“Good morning, lads.”

  Both scientists looked up. Through the swirl of smoke, they could just make out The Rector’s sunny expression as his head hung out of his office window, suspended by a set of gloved hands.

  “Come on up,” he said. “Watch your step on the second floor.”

  As the two scientists walked inside, Ewen made one more grasp.

  “Just give it some thought,” he said. “I’m the most published professor on campus – maybe even the state.”

  Whatever Graham said next was lost under a calamitous bang that may or may not have been military-grade explosives. His face, though, was shaped like an expletive.

  The building was a war zone, but then again, what university wasn’t.

  “At least The Rector sounds chirpy,” he said as they reached the second floor. “Watch your feet.”

  Two of the steps had been removed so that the two scientists had to hold onto the already wobbling railing and heave themselves upwards. This was no easy feat for a man of Graham stature despite his martial arts training.

  “Just the men I wanted to see,” said The Rector.

  His face was shaped like a birthday cake.

  “Please, come in and take a seat…if you can find one.”

  His office was, like the rest of the building, somewhat out of order. Most, if not all, of his academic memorabilia and plaques, had been thrown out the window along with close to all the furniture. As for The Rector, he was hunched up in a corner with his wrists and ankles bound in electrical tape and a gag hanging loosely around his neck; for now at least.

  “So,” he said. “Good news and bad news.”

  Graham hated this game. Nowhere near as much thought ever went into the good news as went into the bad news. He pulled this card on his children all the time.

  “Funding’s been cut?” he said.

  “Aren’t you the negative Nelly?” said The Rector.

  Beside him stood a group of masked youths, their faces covered in coloured scarves. Neither one moved a muscle while The Rector spoke.

  “So the good news is, amongst other things, the university will be changing its admittance policies.”

  “Ok?” said Graham.

  One of the youths thumped The Rector as if to say, “Carry on.”

  “It’s a changing world,” said The Rector. “One for the better I’d say.”

  He looked around the room for validation but it wasn’t coming.

  “That’s ok,” he said to himself. “Well, in these wonderful progressive times it has come to light that higher education, in general, has, for too long, adopted an unfair and exclusive practice – one articulated and inaugurated by rich white men.”

  One of the youths coughed.

  “Straight, rich white cisgender men”’ said The Rector correcting. “I thought I said that?”

  He was reading from a script that was being held by one of the youths.

  “So, to continue… The university has adopted an inclusive only stance and as such, we are looking to distance ourselves from a growing trend amongst other institutions - cognitive privilege.”

  “Cognitive what?”

  “Privilege,” said one of the masked youths.

  “I.Q, like skin colour, like sex….”

  “Like bone density,” shouted one masked youth.

  “Like bone density,” said The Rector, correcting himself. “Is something one is born into and cannot correct through merit alone.”

  “Merit is abuse,” shouted a masked youth.

  “Excuse me,” said The Rector, genuinely apologetic. “You see how important words are? Did I tell you I did an online course in neuro-linguistic program…?”

  “Stick to the script.”

  “Yes, mam,” he said. “I mean, sir. I mean…”

  The Rector meant well, but he could never get to the point. There probably was no good or bad news; more than likely it was a bait and switch to talk about a new goldfish he had bought or some song lyric he had learned that he had thought was something else.

  “Call zer ze,” declared one masked youth.

  “What?” said everyone else.

  “Zes gender neutral pronoun is ze. Call zer ze.”

  “Who is zer?”

  “Ze.”

  “Ze is zer or is zer ze? This is quite confusing,” said The Rector. “Like learning how to knit. Which one is the object pronoun?”

  “Zer is the oblique pronoun,” said one of the masked youths, stupefied and enraged that he or she or ze should even have to explain. “As in, Ze is speaking with Zer. And that’s oblique pronoun, not object.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said The Rector. “People are not objects.”

  The masked youth stood staunch.

  “Now I don’t want to be a stick in the mud,” said The Rector. “But what about adjectives then? I wouldn’t often say my wife is a handsome looking gal. So are there gender-neutral adjectives too or should we avoid being gender descriptive altogether?”

  The masked youth whipped his forehead.

  “Read the script.”

  “Could I quickly use the bathroom?”

  “No!”

  “Okie dokie,” said The Rector. “So, uh, not to favour those not born with higher cognition, the university is adopting a new evaluation principle starting immediately.”

  “Which is?” said Graham.

  His face was shaped like the end of a rope.

  “Well, instead of marking on comprehension, you will mark on effort. The same goes for university admissions.”

  “So what does this mean?” asked Graham. “No grades?”

  “Well….” said The Rector, tentatively.

  “Everyone gets a diploma,” said the whole gang of masked youths.

  The Rector smiled. It was an unsettling kind of smile. It looked forced. It looked rehearsed. It looked as if he were passing a kidney stone.

  “It really is a great time for academia,” he said.

  “What’s the good news?”

  “Haha. Very funny.”

  None of the masked youths agreed.

  “Funding, right?”

  “How long have I known you, Graham?”

  “Is it the funding or not?”

  “The Ethics Committee,” said The Rector.

  “The kid was fine. Nobody got hurt. You were there. You all bloody-well saw.”

  “It’s more than what happened to that poor girl, Graham.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “Diversity,” said one of the masked youths.

  “What?”

  “All your participants were white,” said The Rector.

  “They were volunteers!”

  “I know. I’m on your side.”

  Again, The Rector was thumped.

  “I can understand your side,” he corrected. “It’s just the committee sees that not enough effort was done to promote the trial, per se, to black trans non-binary women – for example.”

  “Fine,” said Graham. “Fuck it, whatever.”

  “Don’t be like that, Graham. Positive words make positive change.”

  “Fuck them and fuck this university.

  “Graham!”

  “No, fuck you too. Fuck these sensitive bitches and their brittle fucking spirits.”

  Enraged, the masked youths broke out into song.

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones,” they chanted. “But names demoralize me.”

  “Listen to them,” shouted Graham, as if waking in the middle of a drunken bender. “How the hell did we let this happen?”

  “I’ve been offended,” shouted a masked youth, falling backward onto the floor.

  “I’m out,” said Graham. “I’ve had enough. This is not education.”

  “Feelings matter,” said The Rector.

  “They do,” said Graham. “But how I feel is my damn responsibility, no-one else’s. If you’re sad,” he said, pointing his finger at the gang of children. “Pick yourself up. If you’re uninspired, read a fucking book. Stop looking for offence and then choosing to be damn offended. It’s on you how you feel. You’re a grown-up, bloody well act like it. Nobody owes you a damn thing. Universities aren’t about safe spaces and inclusion; they’re about being courageous in the face of doubt and criticism. They’re about rigour and backbone, and standing up to peer review, not against it. Diversity is more than skin colour and how you fuck; it’s about cultivating a rich collective of diverging and opposing ideas for the sake of furthering knowledge; not some stand-alone virtuous ideal. What good is diversity if everyone thinks the bloody same?”

  Their chanting continued; “Sticks and stones may break my bones but…”

  But this time their faces were saturated in tears and most, if not all, looked as if what they needed most of all were their mummies.

  “I quit,” said Graham. “I’m done.”

  And he stormed out.

  Isaac followed him, unsure really if it meant that he had quit himself.

  “What are you gonna do?” he said, barely keeping up.

  For a man of generous girth, Graham moved like a gymnast.

  “I’m going home,” he said. “I’m going home.”

  Isaac watched Graham as cleared out his desk, looking at years of research despondingly as if they were all the wrong thoughts he had spent all his best years worrying about. What he could, he tore to shreds, and the rest he just piled up in bags to throw in the trash.

  “So this is it?” said Isaac.

  He sounded young, hopeless, and scared.

  “I guess so,” said Graham.

  Whereas he sounded as if he had no idea.

  Carrying what mattered – which was very little – Graham stopped at The Professor’s office and lightly tapped on his door. The Professor was sitting in his chair, lost in thought it would seem, admiring his favourite colour.

  “Funding’s been cut,” said Graham.

  “I heard,” said The Professor. “Quite unfortunate.”

  “Yep,” said Graham. “That pretty much sums it up alright – unfortunate.”

  “So is this a farewell?”

  “I guess so, yeah.”

  “It was excellent to do science with you.”

  “Just wish it had worked out better. But yeah, thanks for your help.”

  “It was all my pleasure,” said The Professor, turning a small glittering pink crown – a pageant crown - round and round in his bony little hands. “Do not go quietly into that good night,” he exalted, in his boisterous yet venerate way as the two men shuffled woefully out of the building.

  Track 29 (Yellow)

  “So why again are we doing this?” asked Mary.

  They were a world away from suburbia, driving in circles through an industrial estate where, on one side of the road, a pack of dogs cavorted, driven mad by the smell of a bitch in heat, while on the other, a chorus line of prostitutes, all of them with neon faces, lifted their skirts and dazzled the drunks on the sidewalk and the taxis and trucks that drove by.

  “We’re creating memories,” said Graham.

  “And what sort of memories, exactly, are we trying to create? You do see the guy shitting in a bucket, right?”

  They had been stopped at a red light for maybe a minute or so but with all that was going on around them, it felt indecently longer. The afternoon sun and the broken air conditioner only made things worse.

  “That’s gross,” shouted Isabel, leaning over her brother to see a little better.

  “Hey, stop stepping on me.”

  “I’m not stepping on you.”

  “Yes, you are. You just stepped on my hand.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too. Dad, Isabel’s hurting me.”

  “Isabel, don’t hurt your brother.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Ok, well, Nathan, don’t lie.”

  “I didn’t. She did.”

  “I did not.”

  “Well, one of you did.”

  “I did nothing,” shouted Isabel.

  “You stepped on my hand.”

  “Ugh! I was just trying to see; gawd.”

  “See? No, kids, don’t look,” shouted Mary desperately. “Shut your eyes.”

  She, herself, was aghast at the site; so much so that she couldn’t look anywhere else – no-one could for that matter. There, on the grassy knoll neath the overpass, squatted an uncouth bearded vagabond, defecating into a yellow plastic bucket.

  “He’s waving,” said Nathan.

  “Well don’t wave back!”

  “Too late,” said Isabel.

  The two kids were glued to their window, waving to the man who, as if ignoring the laws of physics, hovered over the little bucket and, with both hands waved back; the smile on his face honest and endearing despite all the missing teeth.

  “This is not what I thought you had in mind when you said to go on a little drive.”

  “How was I supposed to know? It’s not like they mark out whores on the bloody map. We’re nearly there anyway.”

  “Jesus, Graham. Where is there?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I can see. And we’re all quite surprised.”

  “You’ll see when we get there. Trust me.”

  “All I see are carpet stores and warehouses. That and well….you know.”

  “Trust me,” said Graham.

  “Yep, you said that already. Anything worth saying need only be said once.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just an expression.”

  “Did I do something?” asked Graham.

  He half felt that he had so he was only partly enraged.

  “Why do you say that?” said Mary. “Are you feeling guilty about something?”

  “What? No.”

  “You always respond with ‘what’ when you don’t have an answer. And you don’t have an answer because you’re guilty of something and you’ve just been found out, and you haven’t had time to think up a lie or an excuse.”

  “What?”

  “See?”

  “You’re insane,” shouted Graham. “I haven’t done anything. I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “Well good then.”

  “What do you mean good?”

  “I mean just that – good.”

  “Well do you believe me?”

  “Should I?”

  “Of course you should,” he said before looking lost and confused. “Do you?”

  “Graham.”

  “What?”

  His face was shaped like a baby turtle.

  “I love you,” she said. “I was just playing with you. Of course, I trust you. I’m still here aren’t I?”

  “You suck.”

  “I know,” she said, smiling subversively. “Now, for the love of God, can you please tell me where we’re going because if I have to see one more…”

  “There,” said Graham, pointing to a giant lot of storage sheds. “We’re here.”

  Then he pulled into the first parking spot he could find. His fingers jittered with felicitous nerves whereas Mary’s were constrained, gripped by fear and apprehension.

  “What is it?” she said.

  There were fifteen or so garage doors, all of them graffitied and kicked in except one; its door was bent and twisted sure, but unlike the others, it was open and though light poured in, it did little to illuminate whatever was inside.

  “Video library,” said Graham.

  “A video library? That’s it? That’s what we’ve been driving around for all morning? A video library? I didn’t even know they were a thing anymore.”

  “They’re not,” said Graham. “That’s what makes this place so special. It’s the only one.”

  “I’m bored,” said Isabel.

  “Me too,” said Nathan.

  “There isn’t anything to do here. Can we go home?”

  “What are you on about?” said Graham, pleading – already knowing he had lost. “We haven’t even gone in yet.”

  “I know, but this place is boring.”

  “I wanna go home too,” said Nathan. “I wanna play computer games.”

  “Oh come on guys. You haven’t even given it a chance.”

  “Just did,” said Isabel. “It’s boring. I’m bored. Let’s go.”

  They were barely a foot outside the car and already both children were entrenched in their positions and unlikely and unwilling to be swayed either way.

  “I don’t care if you want to go in or not,” said Graham, asserting himself. “We’re going in and you’re going to enjoy it.”

  “If they don’t want to go in, Graham….”

  It was clear he had no authority.

  “Alright fuck it,” he said. “We’ll get ice-cream on the way back.”

  “Yay,” said Isabel. “Actually I always wanted to know what a video library looked like inside and now we get to go inside one – it’s like a paradox.”

  Then she ran in with her brother, disappearing in the darkness. Graham and Mary followed but with a great deal more hesitance.

  “What’s that smell?” said Mary.

  There was a funk. It was hard to pin down. It was as musky as it was sweet; as if a leaky sewage pipe had been blocked up with a clump of potpourri.

  “That’s the nineties,” said Graham, strolling through the store.

  The shed was packed with racks that were stacked from floor to roof. There were DVDs on one side, VHS on the other; and crate loads of CDs and vinyls piled up in the corners. There was even a towering glass cabinet, like some holy monument, in the middle of the way and stacked from top to bottom and on all sides with small rectangular cassettes.

  Graham stopped at every rack and ran his hand along every cover, mumbling the names out loud with a sense of urgency, as if he only had minutes to find a title before it was time to go home.

  “We used to go to the video library every Friday, just before then news came on.”

  His face was shaped like a gramophone.

  “We’d always be in a rush,” he said. “Dad would always be tapping at his watch or just blatantly yelling at us to hurry up and choose. But the video library on a Friday was better than any other day. Dad would always choose two new releases and he left us to pick out the weeklies.”

  “You know all these movies are online, right?”