Something Bad is Going to Happen by Jessie Stephens

Author:Jessie Stephens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2023-07-27T04:50:01+00:00

23

Jake

Two-and-a-half years ago

All he can hear is the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the kitchen clock. The house is dark, everyone asleep, and he is hunched over his laptop, a small crack in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Ready.

He leans back, interlacing his fingers behind his head. Sighs. Leans forward again, hands cradling his forehead, his face illuminated by the glow of the laptop screen. There are dozens of tabs open, the computer seemingly groaning from the weight of it all. But now, this is the only window that matters. His cursor hovers over the word ‘submit’, written in big, bold capitals. His finger twitches over the mouse button, but he doesn’t press down. The deadline closes in nine hours.

It has taken him more than twelve months to get to this point. In three weeks, he will turn twenty-seven.

Applying to a Bachelor of Architectural Design, he realised months ago, was to subject the dream to potential failure. Without filling out the forms, the fantasy would persist, and there would be a future in which he succeeded and became something greater than he ever could have imagined.

But one Thursday, as he sheathed, in the same way and with the same plywood as he had done hundreds of times before, he felt like he might go mad if he had to get out of bed and do this all over again.

He had grown accustomed to spending most of his days playing mind games trying not to look at the time. Waiting for the smoko. Waiting for lunchtime. Then the afternoon would arrive and he’d wait for the clock to crawl closer to three. He would feel a sense of elation when he was free to go, but by the time he got home he would feel so tired. So depleted. He’d scroll through his phone or watch stupid videos that were sometimes funny but mostly not really. Then darkness would fall and he would go to bed, putting off sleep for as long as he could because sleep was a fast track to morning, and morning was work.

Another panel. Repetition. The same thing. Again. His supervisor was always watching, seeing him not as Jake but as a set of unidentifiable hands.

He would never be able to articulate how this felt to another person. Another panel. Without innovation. Or creativity. Or risk. Another panel. The labour suppressed everything about him that was human. Or different. Everything he did was on another man’s watch. Every day he arrived feeling less himself than he did the day before.

He knew he could not do this for another forty years. It was not a choice so much as an imperative. A survival instinct.

It was a portfolio, he discovered, he’d have to submit. He didn’t get the marks at school to even get close to being accepted into university. Ten pages of ‘visual evidence of creative ability’. Even if accepted, he’d be facing at least five years of full-time study, sacrificing income for ambition.

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