Hades' Halls

September - The Underwhelming Joy of Freshers - Part 1

The road was not a long one, in fact, if you were going by geographical terms, it was relatively short. The downside (if one can excuse such an outrageous pun), was the gradient. It was one of those streets that the cosmic designer of hills, when sitting down at their desk one morning with a poor cup of coffee and a foul mood, disgruntled at having been posted to the simple matter of topography, cracked their knuckles and decided to make it hard for humankind.

This was made all the worse when the temperature was at a record high for the usually conciliatory month of September; especially if you happened to be lugging three suitcases, carrying two large gym bags and a rucksack on your shoulders and holding a plastic Tesco bag which had twisted so that circulation had been lost to three fingers on your right hand. Difficulties would also arise if you had not been to the gym in well over a month.

Put all these things together and you will get a chap in the shape (or perhaps out?) of Seb Caddel. The usually suave, handsome lad was a rather worrying shade of freshly cooked lobster and was no longer wearing any clothing not saturated with sweat. If he had the hands to wring his now dark blue t-shirt out, he could have filled a bowl.

Seb could not form sentences in his mind, let alone speak, but a series of images did run through his head as he struggled up that hill. There were his parents sitting at the kitchen table, their expressions desolate. There was his room, clothing sprawled everywhere next to open bags. There was Seb, scratching his head wondering if it was worth packing light. There was Seb throwing clothes into his bag and caution to the wind. There was Seb, telling his parents not to worry, that he could get from Norwich to Exeter on his own, no problem. There was Seb, rather wishing he had been born with a little less bravado.

What he really needed, the pictures in Seb's head said, was an angel. Seb knew this to be an impossibility and it was indeed rather unlikely at this point, but the universe did send him the next best thing.

"Crikey, that's a fair bit of baggage. Give me a couple of those suitcases and one of those bags. It's not much further to the top."

Seb gasped his thanks as helping hands relieved him of much of his burden, including the torturous Tesco bag.

"Come on", a voice called from in front of him. "It really isn't far."

Seb had to believe it. Head down like a plough horse, he followed the pair of ox blood docs as he pushed himself to make it to the top.

As the ground evened out, Seb threw himself and his baggage to the ground in relief.

"Watch it", his guardian angel said as Seb's suitcase decided to go for a jolly back down the hill.

All Seb managed was to make a lacklustre grab for the suitcase as its wheels started rolling.

"I'm going to have to go back down", he thought. "Then up again. I can't".

Fortunately, he was not required to. The pair of DM's rushed past Seb where he was sat upon the ground and a exulted voice cried out, "Got ya!."

"Thank you", Seb said as the runaway suitcase was laid at his feet.

"Anytime", said the girl, holding out a hand.

Seb took it, expecting to shake the hand of his saviour but was instead hauled to his feet by a grip more suited to a heavyweight champion than that of a girl with a height on the wrong side of average (Footnote 1). 

"I'm Georgie", she said, now shaking his hand. "Are you staying at Persephone's Grove?"

That was an awful amount of information for Seb to take in at that point, his brain currently feeling like an egg left unattended in the frying pan for too long.