Current Projects – The Arrow of Achilles

This is a fictional account of a young scientist, Jason Reilly, who is having a break-down. The story begins with him visiting a counsellor who, naturally, Jason doesn’t want to see at first, but soon realises there is no one in the world he can turn to but the friendly stranger in front of him.

Together they are able to peel through the layers of Jason’s life to uncover what has led him to the dark place he feels he is stuck in. From his later years at school, University and the start of a promising research position, they embark on the reflective journey together.

Several things are brought to the surface including relationships with women, the arrival of a son early in life and the unforeseen death of a colleague. But overall, Jason tries to explain how he feels tortured by a ruthlessly ambitious nature and a ‘failure’ to use this effectively through science. His counsellor suspects he is suffering from Impostor Syndrome.

Overall, the novel is an important read for anyone who is struggling with their career – be it specifically related to scientific research or something else. The underlying desire for Jason is to combine a bread-bringing profession with a passionate hobby – a goal which is only achieved by the minority in life – as sad as it seems. It relates to a vast audience in today’s world, briefly exploring aspects of mental health and depression. Whilst these issues are relevant today, they are also timeless and therefore this novel will hopefully inspire future generations as well.

Thetis wished to make her son Achilles immortal, so she dipped him in the waters of the sacred river Styx, holding him by the heel. As a result, he was vulnerable at that point. At the end of the Trojan War, Paris, under the guidance of Apollo, aimed his fatal arrow at Achilles’ only weak point causing the great hero to finally fall.

A breakdown.

That’s what they said I was having.

Me.

A breakdown.

Not me. Impossible.

I couldn’t be having a breakdown. I wasn’t the kind of person that happened to. I’ve seen the kind of person that happened to. I know their style of character. And that’s definitely not me.

What did it even mean anyway? A breakdown. It made me think of a car. A car on a journey, of some sort. With an intended goal – a target destination. There might be good parts of the journey, there might be bad. Wrong turns, diversions, shortcuts and the like. But generally, the car was moving. Moving towards its destination.

But the breakdown. That changed everything. The journey was suddenly interrupted. And the interruption was unexpected. If the car was lucky, it would be able to pull off the motorway before something more serious happened. Before other cars on their own journeys could collide with it or push it out of the way. Once off the road, all it can do is wait. In a rut. For help that will hopefully come soon. The car might be able to continue its journey, if it can be fixed. But the destination is unlikely to be the same. It might even have to go somewhere else first, for a deeper repair. Or it might have to go back to where it started from, because the destination no longer makes sense.

So much was dependent on whether the car could be fixed.

If it could be fixed.

I sat in the waiting room, wondering if that’s what I was here for. To be fixed.

It was a dismal little room, with an unoccupied reception area on one side and a small seating zone on the other. To the right of me, was the door I’d come in not long ago and on the opposite side, another door, through which I guessed the ‘fixing process’ took place. The walls were littered with posters showing things like ‘mental health’ and ‘let’s talk’ written in big letters along with smaller text which I couldn’t read without getting closer.

I was drawn to one though, probably because of its bright orange colour. It had the image of a man, crouched in a dark corner with his head down and arms hugging his knees. In large, white lettering, the caption read: ‘It’s ok to ask for help’. I looked at the face of the man and despite it being cartoon-like, it did seem quite depressed. More than that really, it looked so … defeated.

Was that what I was, defeated? It couldn’t be. Not me. I haven’t felt like that my whole life. And I have so much going for me. A family, a career… okay, so the career is a bit up in the air at the moment. But what in life is perfect? I wasn’t the man in the picture. I couldn’t be. God, when I think back, I was the complete opposite to such a desolate figure. Everybody thought so, especially me.

I wasn’t alone in the waiting room. There was a woman there too, with a kid perhaps around four or five years old. He was busy laying into some chunky building blocks from a box on the floor. It looked like he was trying to build a tower and wasn’t making too bad a job of it. I sort of wanted to help him – make the whole thing sturdier and higher by staggering the layers of bricks in its structure. But he had a very determined expression on his face and I didn’t think he would appreciate my help. I wasn’t sure the mother would have appreciated it either. I started to feel envious of the boy, partially because he had the bricks to play with but more because the coloured tower was the only problem he had to be concerned with.

My own son was around the same age as the boy in front of me. He was five and a half years old and had recently started school. He’s such a great kid. Good-natured, thoughtful and smart. He was actually pretty funny too. Some of the things he came out with had my wife and I in hysterics. Silly things I suppose, which only parents would understand. For example, not so long ago, we were trying to find a parking space in one of those inner-city, multi-story car parks. The ones which spiral upwards and never seem to be empty regardless of the time or day of the week. I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and found myself face to face with another car, the driver angrily waving his arms in front of me.

‘What an idiot,’ I said, looking towards my wife for some moral support. ‘If he would just pull over slightly, I could get past no problem.’

She didn’t say anything, instead just sighed and stared out of the window. We’d been in similar situations more than once before.

From the car seat behind us, in a very matter-of-fact voice, our son said, ‘I think we all know who the idiot is, daddy.’

My wife and I looked at each other and burst into fits of laughter. Our son started laughing with us and the guy in the other car must have wondered what the hell was going on.

The fact that he was such a great kid made it even tougher when I thought about the times recently where I hadn’t been the best dad to him. I’d been short-tempered, made excuses not to play with him and just generally found myself saying ‘No’ an awful lot. Much of this seemed to be on the increase too – it was one of the reasons why Jennifer had been keen for me to take the advice from the doctor and come to this place. In my adult life, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d even been to the doctor, let alone somewhere like this. So she’d had to work pretty hard to get me to come here at all.

I sensed the woman in the room wasn’t here to be fixed like me. Most likely she was waiting for someone. Probably her husband and the boy’s father. I caught her glancing towards me at that point, maybe because of my evident interest in her son’s tower. She would know I wasn’t waiting for anyone. That I was one of the ‘patients’, here to be fixed. Maybe she thought I was nuts. I guessed she was in her early forties, there or thereabouts, and noticed she had a lot of make-up on. She was pretty enough to look at but I had the impression she worked hard to look the way she did – not because she had to but more because she felt she needed to.

The door to my left suddenly opened and a man came out. He very carefully shut the door behind him and looked towards us in the seating area. The woman smiled at him and stood up, swinging a handbag with a golden chain over her shoulder at the same time. The boy was still immersed in his tower-building and didn’t even seem to notice.

The man was a lot older than I was and he was dressed in a grey, crumpled-looking suit. His eyes looked tired through a pair of thin-rimmed glasses and his head was hanging low such that his chin was quite close to his chest. He actually could have been a life-like image of the man in the poster.

In a strange way, it boosted my confidence, seeing this figure in front of me. It was like confirmation that I really didn’t need to be here. I was twenty-nine years old, dressed in jeans, trainers and a t-shirt, whereas he looked like some kind of businessman, with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The woman had to beckon to the boy a couple of times but eventually he relented and gave up on his tower. He glowered at me shamelessly as he passed, the way kids sometimes do, and I managed a small smile in return. The three of them then left and I was alone in the room.

As the ticking of a clock from somewhere became audible, I sighed and stretched out my arms behind my head. I wasn’t having a breakdown. My mind was sound and my body was strong. Sure, a few things had gone wrong lately. I knew that. But that didn’t mean I was having a breakdown for God’s sake. When it was time to go in, I would just apologise for wasting their time and get the hell out of here.

I looked at the incomplete tower in front of me and considered doing some work on it myself.

‘Jason?’

I turned to where the businessman had recently come from and saw another man standing in his place. This one was younger, probably similar in age to myself, and he was scruffy-looking, reminding me of a student from the University.

‘Do you want to come in now?’

I rose from my chair and followed him through the door.

I found myself in a room which looked like an office, with a large desk and two chairs, one on either side. There was also a sofa and I started worrying that he might ask me to lie on it.

He didn’t though, instead sat down at the desk and motioned for me to sit opposite. I obliged, slowly sinking into the chair.

He was also dressed casually, in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. He had curly blonde hair and I noticed he smiled an awful lot, showing off a set of perfect-looking white teeth. I spotted a model of the solar system on his desk and immediately became fixated on it.

‘So how are you feeling today?’ he asked, smiling again.

The model had a central pillar with a large sphere at the top, which I assumed was supposed to be the sun. A series of smaller spheres were connected to the pillar via perpendicular rods and these looked like they were able to move so that the planets could assume an infinite number of positions in the solar system. As I stared at it, the planets were fixed though. Presumably having the arbitrary formation in front of me since the model was placed on the desk.

‘Jason?’

I looked at the curly-haired man in front of me. ‘Sorry?’

‘I asked how you were feeling today,’ he repeated gently.

‘Oh, fine,’ I said. ‘Absolutely fine. I was actually just thinking outside that…’

My voice trailed away to nothing and I stared at the model again. Something was happening inside me, something which I knew was going to be difficult to control.

‘What were you thinking, Jason?’

‘Just that I, well just that I…I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.’

My voice sounded strange and I knew the curly-haired man could hear it too.

‘Maybe we should start from the beginning,’ he said.

His face became hazy in front of me and I knew it was useless to hold it back any longer. Tears started pouring out of me and I put my hands up quickly, to try and cover my face.

‘It’s okay, Jason,’ I heard him say. ‘Please don’t try and hold anything back. I’m here to listen to whatever you need to say.’ But it wasn’t ok. It really, really wasn’t. I did need fixing after all. Everything that happened, it had done something to me, broken something inside. It was like an illusion had finally been shattered and an unwelcome reality was presented in front of me. I wasn’t a God. I wasn’t invincible. I was just like everyone else. And I had fallen. The great hero which I thought I was, had finally fallen.

The Furies were a trio of female deities who delivered the Gods’ version of justice to mankind. They relentlessly drove Orestes to the brink of madness following the murder of his mother Clytemnestra. All seemed lost until the Goddess Athena intervened and insisted upon a fair trial for Orestes. It was eventually deduced that Orestes believed he was killing his mother in order to avenge the murder she committed on his father, Agamemnon. When the trial was concluded, Athena proclaimed the innocence of Orestes and he was finally set free from the torture of the Furies.

I must have cried for two minutes straight.

With the curly-haired man just watching me.

That’s a bit weird if you think about it. Crying in front of someone for a whole two minutes. I mean, you’d expect them to offer some words of comfort, maybe try and put an arm around you or something.

But the curly-haired man did neither. He seemed quite content to just let me get on with it. Had he even told me his name? If he did, I couldn’t remember.

It’s the kind of thing I would have been really embarrassed out before. But for some reason I didn’t care about it now. Part of it might have been the non-judgemental vibe I was getting. The expression on the guy’s face seemed to show that he was genuinely concerned about me. But the bigger part of it was a feeling of not giving a shit about what anyone thought anymore.

I can’t even remember the last time I cried. It was probably when I was still a kid. Sure there’d been times when I’d been sad or upset later in life. But actual crying? That had definitely been a long time ago.

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, trying to pull myself together.

‘You don’t have to apologise,’ he said, smiling again. ‘Please, just do what you need to do.’

I wiped both eyes with the backs of my hands and looked over at him. I attempted to smile in appreciation and took a deep breath. ‘I was actually going to tell you that everything was fine and I was sorry for wasting your time.’

‘I get that a lot,’ he said and I managed a real smile this time.

A short pause followed. ‘Is there anything in particular that you’d like to share?’

‘Not really,’ I answered a little automatically.

‘Are you sure?’

I closed my eyes and thoughts of Boston started flooding my mind.

‘I’m more than happy to listen,’ he went on gently. ‘If you want to tell me of course.’

I took another deep breath. Maybe it would help if I tried to explain it to him. I hadn’t really talked to anyone about it all properly. Not even Jennifer. I knew she wouldn’t understand and I really doubted the guy in front of me would either. But at this point, what did I have to lose?

‘I was in Boston,’ I began. ‘About a month ago.’

I paused at that point because I noticed him opening a small book and reaching for a pencil on his desk.

‘Do you mind if I take some notes while you speak Jason?’ he asked quickly.

I just shrugged.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Carry on.’

‘It was for a conference. Well, part of it was anyway. I’m a research scientist.’

I noticed him scribbling something down. It was slightly distracting but I continued to speak anyway.

‘The conference part was mostly okay, but after that there was a meeting at a company which I went to with my boss, Martin. We have meetings like that a lot, with companies I mean. To try and get them to work with us.’

The curly-haired man just watched me as I spoke. I got the feeling he was going to be a good listener.

‘It was all fine at the start,’ I went on. ‘Like it always is. But it soon drifted into what just seems to be the norm for me these days. When I think about it, I don’t even know if things have ever been different.’

I think I noticed his eyes narrowing slightly and I could tell the curly-haired man was a bit confused already. He didn’t interrupt me though.

‘It was just another meeting,’ I pressed on. ‘But there was so much precedence for what was happening to me that I felt I couldn’t get through another one. I remember muttering something like Martin, I can’t do this anymore, but he didn’t hear me at first. He was just going on about blood testing and how our miniaturised devices were going to revolutionise things.’

The words seemed to be gushing out of me all of a sudden. In the waiting room, just ten minutes ago, I never imagined I’d be sounding off like this. But I had to admit, it did feel good to start letting it out. The fact that the curly-haired man was a stranger to me seemed to make things a lot easier.

‘I tried to interrupt him again, but still he went on. He was talking about resource being wasted by patients not being able to test themselves at home and how it was fast becoming an unsustainable situation for health services around the world.’

I closed my eyes again.

‘It felt so hot in that meeting room,’ I continued. ‘There was sweat on my forehead and it was running down my sides under my shirt too. And my collar seemed to be really squeezing my throat. I tried to look at Martin beside me, but he was gone – the latest spiel had taken him to his feet and he was parading around the room.’

I didn’t say this to the curly-haired man but whilst Martin had been blithering on, I’d actually imagined taking a giant sledgehammer from somewhere and using it to smash the table in front of me, in full view of everyone. In my head I’d been screaming, I don’t give a fuck about any of this – I REALLY…don’t…give…a…fuck! It was a wonder no-one had been able to notice anything from my facial expression at the time.

The curly-haired man started scribbling again. ‘The other people in the room,’ he said, almost reading my mind. ‘Had you met any of them before?’

‘No. Martin might have, but I definitely hadn’t.’

He just nodded so I started speaking again.

‘So then he says he doesn’t want to steal any of my thunder and that I was planning to take them through the design for one of our miniaturised blood testing devices.’

I paused for a moment and waited to see if there was any response from the curly-haired man. I vividly remembered the butterflies in my stomach when Martin had said this and how I’d been thinking, was I? Really? That’s news to me…

‘He dropped this out of nowhere,’ I tried to explain. ‘No heads-up before we went in, nothing.’

‘Does he do that kind of thing a lot?’

‘Yes,’ I said, nodding.

I sensed from the curly-haired man’s expression that he thought it was all just to do with me being put on the spot, so I quickly tried to go on.

‘He told them my explanation would take twenty minutes or so and then we would get into the health service discussions in more detail.’

I stared at the model solar system on his desk for a few seconds. ‘It was unbearable,’ I muttered.

I remembered Martin just standing in silence next to a white board, holding out a pen. Around ten pairs of eyes, including his, were directed towards me. They were like lasers penetrating through different parts of my body.

‘Why was it unbearable, Jason?’

‘Because…’ I started, but then changed my mind.

The curly-haired man was just staring at me and I could tell he was trying to understand.

‘I don’t have an issue speaking or presenting to anyone,’ I said. ‘If anything, I’m probably over-confident. Yes, Martin was putting me on the spot. But that wasn’t it. Like I said, he’s done that plenty of times before.’

I was definitely down-playing things here. I have confidence and ambition coming out of my earholes. And a fire in my stomach which always gets me through situations like the one in Boston, no problem. But Boston seemed to be the end of the road for some reason. Something different had been going on in my head, like some mysterious force had taken hold and I couldn’t shake free. I didn’t want to use my confidence anymore, not for research anyway.

‘These other times with Martin,’ he said. ‘Were they generally the same kind of situation?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Well actually, no, not really.’

‘Do you have another example?’ he asked patiently.

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to explain things to him. I wasn’t even sure I understood it all myself.

‘I guess in the academic world there are lots of big personalities around,’ I said.

‘Like Martin?’

‘I suppose, but he’s definitely not the worst.’

The curly-haired man’s eyes seemed to narrow again with that look of trying to understand.

I decided to try and tell him about something else.

‘Martin introduced me to this old Professor once, at another conference. I’d just been talking with some PhD students around their projects at the time.’

‘You have a PhD, don’t you Jason?’

I nodded.

‘Which subject?’

‘Chemistry.’

I noticed him scribbling away again. ‘Please, go on,’ he said.

‘So he brings this Professor over to me who; do you know that way when you first meet someone, they just give off an impression of being dominant?’

The curly-haired man didn’t commit to an answer, instead just pursed his lips and rocked his head from side to side.

‘I actually have a bit of a strange habit when it comes to people,’ I said.

‘Oh yes?’

I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether I should share another part of myself with him.

‘It goes without saying that anything we discuss here is confidential, Jason.’

‘It’s not that,’ I replied. ‘It’s just a bit…personal.’

‘Just try and relax and treat this as an informal and friendly discussion,’ he said. ‘I’m not in any position to make judgement. My main job is to listen.’

For some reason I looked over at the sofa again and still didn’t fancy the idea of lying on it.

‘When I meet someone for the first time,’ I started, ‘I sort of categorise them based on their general behaviour.’

There was no immediate reaction from him so I continued.

‘I just use little things: body language, facial expressions, personal habits, that kind of thing. And how they act around others. That’s usually quite a big clue.’

‘What sort of categories?’

He seemed interested more than anything else which encouraged me to go on.

‘Well, there are five in total. And each one has a mythological figure associated with it.’

‘Interesting,’ he said, still with no derision in his voice.

‘So there’s Zeus – the dominant, strong character. Right or wrong, they are sure to make themselves heard. Then there’s Hermes – bright and energetic but usually unable to remain settled for very long. There’s also Athena – probably the most intelligent but not the strongest physically. Ares has to be watched closely. Intelligence is there but usually there’s a selfish reason behind whatever they are doing. Lastly there’s Hephaestus – one of the more gentle characters and usually unable to take the lead or make important decisions by themselves.’

There was a short silence as the curly-haired man seemed to be digesting my summary of the profiles.

‘These characters are all from Greek mythology, right?’ he said at last.

‘Yes. I know it probably sounds a bit weird.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Character profiling is actually a very big field. Okay, I’ve never come across a version quite like yours, but I can sort of identify with the categories you mentioned. Can I ask how long you’ve been doing this?’

‘Assigning people into the categories?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, a long time, I don’t actually remember. I guess at least since primary school.’

‘So quite a young age then.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you think the Greek mythology link came from?’

‘I’ve actually thought about that before. I’m pretty sure it was because of a project I did at school when I was around six or seven. The characters just really seemed to stick in my mind.’

‘That’s really interesting,’ he said. He’d been scribbling away quite a bit in the last few minutes as I was speaking.

‘Does the sex of the mythological character have to match that of the person in real life?’ he asked.

‘No. It’s more to do with the qualities. Ares is obviously a male figure but can be applied to both males and females, as long as the character fits.’

‘I see.’

‘I remember being disappointed when my teacher told me we had to move on from the Greek mythology topic,’ I added. ‘Maybe that’s why the character assignment thing has really stuck with me.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘So when you assign someone to a category, does it ever change as you get to know them a bit better?’

‘Normally not,’ I answered. ‘I usually get it right the first time.’

‘So this Professor you mentioned. I’m guessing he was a Zeus?’

‘Yes. I remember him seizing my hand and barking, Jason, good to meet you.’

The curly-haired man smiled.

‘Martin introduced him to me as Professor Uhlemann. I’d heard of him before because he’s quite a big name in our field.’

I suspected the curly-haired man was probably wondering where I was going with this so I was keen to continue.

‘He asked me what I worked on and I told him it was around the miniaturisation of medical devices. I remember him sort of snorting and asking if I could be more specific. By then I definitely knew he was a Zeus. I tried to explain a bit further but he just didn’t seem to be having any of it. He asked a couple of technical questions and I knew he wasn’t happy with how I answered them. Martin was standing there the whole time which also didn’t help.’

I sighed and closed my eyes briefly.

‘I just remember his face; the old Professor’s I mean. It was so close to mine and his eyes seemed like they were trying to detect a weakness somewhere. He was so, choleric. I knew it didn’t matter what I said, he was only going to disagree. He’d pushed me out of my depth and he knew it too. It made me feel stupid. I think that’s what got to me the most.’

I noticed the curly-haired man writing something in his book again and I wondered what it was.

‘So what happened next?’ he asked me.

‘I tried to change the subject and asked him if he was enjoying the conference. I remember him just giving me a look like someone had wiped shit under his nose. Martin started speaking to him after that, not before giving me one of his disappointed stares of course.’

‘Disappointed stares?’

Yeah,’ I said a little sadly. ‘I’ve had those a few times. He never actually says anything but I always know what he’s thinking.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I don’t know, like I’ve let him down? Like I should be doing better? Or that I should know more than I do?’

‘If he’s never actually said any of these things, how can you be sure that’s what he’s really thinking?’

‘Some things don’t need to be said,’ I muttered. ‘And that old Professor, when I realised what he was like, I couldn’t even be bothered trying to convince him of anything else. His only interest was stamping his authority on the conversation and heaven forbid anyone should find something worthy to challenge his ideas. I knew I didn’t have the technical knowledge to tackle him. Not like Martin.’

I remembered how the old Professor and Martin moved away from me after my interrogation. The Professor motioned his arm into what Martin must have assumed was a handshake, but there seemed to be some confusion between them and they ended up linking arms awkwardly before walking away in a bizarre fashion, neither apparently willing to correct the mistake.

‘How long before Boston was this, Jason?’

‘A few months, maybe more.’

‘And it ended up being a similar situation? You felt inferior, technically?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe that was part of it. But it wasn’t just that. It was, I don’t know, something else.’

A short silence was all that followed.

‘How did you get on with giving the overview that Martin sprung on you?’

‘Sorry?’

‘He asked you to describe the design of a medical device?’

‘Oh yes. Well that’s just it, I…I couldn’t go through with it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was going to, at first. I got up and started to walk towards him – Martin, I mean. He had a pen in his hand; I guess he thought I would need it to sketch on the whiteboard or something. But as I reached up to take it, I froze and just stared at him instead.’

The curly-haired man was staring at me himself now and I could tell he was eager to hear what I was going to say next.

‘I was thinking to myself, this is it. I just kept repeating that in my mind, this is it, this is it. From the look on Martin’s face, he clearly had no idea what was going on. I said again that I couldn’t do this anymore. I said it quietly at first and then I repeated it in a louder voice so that everyone in the room could hear me.’

‘That must have been really hard for you, Jason,’ the curly-haired man said as some tears started rolling down my cheeks again.

I don’t know if this was because I was reliving the moment in Boston or because I felt some kind of emotion from the look of understanding finally creeping into the face across from my own.

‘It was, I mean I…’

But I couldn’t form any more words in my mouth.

‘Please, take your time.’

‘I haven’t spoken to Martin since,’ I stuttered through more tears. ‘I just walked out of the meeting and…’

‘And what, Jason?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I think I’ve ruined my career forever.’

‘I’m really not much of a crier normally,’ I said, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands again.

‘It’s actually quite good for us to have a proper cry from time to time,’ said the curly haired man. ‘It’s amazing the number of people who just won’t give in to it.’

I tried to picture him in floods of tears. For some reason it wasn’t that difficult. He seemed to be the type. I also remembered that I still didn’t know his name.

‘What did you say your name was again?’ I asked.

‘Darren,’ he replied.

Darren, I repeated in my head. He did sort of look like a Darren.

We sat in silence for a few moments and then I said, ‘I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.’

‘You mean with Martin?’

‘Martin, work, research in general…’ I closed my eyes and rolled my head back until I was looking at the ceiling. I could actually feel my heart racing a little, maybe because I’d never said any of this out loud before.

Darren seemed to be reading back on some of the notes he’d been taking. ‘I’m struggling a bit with what drove you to walk out of the meeting the way you did,’ he said. ‘And the old Professor you mentioned; of course I don’t have the technical expertise, but it doesn’t seem like you said anything particularly wrong?’

I kept my eyes closed and just shook my head.

‘Perhaps there’s a bit more to this?’ he said.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ I muttered.

My head felt like it could explode from the sea of thoughts swirling around inside. There were things in there I didn’t want to talk about. Things which were difficult to even think about when I was alone. But then again there was something about speaking to Darren which seemed to feel good. I’d already cried in front of him so a major obstacle had been removed between us. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but maybe I could share some more with him.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

I opened my eyes at last and looked at him. ‘There is more to it.’

When I didn’t speak any further, Darren said, ‘Why don’t we step back a bit, Jason.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I wouldn’t mind hearing a bit more about your childhood, if you’re happy to share of course.’

I shifted around in my chair as I wondered what my childhood had to do with anything. I had heard however, that people like Darren tended to ask about such things, perhaps to try and find hidden meanings and past connections. It felt good though, to divert from some of the other thoughts in my mind.

‘There’s not really much to tell to be honest.’

‘What about your parents?’

‘Fine,’ I said, slightly perplexed. ‘They’ve always supported and helped me as best they could.’

Darren didn’t say anything in response so I continued. ‘I don’t really remember being unhappy or in need of anything in particular as a kid.’

‘What are the earliest sorts of things you can remember?’

I tried to think about this for a few seconds. ‘Probably just primary school and stuff – I don’t really remember much before that.’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

‘No.’

I noticed him scribbling again briefly. ‘Does anything in primary school stick out for you?’

‘Well, I mentioned the Greek mythology stuff,’ I started. ‘I guess in general, everything seemed to be fun and I never really found anything to be that difficult.’

‘Did you ever try and categorise your parents with the Greek figures?’

‘Yes,’ I replied quickly.

I think he was a little surprised at my abrupt answer but I’d actually characterised my parents a long time ago.

‘They’re both in the Hephaestus category.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Mainly just because they’re quite accepting and content with life,’ I said. ‘Sometimes my mum can be a bit Zeus-like and my dad shows signs of being an Athena, but overall, yeah, Hephaestus for them both.’

‘Do you think you are much like your parents?’

‘Not really,’ I said, answering a little too quickly again. I thought he was going to ask me which category I would place myself in, but he didn’t.

‘And why is that?’

‘I’ve always had this kind of ambitious streak inside me – more than that actually, it’s like a burning desire to be better than everyone else.’

I realised I was sitting bolt-upright in my chair as I was speaking, so I sank back down a bit.

He was writing again. ‘Where do you think this ambition came from, Jason? Can you remember roughly when it started?’

‘I don’t really know,’ I answered truthfully. ‘I suppose at school, I never seemed to have to try hard to get better marks than everyone else and teachers would always tell me things like I’d completed projects really well or say that I was going to go far. That type of thing. Maybe it all just went to my head.’

‘Was it the same in secondary school?’

‘Pretty much,’ I admitted. “Especially in subjects like History, English and other languages. I think the fact that I enjoyed them so much made things a lot easier.’

‘I suppose if teachers always had students who loved their subjects, their jobs would be a lot simpler,’ said Darren.

I nodded thoughtfully.

‘So you were always popular with your teachers then?’

‘I think so,’ I replied but then smiled as I remembered something. ‘Sometimes I took advantage of that though.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘There was this maths class when I was in first year of secondary school. Maybe it was second year actually. It was being taken by a student teacher – he was probably a little older than I am now.’

I’d thought about saying a little older than we are now – assuming that Darren was close in age to me. But as we’d been speaking I still wasn’t sure. I doubted he was younger but in terms of how much older he was, I really couldn’t tell.

‘He made some comment about me being unusually pale and to try and get out in the sun a bit more. I’m sure it wasn’t supposed to be nasty or anything but at the time I was really offended. After that I found myself hating everything about him. I stopped listening to what he said during the lesson and when we were left to complete an exercise, I just stared out the window. Ironically, the sun was shining on my face the whole time.’

I continued smiling to myself.

‘What happened after that?’ Darren asked.

‘He came up to me and asked why I hadn’t done anything. I was hoping he would – I’d even left my blank jotter at the edge of my desk to make sure he saw it. He said something like, what have you been doing for the last thirty minutes? I remember the class turning their attention on us – surprised probably, that I was going to get into trouble. I think this encouraged me even more.’

It was hard to tell what Darren was thinking at that moment, as he was looking at me with a very neutral expression.

‘I said I was getting some sun like he’d suggested, and started looking out of the window again. He told me to drop the attitude, so I played dumb and asked what he meant. He just repeated what he’d said before and I told him I didn’t think his earlier explanation of the lesson was very good. I could tell he was getting irritated – he even looked like he wanted to hit me at one point.’

‘Hmm,’ said Darren as he made some notes.

‘He didn’t of course,’ I said. ‘But the class were enjoying themselves – I’d brightened up a boring maths lesson for them. Plus, I’d kind of got back at the teacher for annoying me at the start.’

‘I guess you were in your early teens at this point?’

‘Yeah. He told me he was going to speak to Miss Fairweather when she got back, but that didn’t bother me at all.’

‘She was your regular teacher?’

‘Yes. And she liked me a lot. She used to tell me that it didn’t matter what I ended up doing in life –whatever it was, I was going to do well. I knew if it came down to my word against the student teacher’s, there was only one way it would go. I don’t know if he said anything to her but she did ask what I thought of him afterwards and I told her I didn’t understand a lot of what he said. He probably ended up with a pretty bad review.’

‘How did that make you feel Jason?’

I just shrugged. ‘At the time, I didn’t really think about it. Now it makes me feel a little guilty I suppose. Maybe he ended up chucking teaching altogether.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Darren. ‘If he did, he probably wouldn’t have lasted long in the profession anyway. Something like that must be quite trivial compared to other things teachers have to put up with.’

‘You never know,’ I said a little darkly. ‘Small things can really end up changing where we end up in life.’

‘How would you feel if it was the case that he gave up teaching?’ he asked. He didn’t do so in an accusing manner, instead still kept his neutral expression.

‘I wouldn’t like to be responsible for something like that,’ I said quickly. ‘Unless I indirectly saved him from ending up in a profession he didn’t want to be in.’

‘You mentioned a couple of times that you enjoyed the attention of your class-mates during all this,’ said Darren as he looked through his notes. ‘Do you think that kind of thing is important to you?’

‘People have asked me that before,’ I admitted. ‘Not specifically for that time but for other things. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought of it as being important to me.’

A short silence followed.

‘Your point about small things having a bigger impact on life,’ he said. ‘That’s quite a deep thing to say. Do you think you are quite a reflective person?’

I thought about this for a few seconds. At first I wanted to say no, but then I started thinking about Boston and how I’d sat on a bench next to the River Charles for ages after I walked out of the meeting. The river flowing calmly in front of me seemed to have an effect. I thought about lots of different things but mainly the meeting which had sent a vapour-like fear through my body.

Sometimes I like to imagine that if thoughts are deep enough, the mind leaves the body completely and goes to wherever the setting might be. It can stay there too, provided it isn’t interrupted, only being restored to the ‘lifeless’ body when the thought is finally extinguished.

I remember the sound of a cyclist’s bell returning my mind to its body on the bench and presently I found myself just staring at Darren sitting opposite me.

‘I suppose I can be reflective sometimes,’ I said.

He must have thought I associated something negative with this admission because he said, ‘That’s not a bad thing, Jason.’

But I just sighed. ‘What if you’ve done some things you aren’t proud of?’ I muttered.

Darren looked at me in silence. I don’t know why, but I knew at that point I was going to tell him everything. And whether or not he would be able to help me, remained very much to be seen.

Due to a host of cunning tricks in both this world and the other, the King of Ephyra, Sisyphus, was sentenced to the eternal punishment of pushing a huge stone up the slope of a hill only to have it roll down again the minute he reached the top. Then the whole process had to be repeated from the beginning.

I often consider a PhD as a journey of three stages, each of which is accompanied by feelings and emotions which are proportional to the individual undertaking it. Probably anyone who has been through the experience will be able to identify with this journey to some extent; the period of time spent at each stage may vary somewhat, but the stages themselves are actually quite definitive.

The first one is the, I’m going to change the world stage, where enthusiasm is high, energy is brimming and any initial mishaps are quickly forgotten as it is foolishly believed that time is plentiful and the end is far on the horizon.

The second stage is a form of depression. This may not extend to the medical definition but all students will suffer from it at some point. Initial plans don’t seem to be going anywhere, routine activities are being carried out, which can hardly be described as earth-shattering, and it’s difficult to see a conclusion to any piece of work worthy of advancing the field. There will be feelings of frustration, monotony and sometimes, deja vu.

The third and final stage, is where light begins to appear at the end of the tunnel, and a period of productivity is entered at last. I’m fairly convinced you’ll find it challenging to find a PhD graduate who won’t admit that had they known at the start what they knew at the end, they wouldn’t have needed the same amount of time to complete the whole thing, if they were to be presented with the luxury of doing it again. The last twelve months are generally the most productive and normally an individual is thinking purely about thesis chapters and pulling results together. More knowledgeable decisions and efficient execution of research activities tend to lead to the best results at this stage too. Moving from stage two to three is make or break for a PhD student and if this cannot be initiated, that is when they are most likely to quit. Some people may say they’ve never experienced the ‘depression’ of stage two but it’s highly likely they’re not being honest with either themselves or anyone else. They may very well have passed through the valley much quicker than the majority, but they will definitely have been there at some point. It is therefore important for a researcher who has stalled in the often Sisyphean-like stage two, to take comfort in the fact that even the very best have been in a similar position before them and yet have still managed to emerge successfully.