[ON HOLD] LOVE ME LIKE ART

2

— ZACHARY "ZEUS"
A. CHOI  🙂‍↔️

I'VE ONLY EVER wanted to be one thing.

A lawyer.

To be part of those illustrious stories I heard, from my dad Atiko growing up, on what it was like live and breathe in that chaos where two days were never the same.

He propagated that it was a job of discipline and if I had any ill discipline, I should try my hand at something else. It would be a job that would bleed and rival my own affairs, no matter how studious or intentional I am about creating some sort of balance. It would be a job that could twist my spirit, push me to the brink with little rescue where the only thing I could do was to get up and go again.

I understood all the reasons why he felt he had to dissuade me and instead encourage that I take up a career in something that might better suit my adventuring spirit. He was part of that commune, that fraternity, that brotherhood. He had seen the chinks in my own armour and felt whether he believed it or not, that I wasn't ready. At 17, I was nonchalant, the way most teenagers transitioning in young adulthood often are.

But my mind always returned to this flag post.

It felt like an impossible dream of mine that would torture me like a black shadow. It felt like a tempting wedge of meat dangled in front of me, silently taunting me with all the ways I would never be able to have it.

I had waited weeks for my admission letter in the post to the University of Manchester, my dad's alma mater. It was a university that could boast that its lawyers were all the very best—a growing legion of reputable district judges, criminal and civil barristers and solicitors that were transforming the landscape of the legal profession.

I waited by the window sill, the same way that a gregarious child waits for Father Christmas—hoping to receive their letter offering me their congratulations. The bitter, painful truth is that letter never came. All the times I sifted through the post for that envelope embossed with the institution's seal felt more like a puncturing dream, rather than the reality. Instead, what came was a painful corridor of silence. To me, that was the worst part of it all. Because, it cruelly kept my hopes alive that the letter might come and that it was merely lost in the post, whilst a letter offering me their regret was definitive. It would be like a door slammed shut, a balloon punctured by a prick of a needle, a car crashing on impact.

I remember not being able to wash down that feeling. I remember feeling like I had to think about what else I could do because it was law at Manchester, nothing else. I hadn't even consider the possibility of the ducks not falling in a row. The reality that I might not fit the mould, the scope of what they expect. It was sobering. That's the grave reality about dreams, they're stubborn in that they don't always follow the tale you prop up in your head.

And so, I had to sit with that thorn of rejection.

That was the day that my dreams felt implausible. Impossible.

But, as I sit in this glass corner office that offers me sweeping views of the city's bustle, I realise that those dreams have bloomed into bountiful fruit. I am all the things that I told myself I would be.

A lawyer. An advocate for fairness and justice. Part of a legion of lawyers, furthering the profession—just not crafted at the University of Manchester.

I envelope the handle of my mug of black coffee. It is a nutty-brown elixir, no sugar, no milk. It wafts up towards my nose and brews hot lines of steam.

I am poring through this divorce brief with passages and passages of legal text that require my input. My client is hoping to come to some sort of financial settlement against the respondent who is her absent, pending ex-husband. He's offering her alimony to recompense her for her role as home-maker, as she gave up hers to facilitate his.