{"id":81,"date":"2007-10-23T20:13:23","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2007-10-23T20:13:23","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T20:13:23","slug":"paragons-people-7-of-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"Paragon’s People (7 of 11)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The door opened an inch and the poet\u2019s eyes peered around the side. \u2018Oh, it\u2019s you,\u2019 he said. \u2018Cool. This the lady? The more the merrier.\u2019 The student noted the sarcasm; none of the group were particularly happy with him bending the recruitment rules. But all rules are the undoing of man<\/em>, the student thought, and a rule is a rule is a rule.<\/em><\/p>\n

The poet opened the door and let the student and his girlfriend into the thinker\u2019s flat. Inside were the rest the group, huddled on the floor around a game of Monopoly \u2013 the musician, the cop\u2019s daughter, the athlete and the thinker himself.<\/p>\n

He stood up, moving awkwardly beneath his tired and torn beige leather jacket that was far too big for him, and moved to shake hands with the student\u2019s girlfriend. \u2018Hello, hello. Welcome to our group of like-minded young Americans.\u2019 The poet coughed. \u2018Well, mostly Americans, we\u2019ve been infected with Europeans too. We call ourselves One Flew Over The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest.\u2019<\/p>\n

Each one introduced themselves to her. The thinker said he did nothing for a living, which was how he liked it, jilting the system that was happy to smother him in its bosom. The student still hadn\u2019t the faintest idea how the thinker subsisted.<\/p>\n

It was then the musician\u2019s turn. She parked a short denim skirt at the top of her polished and waxed legs, and wore a childish yet playful top with a picture of a smiling rainbow. She explained that she played the piano although her parents wanted her to be a geneticist, so decided to run away from home and play music in the street, in bars, anywhere people would listen to her. Animated and lively, the student loved her positivity.<\/p>\n

The cop\u2019s daughter was the musician\u2019s antithesis. Wearing a long, crumpled, grey trench coat, hiding every inch of flesh, her sentences were stiff with tension and flecked with hints of a larger story. She introduced herself as the daughter of a cop and then, after spotting the cross around the student\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s neck, her words stopped dead.<\/p>\n

The athlete took up the slack and said he was a lecturer in the meteorology department at the university, and while he looked like a lecturer in his conservative suit and tie, he was hoping to quit soon as he enjoyed running and hurdling much more, especially since all the new regulations and came in trying to turn universities into an \u2018extension of church\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018The rules,\u2019 the thinker said, \u2018are what we\u2019re all about. I formed this group and we continue to get new members all the time. Like your schizoid boyfriend here.\u2019 The student was a little taken aback. \u2018Oh come on, don\u2019t give me that, you freak. We don\u2019t know if you\u2019re coming or going. There\u2019s something up with your head, alright.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hey,\u2019 said the student, \u2018I have a lot on my mind. I have to consider whether I\u2019m going to give up on my education.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oi, stupido,\u2019 shouted the poet from behind them, still acting the doorman. \u2018Give up and do what? I\u2019m not quitting my course. Don\u2019t make a grand show of things just for the sake of it. Bloody purpose, that\u2019s what you\u2019re missing, dingbat. The others here have chosen their paths.\u2019<\/p>\n

The student\u2019s girlfriend interrupted, pulling at the student\u2019s arm, \u2018What do you mean give up on your education? You wouldn\u2019t get finish your degree? Do you know how stupid that is?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Whoa, whoa!\u2019 the student shouted, under siege. \u2018I\u2019ve hardly been to any lectures recently. I\u2019ve nearly missed a few of the three tens-\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oooh, big man,\u2019 said the poet, moving past him to sit down at the Monopoly board. \u2018I\u2019ve slept through morningten for two months.\u2019<\/p>\n

The thinker put his hands out towards both the poet and the student. \u2018Now hang on, guys, our lecturer here will back me up on this one. It may seem like happy-go-fuck-lucky days now, but you\u2019re all being observed. Your behaviour is important. That\u2019s why we meet in my flat rather than out in the open.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I think that\u2019s a little paranoid,\u2019 the girlfriend said. The student noticed her eyes glance up with unconcealed disgust at the giant poster on the far wall which he hadn\u2019t seen before. It was a pornographic image in which a sultry model was stretching out her labia, forcing the viewer to look right down her hole, a deep red abyss that was nightmarish rather than sexual. Probably a European import that had been smuggled through the trade restrictions. The model\u2019s name, printed across the bottom in cursive type, was \u2018Lady Liberty\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s true,\u2019 the athlete said, starting down at the board with disdain. \u2018You\u2019re all being monitored. Homeland Security is all over our shit these days. The tens are more than just praise for Mr. MIA up above. They\u2019re using it to isolate aberrations, non-conformance. There are worse rumours coming down the pipe than that, though.\u2019<\/p>\n

The student was alarmed, not thinking that more than his peers might be scrutinising his activities or lack of, and the silence that came over the room emphasised the seriousness of what the athlete had just said. Why hadn\u2019t he said something like that before? Maybe he had and the student just hadn\u2019t listened. Your schizoid boyfriend.<\/em> Pull your head out of your ass!<\/p>\n

His girlfriend ended the silence, gesturing towards the board. \u2018Are we playing a game here or what?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The door opened an inch and the poet\u2019s eyes peered around the side. \u2018Oh, it\u2019s you,\u2019 he said. \u2018Cool. This the lady? The more the merrier.\u2019 The student noted the sarcasm; none of the group were particularly happy with him bending the recruitment rules. But all rules are the undoing of man, the student thought, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}