so they could escape my foul mood.  As if theirs was any better; they barely spoke to me or anyone else any more.  Now the sound of women crying out for their loved ones from the rubble, images of the missing limbs and faces covered in blood permeated my mind.  Surely there are things that can never be forgiven and I must have crossed that point just about an hour ago.

It was never supposed to be like this.  All I wanted was revenge against my sister’s murderer.  Surely after what he had done to her, it was what any decent brother would have done.  But with a crippling condition since birth called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita revenge was to be had by an invisible hand.  The condition caused by multiple joint contractures left me wheelchair bound with only limited use of my hands.  It was a friend from college who first put me in contact with a faction of the IRA that rejected peace.   Blinded by hatred I cared little for the consequences of the alliance I had entered into.

It was only when I tasted my revenge that my thoughts turned to the North.   The Good Friday Agreement had been signed in May which promised a historic lasting peace in Northern Ireland.  Both sides had grown weary of a bloody but low level conflict that had led to the deaths of over three thousand people over twenty years.   On the one side you had moderate nationalists, Republicans including the IRA and the Irish Government; on the other unionists, loyalists including terrorist organisations such as the UVF and the British Government.

There were minorities on both sides which opposed the peace deal.  But its most deadly opponents were dissidents from the IRA.  To them there could never be a peace deal while Ireland remained divided into two different artificial state-lets and British soldiers remained on the island of Ireland.  They saw their comrades as sell outs who had betrayed their country.  The struggle had already lasted centuries; there was no end in sight for them.

These were the people I had become indebted too and I had become an instrument of their destruction.  I had never really thought about it before but planting a bomb and then scurrying away really was a cowardly act.  At least television would give me some indication of my heinous crime; I deserved to be punished.

It was now approaching dinner time so I turned the wheelchair back on and began trundling the short journey home.  The skies were slowly turning grey as I drove horizontal to the front door and knocked on it three times.  My father struggling to smile opened the door and welcomed me in telling me the dinner was ready.

My mother was already sitting at the table ready to help feed me.  Their lives had been shaken to the core by Karen’s death but recently I could feel they were trying to move forward with their lives.  The Gardai had told them that the case had been effectively closed as the primary suspect was himself dead.  They were sure he was the perpetrator and to try to take at least some solace from what had happened even if it was not ideal.

It was a typical setting for an Irish dinner with beans, potatoes and pork to eat with the television in the corner of the kitchen.  My father went to turn on the news as he always did.  It would only be seconds now till their questions would start.

“Alan, wasn’t that the hotel you were at?”

“Did you notice anything odd?”

Or maybe they will tell me how lucky I was, that it could have happened to me.  Probably best to act surprised I surmised and that I was so thankful nothing so awful had happened to me when I stayed there.  Fortunately I had learned I was a good liar..  Not the kind that would let something slip easily.

The Angeles snapped me back from my thoughts.  It lasted the customary sixty seconds and then the news headlines were read out.  I was surprised when it wasn’t the first item mentioned but shocked when there no mention of it whatsoever.  Perhaps the news still had to filter through.  Then at the end there was a brief mention of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting the North for peace negotiations.  The attack had demonstrably failed.

A million different thoughts started to run through my mind.  Perhaps there was a cover up to stop panic breaking out or maybe the bomb had failed to detonate.  Either way things were not good and I could feel a heavy weight on my shoulders..

Perhaps sensing my unease my father asked me if I was alright.  I struggled to reassuringly smile and nod that I was fine.

The news continued till the end without any mention of an attack as I slowly ate my way through the dinner.  Once I was finished I went to check my mobile swinging my arm onto the coffee table where I had left it hours earlier but there were no messages or phone calls.  What did this all mean?  Or maybe, just maybe..

The Zeyons 

 Below is a short story I wrote years ago and was was hoping to expand my science fiction universe.  Let me know what you think!

It was a sudden reversal of fortune.  Humanity had creeped across the Milky Way, colonising one world after another in a seemingly unstoppable wave.  Many aliens had been encountered previously but they had easily been destroyed or assimilated.  But now real frontiers were beginning to form; first the Mullinarians and now the Zeyons. 

The Zeyons appeared to be nothing more than a curiosity at first; robots that had apparently turned on their indigenous masters.  Humans thought they were too few in number to mount a serious threat.  But it was a major mistake; all their assumptions were based on an outpost of the Zeyon civilization.  They didn’t realise the number of planets and the quality of the spaceships under their control. 

It was Corporation Zang who made first contact on the barely habitable planet Moros, a recently discovered planet which was now seen as being ripe for colonisation and exploitation.  It was a carbon world located just outside the galactic centre of the Milky Way which developed from a protoplanetary discs that were carbon rich and oxygen poor.  Oceans of liquid methane flow on its surface covering approximately three fifths of the planet.  The remaining dry ground consists of frozen tar around each pole.  Carbon monoxide is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere and humans would quickly suffocate if not for their bio suits.  The lack of water was the biggest obstacle to human colonisation but it could be created in sufficient quantities through various chemical transactions. 

The ship Zorn was dispatched.  Interstellar travel could still take decades at this point.  On board one thousand female embryos and a massive sperm bank which was kept cryonically frozen until required. 

It was a sudden reversal of fortune.  Humanity had creeped across the Milky Way, colonising one world after another in a seemingly unstoppable wave.  Many aliens had been encountered previously but they had easily been destroyed or assimilated.  But now real frontiers were beginning to form; first the Mullinarians and now the Zeyons. 

The Zeyons appeared to be nothing more than a curiosity at first; robots that had apparently turned on their indigenous masters.  Humans thought they were too few in number to mount a serious threat.  But it was a major mistake; all their assumptions were based on an outpost of the Zeyon civilization.  They didn’t realise the number of planets and the quality of the spaceships under their control. 

The humans had by now perfected their technique of colonization.  As the ship approached the mid-point of its journey to the planet, the first female embryos would be planted into artificial wombs.  They would be born on board on the ship and have reached early adulthood by the time the ship landed.  They would then be fertilised and begin the construction of the first base. 

During construction one of their autonomous flying scouts spotted the first Zeyon.  They immediately recognised that there was another advanced civilization on the planet.  This one was different to anything humanity had encountered previously.  It was an android civilization.  They made no attempt to hide their non-biological nature with silver metallic bodies and piercing red eyes.   

Although they had two arms and legs it was obvious that they were not modelled on humans.  Two small artificial horns protruded from their head and their jaws protruded forwards.  Each Zeyon had strength and resilience many times that of a human. 

For many years the two colonies developed independently on different hemispheres of the planet.  The humans eventually sent a small group to make contact but they were obliterated.  The humans retaliated with a nuclear strike but it was ineffective against their shields much to the amazement of the human colonists. 

The planet went quiet for a time.  Then it was the Zeyons turn to attack.  Their tanks obliterated the human ground forces and they outnumbered the humans in the air where the two sides were more easily matched.  As the Zeyons marched into the cities, they tore the soft human flesh to pieces and the roads of the city became rivers of blood.   

Only a few humans managed to escape off the world.  But their tales of horror went unheeded.  Other human worlds reasoned that this defeat was on a carbon planet, one that humans were maladapted to and that the outcome would be changed on a different world. 

Some also thought that the Zeyons had a specific interest in carbon worlds and they would only be interested in inhabiting the inner galaxy which was a poor area for human colonisation anyway due to the intense radiation from neutron stars, black holes and the massive stars found there. 

Centuries passed and there was no contact between Zeyons and humans.  Then an armada of Zeyon ships entered human space.  Gerta was the first human world to be attacked.  It was a frontier world and its defensive capabilities were poorly developed.  In places the entire blue sky turned black from the mass of Zeyon fighters.  Its cities were obliterated in the first few hours of the attack and then the Zeyon ground trooper hunted down and annihilated the survivors. 

This time humanity took notice.   But it soon became clear that it was too late.  The Zeyons cut a swathe through unprepared human worlds.  The machines could not feel pity and showed no mercy as they slaughtered humans begging for their lives.  If their lasers jammed they would tear them apart with their hands. 

Eventually though the Zeyons cut through the less militarised frontier worlds and came up against more established human worlds which had initially become heavily militarised to deal with threats from other humans but which could now turn their guns on the alien machines.  After much bloodshed the Zeyon advance had been stopped. 

But there was to be profound repercussions.  The main body of human worlds now joined the Galactic Human Treaty.  It was a common defence treaty ensuring neither Zeyons nor Mullinarians could pick off human worlds one by one again. 

The rapid Zeyon advanced led to many individual and groups of human worlds becoming totally encircled by Zeyon space.  The different groups of worlds tended to band together to fight off any possible invasion. 

The individual worlds that were completely surrounded were in a much weaker situation.  Most were quickly invaded and their inhabitants slaughtered.  Some surrendered to avoid bloodshed and became the Zeyons biological slaves.  The few remaining worlds in human control were heavily militarised and of poor economic or strategic value. 

Beta 7×95 was an exception.  It ended up very deep in Zeyon space with the nearest human world many systems away.  It was a world that the Zeyon war plan had for millennia seemed to forget.  It was an oxygen world with oceans of water that covered five sixths of the planet in orbit around a yellow star.    There were two large continents on the planet on opposite hemispheres of the planet called Aba & Cohort. 

Aba was the first to be colonised.  It was originally covered by lush forest which would prove to be excellent agricultural land.  The temperate climate increased its habitability and the human population soared as was originally planned. 

Cohort was never to achieve the same population density.  There was a huge mountain range called Gubak at its centre and its climate was arid and hot.  Only a few mega-cities managed to develop along its coast benefiting from its bountiful seas. 

A New Group of Friends

It was now four o’clock and I had finally finished my lectures for the day and was on my way back to the apartment.  The campus was quite quiet now and I only passed by two students on my journey home.  I went to peer in the window and was very unimpressed by what I saw.  Patrick and Lucy were on the couch gazing into each others eyes.

I quickly shouted out for Patrick to open the doors for me before I witnessed something I didn’t want to see.  As Patrick went to open the doors I could see that Lucy had gone back into her room.

Patrick opened the external door with a large grin but it quickly disappeared when I asked him if he had started to cook the dinner. He replied that he would get to it straight away.  I told him that I would go into my bedroom and study until it was ready.  I noticed that Patrick was wearing cologne and clean shaven so I knew what he was thinking but was unsure how to react.  Hopefully Lucy wasn’t similarly interested.

I spent the time reviewing economic notes but mostly thinking about Statistics  During the lecture a book was recommended so I decided that it was one of the books that I would definitely purchase.  Fortunately Economics seemed to make intrinsic sense to me so I was confident that I could breeze through it.

Then I could hear Patrick calling me.  It was the usual sausages and bacon.  They were quickly devoured and then I told Patrick my plan as he was hoisting me into the air to go to the toilet.  He laughed in astonishment and asked why didn’t I just stay in the flat with Lucy.  I told him that there wasn’t enough time to talk about it and that this was what I was doing.

The reason I didn’t want to stay with Lucy was because it could then be looked upon as her having to “mind” me and this could at worst be possibly used against me in the future. For instance at worst she could lodge a complaint to the accommodation management that she was expected to help me and at best it would sour our relationship over time.  Undoubtedly this would not occur if this was a one time event but it was likely to happen throughout the year and therefore I thought it best to try and cope on my own.  Only time would tell if I am correct.

The bar was fairly empty as I entered.  Settling on a table near the side of the bar I asked Patrick to get me a vodka and orange with three empty glasses so that I could stack them up.  I only liked a small portion of orange as I liked the strong taste of liquor.

On his return I told him to leave the notes loose in my pocket rather than putting them  into my wallet.  This way if I met a friend or someone trustworthy they could easily get at my money if I wanted another drink.  With a small laugh Patrick said that one of the barmen thought him very weird for asking for empty glasses and he had to spend a few minutes explaining what they were for.

Patrick then set up my drink.  The empty glasses were stacked up near the edge of the table and my drink was placed on top.  Then with the use of a straw and me leaning to my left in the wheelchair I would be able to get a drink when I wanted one.  Then Patrick looked at his watch and said he was off and that he would see me next week.

I was now alone and almost immediately I began to wonder if this was a good idea.  But I quickly dispersed such thoughts knowing that it was too late to alter course now.  Sipping from my drink I stated to wonder if everybody would be looking at me wondering why I was in a pub on my own.

But after just a short while with the music blaring I began to feel much more at home.  The barman even came over to ask if I wanted another drink to which I replied yes.  He brought over the drink and took a loose note from my pocket as I had planned and left the change back into it.  The bar was getting busier now with more and more people gradually coming in.  There were beautiful women everywhere I looked in the prime of their lives.

It was a strange way to meet someone new.  A group of lads stopped and started chatting in front of me.  This blocked my view of a lovely group of ladies and when one of them noticed he immediately apologised and asked the other guys to move to mutual laughter.  He then asked my name and told me that his was Casey.  I was happy to have someone to talk to even though I was enjoying immersing myself in the music and getting intoxicated.

Never before had I met a guy called Casey.  Up till then I would have thought it was a girls name and he seemed to sense this when I told him that I didn’t hear him properly the first time.  He continued telling me that it was a name that had been passed down through the generations.  His father and grandfather had the same name.

Casey who was a few years older than me was of medium height and had receding black hair.  He talked fast and incessantly, rarely stopping even for a breath.  I quickly learned that he was an Arts Student studying English and History.  He said that he and the rest of the lads there were out having a few drinks.  Then he asked if I was on my own to which I responded that I was.  Immediately he suggested that I should join them which I nodded in agreement to.

I was then introduced to the other three lads there.  The first was John who seemed quite shy, shabbily dressed but tall and physically imposing.  He was much older than the rest of us, probably in his late forties with his original long black hair visibly greying.  He gave a simple nod in acknowledgement of my presence.

Next was Eamonn who immediately smiled and asked how I was.  He was a typical student who liked bit of craic.   Finally there was Mick, a giant bespectacled man visibly balding who was least six foot three and had a face I thought only a mother could love.

It didn’t take long for the conversation to change to politics.  They had just come from the first meeting of the year of the college’s Fianna Fail Cumann.  Fianna Fail officially called Fianna Fail – The Republican Party are the largest political party in the country but are currently in opposition.  The Cumann are the grass roots of the party and they cover the country.  A national election is expected later in the year which I am quite looking forward to as it will be my first opportunity to vote.

Casey soon queries my own political affiliation.  Nervously I informed him that I joined Young Fine Gael, the youth wing of Ireland’s second largest party and Fianna Fail`s main opponents.  Both are centre parties and in truth little divides them except memories of the Irish Civil War which was now of little relevance to my generation.

However as I had expected my response led to humorous cat calls of “Blueshirt” and “West Brit” from a smiling Casey.

Fianna Fail came from the side that lost the Civil War, cementing the partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State (later to become The Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland.  Fine Gael emerged from Cumann na Gaedhael, whose side had won The Civil War.

I replied that Michael Collins (Irish hero from War of Independence) was my inspiration which shut him up for a few seconds as he nodded in agreement.

He then switched the conversation to what I was studying & where I was staying.  I replied that I was studying Commerce which I was enjoying and staying on campus.  Casey then informed me that he was studying Third Year Arts and that his accommodation was a ten minute walk off campus.

I knew that Casey would turn out to be a good and useful friend when he offered to go to the bar when I had finished my drink.  The bar was now packed and it would take him about five minutes before he would be back to me I reckoned.  I told him that my money was in my pocket and he showed me what he was taking.

Before he left he patted Eamonn on the back and told him to keep me company.  Eamonn is very chatty and after the usual student conversation about college the conversation quickly turns to sport, soccer in particular and we discover that we are both Liverpool supporters leading us to sing out “You’ll never walk alone”.

Then Eamonn rushes off when he spots a girl he knows as if instinct suddenly propelled him away.  For a few minutes I am alone with my thoughts once again staring at my empty glass and starting to feel quite intoxicated.

“So you’re a blueshirt?” quipped John with mock disdain out of nowhere, “What are your thoughts on this so called peace process?”.

“I think it’s a good thing.  What’s the point of people endlessly getting murdered in a war that will never be won militarily?” I replied matter of fact.

When I looked up at him I could tell that he was less than impressed with my response.

“I think it’s a sell out.  They robbed our lands and now we are being sold out!” he replied in a drunkenly.

Then Casey emerged from the crowd with my drink and immediately held the straw up to my mouth so that I could have a drink from it.  He laughed when he heard what we had been talking about telling me that John takes these things very seriously.

John butted in stating Irish freedom was important and that he wasn’t prepared to put his head in the sand like everybody else but Casey just shrugged him off.  Instead he was more concerned about how hot it was getting due to the large crowd in the pub and the that fact that they were only providing plastic glasses.  Seemingly this was the standard practice in the pub when it got crowded in case a fight broke out and the glass was used as an offensive weapon.

Casey didn’t like the plastic glasses at all stating that the pints didn’t quite taste the same coming from them and why should a Student Bar require their use when pubs in the dodgiest and most run down parts of Dublin don’t  This led to a full blown conversation about Student politics.

A committee ran the Student Bar.  The committee was made up of Student Representatives who were elected, College nominees and Bar Staff representatives.  However nearly every the Student Representatives changed meaning that they had to learn everything from scratch each year and only had a short term focus.  Over the years the Bar Staff had gradually won concessions such as the use of plastic glasses.

It was getting late now and I asked Casey what time it was.  Shouting over the music he old that it was now ten thirty.  I felt immediate disappointment knowing that it was now time to head back to the apartment.

Leanne, the Personal Assistant (PA) I was due to meet at ten was in her mid fifties.  She wasn`t fully confident about using a hoist so I had planned on being fairly level headed on my return but that plan was now down the drain.  I had told her that I might be there a bit after ten but I didn`t want to leave it any longer in case she panicked thinking something might have happened to me or whatever else would go through her mind.

With that I told Casey that I had to go much to his bewilderment.  I kept my explanation simple saying that I had to meet somebody, thinking the background noise too loud to try to explain the truth.

“I`ll let you out through the fire escape rather than going through that crowd,” he said pointing behind me.  I had just enough room to manoeuvre the wheelchair round saying goodbye to the other lads at the same time.  Casey had already opened the fire escape door and a burst of fresh air suddenly brushed against my face.

I drove through the fire escape and then turned round.  Casey instinctively grabbed my coat which was wrapped on the back of the wheelchair and threw it over me.  He asked would I be alright getting back to the apartment on my own to which I responded that I would be.  I then said goodbye to Casey who told me that he`d keep an eye out of for me in future before rentering the pub.

It was only now in the fresh air and on my own that I could tell that I was quite intoxicated.  I decided to drive slowly back to the apartment taking care not to drive off a curb.  Fortunately it was only a short journey and I was soon looking through the front window into the main room of the apartment trying to get Leanne`s attention so that she would open the doors for me.

I could see her walking up and down the room for no obvious reason.  Eventually she looked in my direction and held her hand aloft to acknowledge that I was outside and immediately went to open the doors.  She greeted me with a big “hello”.

I made a conscious decision to try and act as sober as possible.  This meant that I would try to say as little as possible because if I spoke alot it would be obvious that my speech was slurred and I likely would make very little sense.  As I entered the apartment Leanne asked me if I would like a cup of tea.  Deciding I should wait a few minutes before having to answer any complex question Leanne might have about the hoist I answered in the affirmative.

Sitting at the table I began to feel a bit light headed and found the room moving around me.  I tried to keep my eyes focussed on the one spot at the wall as I found this helped in previous similar situations.  Leanne asked me how my day had gone to which I gave the terse response of “ok” trying not to go into any specifics.

Leanne held the cup of tea to my mouth and I slowly sipped from it.  After a few minutes I began to feel better but I didn`t finish my cup of tea.  It was as if my body didn`t believe me that there was no alcohol in it.

Then the process of going to bed began.  It was just as well that I was still lucid because I had to remind Leanne what the correct hooks on the sling were and which lever to use to open the legs of the hoist.  However it didn`t seem long before my head was on my pillow and my legs being slowly lowered due to my stiff hips.

It didn’t take me long to fall asleep and I didn’t even notice Leanne going to bed.  I woke up half through the night with my stomach in turmoil.  I knew that I was close to throwing up.  I thought about calling Leanne but was sure she would panic and by the time I would be in a useful position it would be too late.

So I did what I had done previously which was to stay as still as possible and keep swallowing the small amounts of water coming into my mouth as quickly as possible.  This had previously stopped the feeling of wanting to throw up after a few minutes.

Fortunately it worked on this occassion once again but I thought to myself that I would have to be more careful in future about the amount of alcohol I consumed.  It would not have been a good idea for Leanne to have to clean my sick from drinking in the first week working with me.  Then I thought about how I acted when I came back to the flat barely speaking a word and probably looking totally out of it.  Hopefully she didn`t notice or else mind too much.  In any event there was nothing I could now do about it in the middle of the night.

Soon I had fallen asleep once again and there were no further interruptions till the morning.

Chapter 2 – The Student Bar

It was now approaching eight o’clock as I patiently waited with Patrick in the kitchen area of my apartment.  Lucy had left a few minutes earlier to visit one of her friends on campus.  I informed Patrick that it was all right for him to stay in the apartment waiting for me while I went to the pub.  It was only a two minute walk away anyway and I could easily return to toilet anyway if needed or he could come get me in the unlikely event he wanted to.

I knew Patrick wasn’t the sociable or drinking type so even though I had invited him, I knew he would stay in the apartment.  Just as well that I had a television or he would get very bored.

It was now approaching ten past eight and I was growing anxious that Eric might have been delayed. I was growing anxious as I had heard from my classmates that this would be a busy night in a bar that was normally packed anyway because it was the first week of the academic year and many students were flush due to receiving grant money.  However, I need not have worried.

The buzzer to the apartment went off and Patrick quickly went to check who it was.   Eric walked into the room giving me a good hello and sat down on one of the chairs followed by Patrick.  Eric who was casually dressed in jeans and a denim top which was quite unusual for him asked me how I was getting on in my apartment and on my course.  I responded that the apartment was going great and smiling at Patrick told him I had nice Personal Assistants.  After another few minutes of chatting I mentioned that it would be a good idea to go before the pub became really packed and myself and Eric then left.

The Student Bar was adjacent to the Arts Building so the journey was very short and all myself and Eric had time to chat about was how far his apartment was from campus.  Turned out it was a good twenty minute walk away from one of the campus gates which meant that it was quite a distance away.  I thought about how difficult things would be for me if our positions were reversed and it made me even happier about having an apartment so close to everything.

Once the bar came into view I was shocked to see that there was a long queue to get in outside.  I tried to console myself that at least this meant there must be a good atmosphere inside.  Eric joked that he never thought he would have to queue to get into a pub in Ireland which I grinned to in agreement.  It was fortunate that it was a dry night with a dim clear sky.

The Student Bar itself was a very plain rectangular concrete building.  There were windows but it was difficult to look in because the blinds were drawn.  Unusually for a building in UCD it consisted of only a ground floor and had a ramped entrance.  It was very wheelchair friendly which greatly pleased as I was hoping to spend plenty of time there.  Three sides of the bar were adjacent to areas of grass and it was obvious from the litter that students liked to drink outside on a warm day.

The queue moved on at a brisk pace.  The noise of music and of people trying to shout over it emanating through the walls of the bar tormented me as I waited to get in.  Eric checked his mobile phone and then mentioned that the others were inside waiting for us.  I thought to myself that at least mobile phone were of some use even though I could not warm to them at all.  They were now really starting to take off and almost everybody I knew had at least talked about getting one.  The idea of people being able to instantly contact me wasn’t appealing and I didn’t want to be carrying a big awkward phone around with me.

Finally our part of the queue reached the entrance where there a short burly bouncer checking student IDs.  I asked Eric what was the importance of the ID and he quickly responded that the Student Bar as a private bar and you needed to be a student to get into it.  Even though I didn’t have mine on me I wasn’t worried because nobody ever asked me for ID because I was in a wheelchair, or so I thought.

Then Eric stepped forward showing the bouncer his ID to which he nodded and then went to open the door for me.  I drove right behind him past the bouncer and was about to go in when much to my shock I felt a hand go on my shoulder and heard the bouncer requesting my ID.  It was now difficult to turn around to face him as he was right behind me and I was wedged half way in the door.  My heart skipped a beat and I wondered what to do.  I then shouted at him over the music coming from inside the bar that it was in my shirt pocket and would he be able to get it out.  As I expected he responded with “What?” and “Where?”

Fortunately the queue behind me was still long and someone pushing started because of the halt in progress.  The bouncer sensing the situation was getting awkward told me to head in and that he would get it off me some other time.  With much relief I continued into the bar making a mental note to bring my card in future and that maybe people in Dublin were that bit more unpredictable.

The bar was wedged and I was confronted by a wall of standing people.  For a minute I thought that just inside the door was as far as I was going to get.  This was not good.  Eric tried to say something to me but I couldn’t hear him over the cacophony of music and people’s voices.  I tried to shout to him but to no avail and then motioned my head backwards for him to come closer.

He then shouted into my ear that he would go looking for the lads and that he would be back in a minute.  He then left into the crowd of people.  Minutes passed and there was no sign of him.  Thinking that people might think me strange just staying inside the door, I made sure to look like I was reading a poster on the wall opposite.

Then Eric reappeared telling me that everywhere was packed and it was even taking some people fifteen minutes to get served at the bar.  Then he raised his hand pointing to the left side of the bar and said that the rest of the lads were down there.  My heart temporarily sunk knowing that I would have to try and get through the mass of people.

I roared back to Enda that we would try to make it to them.  He was to go in front of me and ask people to move.  Progress proved to be slow but we went forward nevertheless.  On more than one occasion I thought that somebody was going to fall on me but my good fortune persisted.  In truth it would have been extremely awkward to turn the wheelchair around so I had little option but to continue.

Five minutes later we reached the bottom left corner of the bar.  The lads were there drinking away.  Fortunately the music was a bit lower in this part of the bar and I could just about make out what they were saying.  There was Mike, John, Sean and a guy I didn’t recognise.

Mike immediately asked me & Eric if we wanted anything from the bar as he was going up.  I told him that I wanted a vodka & orange.  Before I could tell him where I kept my money, he had darted off to the bar.  Vodka was by now my favourite drink especially when it was mixed with orange.  I found that I didn’t like the strong taste of whiskey and that I had to go to the toilet too often if I drank pints.

Eric who was now standing beside me asked if I was looking forward to the year ahead.  I replied that I was and I hoped that most nights would be like this to which he laughed.  Sean then came over and asked me how I was getting on.  He told me that I was fortunate to be doing Commerce which had only seventeen hours of lectures each week.  He was doing Engineering which took up to forty hours between lectures and tutorials.

Soon my drink had arrived and everybody seemed to be having a good time.  As I looked around and I couldn’t actually see that far in the wheelchair when so many people were standing it had been along time since I had seen such drunkenness.  Deep down I hoped the pub wasn’t always this packed and chaotic as it was too difficult to get around.

The drinks kept flowing and the banter was good.  Eric told me how he enjoyed studying Science so far and how he was looking forward to carrying out experiments.  It was a subject that I would have liked to do myself.  I would have found it far more interesting than Commerce.  However, it was in my nature to plan carefully and I knew that it would be impossible to carry out experiments with my twisted hands.  Equally important I knew that with Commerce I could apply for jobs anywhere whereas with Science it was likely that the jobs would be in specific places.  When one has a severe disability it is difficult to move from place to place and this gave Commerce the edge.

After about an hour I got talking to a girl called Linda who was standing up close to me unable to find somewhere to sit.  She seemingly knew one of my friends from Mullingar and had seen me round the town.  It was difficult to understand her garbled, intoxicated communications but I was impressed with her beauty.

She had short naturally blonde hair, glasses and the ideal height for me; her head was only a small distance above mine while I was sitting in the wheelchair.  The thing that impressed me most was her smile.

After a few minutes of chatting I found out that she was living on campus too and intended to spend as much time as possible in the bar during her first year in college.  Then off she went to look for more beer but not before we promised that we would chat again if we saw each other.  I thought the chances of that happening were quite good considering there were only two bars on campus.

The night was now coming to a close.  The lights switched fully on and the music stopped.  It had been my plan to leave early but it had been far too packed to try and make a quick exit.  It was now far easier to converse with people but that was mitigated by my inebriation.  I told Eric that we would leave shortly.  The crowd was slow to dissipate.  As the crowd dispersed I could see couples who I’m pretty sure couldn’t have known each other more than a few hours snogging on some of the benches.

Then I felt a breeze coming from behind me and over the loud speaker the sentence “please leave” was repeated over and over.  Sean told me that the fire escapes had been opened and there was one right behind me.  I knew that the fire escape was wheelchair accessible so I nodded to Eric that it was time to leave and said goodbye to the lads.

It was dark but still quite warm outside.  Eric and I talked about the nights events but we were shortly back at my apartment ringing the buzzer for Patrick to let us in.  He quickly came out and opened the door.  I said goodbye to Eric but Patrick only just about acknowledged him leaving saying “goodbye” in a low voice which I knew meant that he was annoyed about something.

I had the same schedule for going to bed every night.  First I would park in the bedroom where I would be lifted into the hoist.  Then I would be brought into the bathroom where I would toilet before going onto the bed.  This is where my clothes were taken off and I would put on my pyjamas before finally getting to sleep!

As I waited to be lifted into the hoist I asked Patrick if there was anything wrong.  He replied that he was tired and that he had been up early this morning.  I could tell he was grumpy because I was back a bit late but I was too tired myself to give a long explanation and just let the process of going to bed continue.

As I lay in bed I thought about how exciting my life had now become and the endless possibilities.  It also dawned on me that it would be a good idea to check out the bar during the morning between lectures when it would be fairly empty so that I would know the layout well for the next night I was there.  As I was still quite intoxicated, I fell asleep quickly.

Alcohol had a strange effect on me.  Instead of wanting to stay in bed the next day and rest, I would find myself waking up early and wanting to get up.  This morning was no exception which was quite useful as I had a Statistics lecture first thing in the morning.  Statistics is a subject you had to be fully awake for.  I had attended the first statistics lecture earlier in the week but on leaving the only thing I  had learned was that this was going to be my toughest subject.  Therefore I needed to attend all the lectures in this subject.

As I was guided onto the wheelchair from the hoist Patrick reminded me that he would be leaving at six o’clock and Leanne was coming at ten.  He wanted to know what I would be doing for the four hours that I would be alone but I avoided the question mainly because I had no idea yet.

I knew that this could prove to be an area of difficulty.  I had not received enough Personal Assistant hours so there were gaps here and there where I would be without any assistance.  The other two gaps were in the morning so they were more easily overcome as I would be at lectures anyway and there would be plenty of people around.  Unfortunately this gap was in the late evening to early night which made things much more difficult.  I had tried to organise this gap for the morning too which I originally didn’t think would be a problem but it didn’t suit Leanne so I had to change it.  Personal Assistants were hard to come by because of the poor pay and it was a triumph in itself to get them at all.

It was a damp morning but that didn’t dampen my spirits.  The first thing on the agenda for the day was my statistics lecture.  It turned out to be nearly a totally wasted two hours.  Apart from difficult nature of the subject itself, it was impossible to see the small squiggly writing that was being projected onto the screen from the very back of the theatre .  I had an awful sinking feeling when it was over and I knew I needed to come up with a plan.  Normal distribution curves may be about to become the bane of my life.

The lecture lasted one hour and fifty minutes so I had a ten minute break before my Economics lecture.  Normally I would spend this time chatting to my classmates or even just driving aimlessly around the wide corridors.  But this time I decided to make the short trip over to the Student Bar which was only two buildings over for an inspection of its layout.

It was easy to get out of the Arts Building as there were plenty of Students entering and leaving the building.  However the front of the Student Bar was deserted in comparison.  This wasn’t really that surprising considering it was still early in the morning.

I waited patiently by the door until eventually a student went to leave and opened it for me.  The pub was fairly empty inside with most of the few punters on minerals with music playing over the jukebox.  The inside was similar in appearance to a large shed with wooden chairs and tables.  It had a high ceiling and a long counter where you could get served.  I drove up and down the bar pretending to look for somebody so people would not find me weird but in actuality looking for the easiest routes to get up and down the bar where the chairs and tables were that bit further apart.

Then when I noticed that a girl was leaving I quickly followed behind her so that I could get through the doors and out again.  I now came up with my plan for later.  I would instruct Patrick that my dinner needed to ready by five o’clock which would allow me enough time to eat, toilet and head down to the bar with Patrick just before he went off duty.

There I would get him to order me a drink and with the help of enough glasses stacked one on top of another I would be able to drink out of it on my own when he was gone.  Then maybe go out for a walk after a while and back to the apartment at ten when Leanne would be there.

College Life

Students bustling with life seemingly appeared from nowhere and the wide corridor was soon crowded to choking point.  The serenity punctured by a cacophony of sound created by innumerable small conversations.  It was everything that I had dreamed of – a world full of beautiful classy women and men that I could have an intellectual conversation with.

Then just as fleetingly the crowd disappeared and I was back looking at the dull wall opposite.  This is University College Dublin, UCD; the Arts/Commerce Building in particular.  The year is 1997.  The campus was mostly constructed during the Sixties with the modern architecture of the time.  However, an unloving eye would point out that it looks more like an airport than a university with its rectangular concrete buildings.  It is the largest university in Ireland with a population of at least twenty thousand students, located in the leafy suburbs of Dublin 4.  The Arts/Commerce Building known more commonly simply as the Arts Building is one building among many.  It has seven levels but most of the activity occurs on the ground floor which houses all the lecture theaters; the largest of which can hold over two hundred students at a sitting.  As its name suggests this building is where the lectures are held for those studying Arts or Commerce courses.

My name is Alan,  I’m the young man driving up and down the corridor in his wheelchair.  Today is a day of elation because against all the odds, I managed to make it to college and am now in the third day of my first week in college..  This would be quite an accomplishment for the ordinary guy but for a quadriplegic it is something special.  Born eighteen years previously to a sense of sorrow, it took many operations to make my body take a familiar shape but alas they could not give me the ability to stand alone or to raise my arms enough to feed myself.  Fortunately, the only obvious clue that my disability was congenital was my claw shaped hands.  Harder to notice my twisted hips & impossible to see the metal bar wrapped to my spine to stop my body slowly collapsing onto itself.

This was indeed a good day and I falsely thought that it was as exciting as my life would get.  In a few minutes from now, I’m due to meet to meet the Access Officer of the University.  Nervous but not over awed I ponder what I’m going to say.  I have PAs otherwise known as Personal Assistants organized to look after me but I’m not sure yet how to organize notes of the lectures.  The area for wheelchair users is a platform that juts out at the very back of each theater.  It gives you a panoramic view with the lecturer and the rows of students below. However, if I was to put a table in front of me so that I could write, it would totally block my view of what was happening. Adding to my difficulty, I am unable to write fast enough as well.  The PAs generally are not very educated or patient and it would be a disaster to try and get them to do it.

As I reach the exit door to the building, I estimate it must be getting close to the time of my appointment and I hurriedly turn around and head in the direction of the office of the Access Officer.  As I drive onwards I notice that there is one group of students still hanging around.  They  are situated at what I’ve already found out to be known as “the wall”.    It is a raised area just off the main corridor.

Almost instantaneously I can tell that they are gamers.  The dark clothes and the obvious excitement over cards strewn on the floor are obvious signs.  It is mostly fellas but there are two girls; one of which is quite attractive with long long black hair and a slim build.  I make a mental note to meet them later in the day, being an occasional gamer myself.

It only takes me two minutes to reach the door of the Access Office.  It is away from the main corridor and quite quiet.  A woman’s voice coming from the office is barely audible.  Driving horizontally to the door, I use my good hand to knock on it three times.  I hear a shout from inside that she will be out in a minute.  Of course, this was Ireland & a minute more closely meant shortly rather than any actual measurement of time.  Frustrated I drove away from the door and waited.

I knew that it was important to start off this relationship on good terms so I tried to think of important things that I needed to say and make sure boredom didn’t crush my freshness.  I had spoken to her previously on the telephone and she had seemed helpful and concerned.  Hopefully that was what she really was like and I wasn’t just getting some standard response she gave to people she never actually thought would make it to the college.

After waiting a couple of minutes I hear the door opening behind me and my name being called.  As I turn around the wheelchair I am pleasantly surprised.  The Access Officer who promptly tells me her name is Lucy is wearing a short dress revealing attractive long legs and has short curly blonde hair.  It is also immediately apparent due to her cross eyes that she has a visual impairment.

The office is small and cramped and she barely manages to close the door behind me and get back round to her desk.  After apologizing for the small office which she openly admitted wasn’t very wheelchair friendly, she smiled broadly and with excitedly asked me how my first week in college was going and how I was getting on with my PAs (Personal Assistants).

It crossed my mind to say that it would be even better if I had a PA as attractive as her but decided that it would be better to keep things on a professional basis and my thoughts turned back to business.

I informed her that I was getting on quite well apart from a few teething problem.  My PAs whose names were Patrick and Leanne were lovely people and I was getting on well with them fine so far.  There was a thrill to being in college where so much seemed to be constantly happening and that my main area of concern was in relation to getting notes from the lectures.

Now her demeanor and tone became more serious as she informed me that I would need to speak to the lecturers myself to see if I could get notes from them.  She continued that there were simply too many students with disabilities for her office to organize notes for everyone and that anyway, now that I was in college rather than school I needed to learn to look after my own affairs.

This was obviously a standard response stated over and over every year to new incoming students.  The fact that I had a severe disability with only limited use of my arms didn’t seem to make me any more deserving of attention than the standard dyslexic that the office would deal with.  Finding her response less than impressive my confidence in the Access Officer was waning.

She then turned back to her smile and cheery tone informing me to contact her if I was having difficulties with the flat and also that it was important to contact the office in the run up to the exams in order to meet my needs.

Even though my confidence in her had waned, I made sure that I kept smiling.  She held an important tactical position and it was important to build a good working relationship in case I needed her in the future.  These cold calculations came easily to me from growing up with a disability.

On leaving her office I decided that I would make my way back to Patrick who hopefully would be diligently waiting for me back at the apartment I was renting with another student on campus.  It was ideally located close to where my lectures were to be held and just as importantly it was also near the Student Bar which was the social nerve center of the university.  It was my plan to enjoy the full college experience as well as get a degree which would open options for the rest of my life.

It would only take me two minutes to get back to my apartment.  On the short journey I wondered if Patrick, my PA would still be looking out the window waiting for me.  It was an unusual thing to request of him but if he didn’t see me I would be stuck outside as I wasn’t able to open the doors to get in.  Otherwise I would have had to bring him with me and I preferred to spend some of the time on my own rather than having somebody constantly beside me.  It only was also a lot easier to talk to new people when you didn’t have someone standing mute a few feet behind you.

I had only met Patrick the previous day and still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him.  It was a great relief to find someone willing to do the work though.  But he was quirky and at times seemed unsure of himself.  He dressed shabbily and his fringe had been cut dead straight giving him a somewhat simple appearance.  Not that any of that bothered me.  I had an objective of getting a degree and was prepared to work with just about anyone to help me achieve that aim.

Within two minutes I had reached the exit door of the building.  It looked dreary outside and suddenly the threat of rain loomed large.  The method for getting in and out through an exterior door is simple and usually quite effective – patience.  Another student would eventually come along and open the door for me.  Usually you wouldn’t have to wait long.  This time it was only seconds.

A petite female student who was entering the building kept it open for me.  Only a quick glancing smile was exchanged between us.  I thought to myself that I must think of something witty to say in these situations so that I can get chatting to all the cute girls who open doors for me.

It is pleasantly warm outside with only a light breeze.  But the dark sky hinted at a rapid change.  I immediately sped down the ramp beside the steps that everybody else used and began the short journey back to the flat.  As it was now time that lectures were in full swing the paths were quiet and I didn’t meet anybody on the path.  It would take some time before I would adjust to the place being so crowded and then everybody just dissipating.

As I saw the apartment block where I presumed that I would be living for the next few years I grew a bit nervous wondering if Patrick would be looking out the window.  My flat was on the ground level.  The other two floors were inaccessible; there was a stairs but no lift.  Even the ground floor of most of the other apartment blocks had at least one step into them.  At least I could see a few students in the distance and I could ask them to ring the bell if all else failed.  Moments later came the moment of truth.

As I peered in the window much to my relief I could see Patrick sitting on the TV watching television.  He spotted me after just a few seconds.  I nodded at him to open the door and he leapt up and headed towards the door.  There was actually two doors to open; one for the apartment block and the other for the apartment itself.

As Patrick opened the door I could tell from his smile that something had made him particularly happy and I wondered what it was.  As I entered the apartment I asked Patrick to make me a cup of tea.  The apartment consisted of a combined kitchen/living room, a short hall, bathroom, shower room & two bedrooms.

The larger bedroom was mine and the other belonged to the other flatmate who I still hadn’t met and knew nothing about.  The demand for accommodation on campus far exceeded supply and it was given out on a lottery basis.  However, people with disabilities were given preference.  This was entirely appropriate in my somewhat biased opinion as nearly all if not all the accommodation off campus was wheelchair inaccessible.

Patrick couldn’t contain his excitement for long.  As he started to pour the tea he grinned and told me that he had some interesting news.  I wondered what it could be and even if it was interesting in only his weird mind.  It was however something of note.

He had met my flatmate for the year and it was a woman.  I was a bit surprised but almost instantly thought that this could make my first year in college very interesting.  Her name was Lucy and she has a visual disability.  My calculating mind told me that it was more than mere coincidence that two disabled people were put in the same flat and it was probably the result of a policy I hadn’t known about.

Patrick seemed to be very taken by her and told me with excitement that she was studying music.  She had gone to the shop and would be back any moment.  Now I wondered if he had glanced out the window to see if he could see her coming rather than see if I was outside.

He lifted the cup of tea to my lips but continued talking and I wondered if I would think as highly of this girl as he did.  I imagined that Patrick with his simple ways probably didn’t get much female attention and perhaps could be easily influenced.

Then I heard keys rattling in the door.  For the first time I felt a tinge of nervousness feeling that I should try to make a good first impression but was not quite sure how.  Then the door opened with a bang and in she came and a loud “hello” in an accent that I couldn’t quite place.

She had long flowing red hair & was slightly overweight.  Her visual impairment was immediately apparent due to her being noticeably cross eyed.  Overall she was of medium attractiveness.  But I supposed to an older man like Patrick she was probably like a model.

Immediately with a large smile she started telling me everything about herself.  For instance, she was repeating her second year in college, that she loved music, her favourite programme was “Sex & The City” and that she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do when she left college.  Her course was only starting the next day which was late compared to most students and that was why she was only arriving now.  The fact that her name was Lucy only came towards the end.

In my more terse reply often interrupted by a still excited Patrick I told her that I was in my first year of a business degree, that I was delighted to be in college and that I would do any medium paid job on leaving.

Overall I was quite happy to have her as a flatmate.  The fact that we both had a disability should mean that we could support one another I reckoned but I knew that only time would tell.  After all I didn’t actually have any friends with disabilities so there could be a few holes in the theory.

The lively conversation came to an abrupt end when Lucy informed me that she had to go into her room for a few hours to unpack.  I informed Patrick that I needed to go to the toilet.  This had similarities to a military exercise.

First, I would drive into my bedroom which was quite large even with two beds on each side; there was plenty of room to manoeuvre.  Patrick then got the sling and put it around my body before driving the hoist over and hooking the sling onto it.  It was a manual hoist and Patrick had to move the lever up and down in order to raise me off the wheelchair. Then by pushing and pulling it, he would reverse the hoist out of the bedroom and then forwards into the bathroom.

Then there was just enough room to pull my pants down and hover me over the toilet for me to do the business.  Patrick would then leave until I called him.  Sometimes my mind would wonder and I would enjoy the solitude.  However wait too long and the sling would gnaw at my leg leaving a cutting pain that was only relieved when it was taken off.  My leg would also be numb for a minute on sitting back in the wheelchair.

My mind was now turning to later, after I had attended my final lecture for the day.  This evening I planned to meet up with Eric, a friend from my secondary school days and go to the Student Bar where we would meet up with more old classmates from my home town of Mullingar.  There were two bars for students on campus; one was the Students Bar which was by far the busiest and run by the Students Union.  The other bar is called the Sport Bar because it is part of a sports complex which has a gym and where indoor football can be played.

In truth I was hoping to meet up with new people during my time in college but there was no harm in keeping up with old contacts.  The exception was Eric who I was always happy to meet.  He had a superb intellect and I could talk at length about science and politics with him.  In fact he had been due to go to a different university but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that he had changed his mind at the last moment.  I was due to meet him at eight o’clock

But now it was time for another lecture and my mind turned its concentration to that.  Shortly I would be asking Patrick to open the doors to the apartment once again as I ventu

Sexual Awakening

Lance finally took his eyes off the pages.  He was entranced by the excitement of it all.  Nothing exciting ever seemed to happen to him.  It seemed his life was filled with nothing but intellectual conquest.

His heart throbbed with thoughts of nuclear bombs, war, Mullinarians and interstellar travel.  He pondered how such a thrilling universe could turn into such a boring one and if the humans or even the Mullinarians realised how fortunate they were.

He reaches for his exoset, places it on his head and inserts the cable into the connection in the rear of his head.  He is one again connected to the array.  He decides to do a scan of what has happened since he was last connected.

Through a myriad of headline he subconsciously selects the headline “Oscillations getting longer due to increased energy capture”.

The concept of an oscillation is based on the old concept of measuring the length of time it took a planet to orbit its star.  However it is different to previous Eras in the past because there are no stars to orbit.  It refers to the period when the power is turned on over the planet Europeous.  Night refers to when the power is greatly reduced.  The cyborg population enters capsules which freeze their bodies, entering them into a cryonic state.

A three dimensional video by the Europeous Energy Corporation plays before Lance’s eyes –

It begins by explaining that Europeous consumes a vast amount of energy when it is fully operational and then continues…  However, the Universe unlike in the past when civilization could naturally evolve has no natural energy source.  Therefore it is necessary to almost completely shut Europeous down & let it recharge its batteries through a process called “Void Energy Capture”.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed.  However, as every Europeousian knows the void of space is not completely empty.  Phantom quantum particles of matter and antimatter come in and out of existence countless times every split second.  Even though individually their effect is negligible, it was the gravity that they created which drove dark energy that led to the lifeless universe that currently exists.

In “Void Energy Capture”, through the use of advanced physics, spectrum quantum electro entanglement we separate the matter & the anti matter components.  The matter component is changed to energy through fusion while the anti matter is flung into the vast void of the Universe.

Naturally, this method of generating energy is extremely slow.  Each “oscillation” lasts 5 trillion years.  Of course, in a largely frozen empty Universe time has almost become a conceptual idea.

However, the Europeous Energy Corporation is delighted to inform its customers that each oscillation is becoming 2% longer.

Lance is fascinated and ponders how they could be making such huge energy gains with each oscillation.  He has heard about the Europeous Energy Corporation previously.  They only the employ the best & the brightest, that they’re employees tend to be quirky even by Europeousian standards and that they are zealous in their zeal about energy production.

Lance is then startled by a mail message from Zoe 452.  It flashes before his eyes on the exoset.  It simply reads “meet me at 45847 423865 354 6:24”.  He is intrigued.  It is unusual for him to receive a message but it is exceptional for him to receive a personal message sent only to him.  Normally, it would be a global message set to every citizen of Europeous.

The first three numbers relate to a set of coordinates on Europeous.  Never before has another human requested to meet him at a certain location.  The idea was both absurd & perplexing.  Instant communication through the exoset made one’s location irrelevant.  However, Lance’s curiosity is sparked.

He runs a search for Zoe 452 through his database.  It turns out that she is in his class “Beginning of Interstellar War & its Consequences in the First Period”.  Maybe she wishes to discuss the book he is reading.  This would be troublesome for Lance as he would like to let the story unfold rather than hear about the ending from a third party.

He decides to look up her picture on cosmicface.  It has a photo of every ci-human on Europeous, constantly updated each time the exoset is activated.  She is a tall female with the telltale clear complexion of a cyborg with brown hair protruding from her exoset.

A strange quiver goes through his spine as the thought goes through him that she is almost as pretty as Lucy.

In order to calm himself he accessed the advanced physics course on his exoset to keep his mind occupied.  The thought of the meeting had completely gone out of his mind, replaced by quantum dynamics when a message displayed in front of him – “Time for Meeting – Do you wish to automatically transport or cancel?”

With trepidation his mind selected the option of automatic transportation.

Startled, he found himself in another person’s cell.  It looked almost identical to his, except that the cryonic capsule and chair were in the opposite part of the room to his.

Zoe 452 was sitting in her capsule and directed him to sit on the chair beside her, which he did.

Feeling awkward he enquired why his presence had been requested.

“It is something I hacked into,” she said in a monotone voice while looking vacuously at a bare wall.  She then continued, “And I wish to discuss it with someone.”

Hacking was a serious offence and Lance pondered what to say.  In the end, his natural curiosity won out and he nervously enquired about what she had found.

“I will send the file through to your exoset”.

Lanced accessed the file and then played it.  He was startled.  Before him in a 3-D holograph, there were two naked middle aged bodies, in a capsule rocking back and forth against each other.

After just few seconds, he stopped the program.

“Where did you get this?” he asked incredulously.

She replied that she had hacked into the main public server and had found many other similar occurrences.  It was the ancient form of human reproduction and seemed to be a pleasurable experience.

“And why did you show this to me?”

“Because I thought we could try to do it”, she said in the same monotone voice, except this time looking straight into Lance’s eyes.

Lance could feel his heart pounding and knew he was breaking out into a cold sweat.  His mouth seemed to be jammed closed and he could feel himself trembling.

Unsure what to do, he panicked and did an instant transport back to his own cell.

After a while he could feel himself returning to normal.  He went over what happened again and again in his mind.  He felt himself getting aroused thinking about the naked woman he had seen and wondered would Zoe 452 really have gone through with it.  Would he have been able to go through with it?

For hours these thoughts ran continuously through his mind.  He resolved that he would learn more about this ancient form of human reproduction and seize the next opportunity if one ever arose.

In order to get his mind off what had happened he decided to return to reading about Malthus` exploits.

The beginning

Lance transports into his cell at the allotted time.  The chess games & physics had left him uninspired.  Chess was too predictable & the styles of his opponent’s play defensive and austere.  He tried to play with ambition, maybe even risqué but he could not overlook the computations of his exoset enough to make it interesting.

The physics was still too simple.  It bored him & he could do nothing but anticipate more advanced classes.

Maybe his assignment from his history class – “Beginning of Interstellar War & its Consequences in the First Period” will give him a measure of some intrigue.  A video from his exoset plays in front of his eyes reminding him that it must be disengaged.  It is a replay of his Professor stating that the assignment must be read the ancient way, exoset unaided.

Lance laughed to himself thinking that only in History class would he be given such odd instructions.

He opens the first page of his assignment…

Malthus, a thirty year old man of slight build with long black hair lies face down asleep on his double bed.  Here he is the emperor, a destroyer of worlds.  Nobody challenges his wishes & all the most beautiful women are his.

The room is a mess with clothes strewn across the room.  His T5 laser lies on the table beside his bed.  Then suddenly the serenity is destroyed by the sound of a loudly ringing alarm.    Malthus wearily opens his eyes.

He picks up the alarm off the side of the table & it reads “Code 5”.  It is coloured in a bright red and the searing sound continues.

Malthus now trembles, for he has never seen a “code 5” before.  It was the highest alert of the Galthusian Army.  He pondered if Martan would be the next planet devastated by a World War.  Maybe Venetia or Aridia has launched a nuclear strike!  He knew that tensions had been increasing in the last few months but it still seemed improbable.

He quickly turned off the alarm and began to dress himself.  Peering out through his window he saw nothing except the usual red dust punctuated by the occasional island of plant life against the backdrop of the purple sky.  It was a landscape that rarely changed.  There was no night or starset, because the planet was tidally locked to its star & the vegetation growth was so slow, it felt like even the mountains changed more rapidly.

Deciding to skip breakfast he quickly grabbed his furry coat and his trusted journal; he would need the furry coat for the cold environment outside and the journal to record his experiences, which was a habit he got into when he was young.  He knew that he must make it to Fortress Delta as quickly as possible.

There in front of him was the pride of his life – The Venetion T5 Rapid Movement Hover Motorbike or just “Jane” to him.  She meant more to him than any woman ever could.  Her long slender turbo thrusters & perfect handling led to her being a joy to drive.

He mounted her & pressed the ignition.

It rose off the ground & started to move forward.  Slowly at first but it gradually accelerated to a great speed.  Malthus appreciated the magnificent mountains around him as he quickly sped through the valleys.  He pondered if this would be the last time he would view such beautiful sights.  Also he regretted never leaving the planet to see other worlds & the various aliens that inhabited them.

Then as if to cheer him, he saw some chinews on the slopes of the mountains.  Indigenous to this part of Martan, they were the huge herbivores of the ecosystem, with long necks & massive bodies.  They had been in danger of extinction due to over hunting but conservation efforts had saved them from the brink.  There was always hope Malthus thought.

It took him an hour to reach Fortress Delta.  In front of him stood a sheer, red, dusty cliff face similar to what he had seen many times on his journey.  However, he knew that this was one of many secret entrances to the fortress.

Dismounting his hover bike & removing his helmet, he called out the secret password –

Delta Omega Hornipheus 456794379pb.

A loud noise sprang from behind the dust & a small opening appeared.  Malthus entered, pushing his hover bike just inside the entrance in to a waiting parking space as the opening closed behind him.  In front of him there was a long dimly lit tunnel, clearly made of concrete.  Malthus ran down the tunnel.

After running for 15 minutes, Malthus approaches a lift, which he enters.  Pressing the down button it swiftly brings him a further three miles underground.

As the lift door opens he is hit with a barrage of noise.  It is also much warmer so he leaves his coat on the hanger revealing his grey uniform.

Before him in a large dome like enclosure stood a bustling crowd of high ranking soldiers, engineers & pilots.  They were busy vociferously talking to each others.  Monitors & computers covered the walls.

Malthus spotted his friend Socrates in the distance & Malthus quickly joined him.  Socrates was a mid ranking pilot with a penchant for liquor & prostitutes.  He liked his liquor strong & his women middle aged though he himself was barely in his thirties.  He was pale skinned, had long blonde hair and his white uniform was always exquisite.

Socrates was bristling with excitement and anticipation.  He had always dreamed of a real war rather than doing the tedious training exercises.  In truth he had never really settled on Martan, being from a neighbouring star system.  He was a mercenary, hired because of his skill at atmospheric fighter flying.

However, after work he was always the centre of the party cracking jokes and drinking a voluminous quantity of spirits.

“What’s happening?” queried Malthus hesitantly.

“Man, you are not going to believe this.  The Mullinarians have attached Venetia.  Like seriously, the place is blown to shit.  Its cities have been hit by nuclear warheads, not sure about its military installations yet” says Socrates with nervous excitement, “like shit man how the fuck did they do that?

“But why? – this planet’s gravity is too high & the oxygen content is far too low”, states Malthus assertively.

Then abruptly and in a sharp stinging voice –

Engineers to holding Bay 1

Malthus leaves his friend and joins his comrades in Holding Bay 1.  Due to the sheer size of the base it takes 20 minutes walking down a dark dimly lit corridor to reach it.

Holding Bay 1 is one of 7 hangers that contain atmospheric fighters.  The Zenith 12 is the mainstay of the Galthusian Air Corps.  Although highly manoeuvrable & agile, it is not able to reach low Martan orbit.

The Zenith 12 is sleek, black with two wings, rear rockets and a scramjet underneath.  There is seventy zeniths strewn across the hanger but they are interconnected by the conveyor belt that will bring each of them to any of the five launching sites.

The crowd gathers in the centre of the hanger in front of a podium.  As the Senior Ranking Engineer, Malthus escapes the jostling & goes onto the podium where two generals stand.  They are wearing the traditional green uniform but Malthus sees fear in their eyes.

One of them stands forward & shouts:

“Quiet.  As you are all by now aware the Mullinarians have attacked Venetia.  The first city was attacked approximately two hours ago.  The Venetians have suffered considerable casualties but have started to launch a credible defence.

As things stand Galthusia remains neutral.  The Mullinarians have stated that they were provoked by Venetia & will not attack on any other nation on Martan.

However, we must remain on high alert.”

At this point the other general nodded at Malthus to follow him and they walked into a side room, closing the door behind them.

It was a small and dusty room.  The general sat down behind a desk which had a computer & old papers resting on it.

A table light shone onto the director’s face.

Malthus could now see that his face was covered in scars, with one very prominent scar running down the left side of his face all the way from his chin to the little grey hair that he had left on his head.

Then he spoke clumsily to Malthus “I hear you’ve worked with the, the interstellar X125 ion engine?”

“The XY124 interstellar y drive engine, sir”, said Malthus confidently.

“Was this during your time in Venetia?”

“Yes sir, at the Royal University Cambridgeon, Venitia city”.

The general then said solemnly “You have been assigned for a top secret mission.  The Venetians have the only interstellar spaceship called “Meridith” currently on the planet.  As you may be aware it contains the ion drive engine that you are familiar with.  Seemingly, this ship was on the verge of being decommissioned due to a problem with its ion drive.  All the elite Venitian Engineering Corps had been reassigned to a clandestine research project.

Fortunately three orbits ago, the Venetian Emperor Considine ordered it go into secure storage, while they waited on its successor from the Gutan system.

They now plan on using “Merideth” to reach the reach Ciesta system to request reinforcements.  Unfortunately, it appears that all the other engineers who were familiar with this system died in the first wave of nuclear strikes on Venetia.

It should be clear you by now that Galthusia is not as neutral as officially stated.  A permanent Mullinarian presence would not be acceptable for moral, political and military reasons.”

Then angrily he sighed “Martan is a human world.  Ultimately we cannot concede it to another species.”

Then regaining his composure “Your mission is, with the pilot of your choice to fly on a Zenith 12 to the Venetian base where Merideth has been stored and to make her capable of interstellar travel.

Who do you wish to be your pilot?”

“Socrates, from Elite Squadron X”, Malthus said nervously.

“Go to holding Bay B, he will be waiting for you there.  Be ready to depart in ten minutes.”

The Professor

Emptiness…  There is nothing except this, darkness & cold nothingness.  That is unless you call phantom particles, coming in & out of existence every square light year for but a brief microsecond something.  Where once the universe thrived with glistening stars & mighty black holes has thanks to those beloved laws of thermodynamics turned into an endless uniformity.

But there stands an oasis, a remarkable world.  It is the last refuge of those who refused to leave to the unknown multiverse of the most advanced civilization to have emerged during the near eternity of time since that moment of creation.

Its citizens decided to take the form of the original species – humans.  Speciefication had occurred over the infinity of time, caused by home worlds with varying gravitational pulls and atmospheres.  However, as the era of black holes ended it was decided that the remaining should take one form & it was the only form that was easily agreed upon.  For similar reasons an ancient, extinct language called English was resurrected from the dead.

The last remaining world called Europeous contains a massive population of 120 billion human cyborgs or ci-humans.  It is surrounded by a sphere which contains its atmosphere & light shines from it unto the world below.  It is a city world except for a great forest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Skyscrapers dot the skyline, joined up by walkways.

Lance7154N (Lance for short), a dark haired & pale skinned sixteen oscillation old of slim build awakens as the shutters of his cryonic capsule automatically open at the allotted time to let the artificial light from the biosphere shine through.  He moves from side to side in the capsule cursing his luck, his limbs still tired.  Nan bots flow through his blood making sure both body & mind are at their maximum efficiency.  However, they let him feel tired, even sick to ensure that he conserves precious energy.

His room is austere containing only a plastic chair beside the capsule and a drawer where Lance kept his clothes.  No posters are on the wall and the room lacks any personal touch.  Instead the wall & two doors are a cold light blue colour.

Grudgingly he takes off his pyjamas & changes into his clothes; the white uniform customary to all inhabitants of this world.  However, he still feels naked & light headed.  He goes into the bathroom & looking into the mirror, puts on his Exoset, a large metal helmet that covers one of his eyes & plugs into the back of his bald head.

Immediately the holographic array appears before his eyes.  His mind opens the “Schedule” folder & sees that he has a history class called “Beginning of Interstellar War & its Consequences in the First Period” starting in ten minutes.

Lance knew that the First Period related to the Stelliferous era , a period when stars still shone.  It will be his first time studying such ancient history.  He ponders what it would have been like to live in such a backward era, when life still needed nature to survive.

He pondered if he should use his transporter or instead go for a stroll through the walkways.  He decided that instantaneous transportation would be too fast today as he detested waiting.

The walkways were quiet with only the occasional passer-by.  He laughed quietly to himself, pondering that he was the oddball walker.  He loved to look down at the side of the walkways to the floors below.  He wondered to himself if they went on forever.

Lance reached his classroom with 34.5678 seconds to spare, his exoset keeping him abreast of every minute detail.

The class was being held in the usual auditorium A7789.  It was a large lecture theatre & could hold 600 ci-humans, most of who were now zipping into their seats through transporters.

Lance could see the professor below.  Old, ragged with long white dishevelled hair flowing out by the side of his exoset, he must have been over one thousand oscillations old.

Nervously Lance notices that Lucy is in the seat below him.  She is tall with blonde hair and good feminine features.  Lance has never directly communicated with her but it is her form that he uses for company when he is in the holographic array.  He ponders what it would be like to actually touch her rather than merely have visual stimulation.  Next oscillation he may discover during “Humanity & Relationships” class.

The class started with a white flash in the exoset.  Immediately Lance senses the consciousness of the net.  There are billions of voices, a hive in a netherworld.  His senses close in on the Professor’s communications.

“You are here now but you shouldn’t be.  This Universe should have died naturally a long, long, long time ago.  But intelligence & ingenuity has long altered its course.  The atoms that we are made of did not come from the moment of creation but rather from transmatterification.

The energy that fuels your exoset comes from cold fusion.  We are all an artificial construct.

Even the “gravity” that is keeping our feet on the ground is invented – neuronisation.

But it wasn’t always so.  There was a time when atoms from the moment of creation existed, energy was plentiful from stars & what’s called Newtonian Gravity existed.

Imagine what it would have been like to live during this period.  You could stand on some planets’ surfaces and not even require a biosphere.

This is what you all know as the Stelliferous era , now I know that most students prefer the Degenerative Period or The Enlightenment but imagine what it would have been like to have to rely on natural occurring processes in the Universe.-“

Lance was entranced by what a wonderful Universe it must have been.  To be free from everything having to be so precise, for the Universe to actually provide you with what you needed to survive.

“There was no need for oscillations, energy was abundant.

The Civilization from which we began started in very ancient times in an unknown Solar System in what is known as the Milky Way Galway.   Galaxies were very large collections of stars with a massive black hole at their centres.  The Milky Way Galaxy was just one among billions.   It may be of interest to note that in the Early Stelliforous Period our ancestors would not have known the true extent of the Universe due to their limited technology & the speed of light.

It appears that Space colonisation and exploration began in four different solar systems in and around the same time in this Galaxy.

The four major species that came from these systems were to play a major role in the Early Stelliforous Era.  These were Humans, Zeyons, Laftonians & Mullinarians.

You will learn about Humans & Humanity in separate classes & I will leave it till then.

The Zeyons were a fully robotic militaristic civilization.  It appears that they turned on their biological creators, turning them into a slave class on their own world.  They then began to search the cosmos in the search for resources obliterating anything that stood in their way.

Laftonian civilization was geared towards technological & spiritual progression.  Although not well understood, their devout devotion to their God Loftus & the spiritual leader Lethus who gave Loftus’ directions, led to their name.  Lethus appears to have survived for billions of years.  It is speculated that he spent most of his life travelling at light speed, thus surviving for a very long and extended period.

Physically they were smaller but significantly stronger than the average human.  This is because the homeworld of the species had a relatively strong gravitational force.

Mullinarians were an insect species.  They came from a unique homeworld with an oxygen rich atmosphere, which led to their large relative size.

Physically they had six legs, two of which they normally used for object manipulation.  Fully upright they stood at twice the height of the average human.  They had a significant disadvantage in that even on habitable worlds; they needed biospheres to increase the oxygen content.  This led to their colonisation efforts spreading more slowly.

However they were superb at reproduction with each queen able to produce millions of eggs during her lifetime.  Normally this ability was suppressed through contraception, but it was very useful when new worlds were prepared for colonization or at times of war.

Space Colonization generally occurs in four different phases

1. Different planets within the original system e.g. Pluto in the Martian system.  At this stage colonization is carried out by planetary governments & then corporations.  As the distances & journey time involved are short with relatively advanced ion drives, the colonizers are mostly selected by skill set.  In other words they were specialists in engineering, mining, science and industry.  The spaceships of this time were small but highly manoeuvrable.

2. Neighbouring Solar systems – Carried out by corporations for profit. Genetic selection of potential colonisers started to play a much greater role.  In particular females who have a high probability of having large families were heavily selected for.  These females have a genetic predisposition to pregnancy as their bodies would make them feel euphoric. The Colonisers originally would have been transported in “long ships”.  These were large vessels built for endurance rather than agility.  In the beginning when ion drives were used colonisers would have been transported in the form of frozen fertilised eggs, which would then be implanted into surrogate wombs on nearing the destination.  This was due to the very long time it took to travel between stars.

Later with the invention of the Higher Gravity Drives, this became obsolete as it was advantageous to have fully grown humans on arrival.

3. Frontier Exploration & Colonization – The inhabitants of the outer worlds then through a mixture of immigration and high birth rates then have their own populations to move outwards. They create their own “long ships” and repeat the process. Over a few hundred thousand years the number of inhabited systems vastly increased.

4. Eventually the frontier would meet a barrier. Towards the centre of the galaxy there were impassable collections of neutron stars and black holes.  At the other end of the spectrum, there were the massive voids between galaxies which were an impassable barrier for millions of years.

However, the most common barrier occurred when different species’ civilizations collided.  Pressure would mount on the frontier as immigration & high rates of reproduction at each border would lead to agitation for war.

Later in your cells you will be doing your assignment, which is to read unaided by exoset, a ghost written account of the first interstellar war by Malthus.  You will find your copies on the desks in front of you.

Malthus was the senior ion drive engineer for the Galthusian Army on the planet Martan.  Martan was a frontier world whose star system was bordering Mullinarian space.

Martan did not require a biosphere & it had an atmosphere that was just barely conducive to human breathing with an oxygen content of 4%.  It was tidally locked to its star, a small red dwarf.  It had a mass similar to that of Earth in the original Martian system.

Unlike in the class today, all the inhabitants were pale skinned.  This skin colour was selected for when the first colonisation ships departed because of the very poor luminosity of its star.

There were two other inhabited planets in the system – Phobos (the most outer planet) & Zenith (closest to parent star).  However, these two planets had no atmosphere & the humans lived underground in small mining colonies.

It must be borne in mind that at this time there were no federations of stars & very few planetary governments.  Martan itself had ten different regional governments.  Prior to the war, although covering by far the largest area, the Republic of Galthusia would have ranked third in relation to military & economic might.  It had a large central mountain range covering two thirds of its area.  Most of the population lived in dense mega cities close to the sea.

Its economy was dependent on exporting mining products to neighbouring countries.  Relatively speaking this was an unproductive agricultural planet as plant growth tends to be slow around Red dwarf stars.

The communications from the Professor then abruptly stopped.  Lance then surveys his classmates rapidly transport out of the chamber.

The communications had only taken a few seconds.  He lodged an entry in his exoset to the required reading in ten hours.  He thought about how different & primitive ancient times were.  He felt a strange emotion, possibly excitement thinking about it as he put his assignment, which looked like a few hundred pages into his inside jacket pocket.  It seemed so dynamic compared to the austerity of his existence.

He had an hour to spare before his next lecture.  Maybe brush up on his physics or play some 3D chess over the exoset.  Chess was a useful way to whittle away the odd hour so he logged on.