ABSTRACT
Everybody needs a vista on the world, and this is mine. A bright airy office lit by lamps huddled in every corner of the room, three desk lamps hugging the corners of the desks not covered in paper, six more lamps standing tall and proud with chrome and off-white shades, one with a white paper shade billowing out, giving out a dull glow, lighting the dead misshapen twigs emerging triumphantly out of a chrome bin. They look as if, even in death, they are stretching out for life by the window in this warm cocoon of an office. There is an old-fashioned clock on one wall, which ticks loudly; it looks old, like something from the fifties, chipped and white and blue, the colour of old-fashioned crockery, but it is a modern copy, a cheap copy already with flaking paint, which somehow manages to make the sound of the original. It is loud and regular in its beat, marking out time, but you can only really hear it when you listen carefully, and you notice how tinny it is. It is a modern, bright office, without the normal strip lights, efficacious and efficient; the noise of the computer whirring in the room makes the whole room feel alive. That’s the sound I prefer, the sound of activity and life. I like the glow when students enter the room. It’s like coming in from the dark and the cold, into the light and the warmth. They always say the same thing, ‘It’s very cosy in here.’ ‘I live here,’ I say, ‘it has to be.’
