The Easter vacation on campus is an odd time. Walking about there’s never very many people, which is isolating and yet somehow creates a sense of community between the people left. It’s such a change from the 10-to-the-hour, like-clockwork rush of people going north and south up the spine of campus. The main square still has some signs of life, with the Library keeping odd hours outside of term-time and the smattering of shops and banks with their doors sometimes open but not to be relied upon to be so. The odd studious person dotted here and there in the Learning Zone but working at a much less pressured pace. They might have important assignments due after the break, or several exams to study for, but everything and everyone here seems to move at a much slower pace once those 10 weeks of term are over and done with.
There’s a strange mist currently clogging up the view out of my window, making everything foggy, as though I’m looking at the world through sleepy and unfocused vision and I just need to blink to wipe it all clean. Everything is quiet. Everything is slow-moving at the very least and still at the most likely. Yet time still ticks on and the signs of daily living still flicker occasionally. A kitchen window is opened letting the smells and sounds of cooking escape, a light in the room opposite is flicked on as its inhabitant returns, a sudden burst of laughter or a phone ringtone pierces the air. It’s an oddly heavy kind of stasis and it lulls you into a false sense of security that maybe, just maybe, time has stopped after all.
The Terror of Knowing 