Unnamed Project Styles

Prologue

University to you has now turned into a routine. Albeit an interesting routine but still a routine.
First year, fresher's week, your mind fills with possibilities of your exciting new life. You're 18, living away from home, a new set of people, a new place, a new you but it quickly changes from that. Your dingy student flat quickly becomes home, new people quickly become familiar ones, new places become regular hide outs and the so called "new you" becomes an updated version of the "you" that you were before.
Second year, you're settled. You move out of the dingy flat and you now rent a house. You still have your routine, the only changes consist in the form of your lecture timetable.

You spend Monday morning sleeping off the faint hangover, every week promising that you will not drink next Sunday and attend the Monday morning lectures that you always somehow miss. Monday afternoon brings you to the same dimly lit coffee house just off Deansgate. It's small, it has cheap coffee but it does the trick. On a Monday this is what you needed, what you craved.

Tuesday, you attend your lectures. Monday night drinking had never been your thing. The alcohol that still runs through your bloodstream begs you to have a night off and you reluctantly fulfil your body's wishes. Tuesday evening brought cheap take away food from Pizza Time, although the shop had failed multiple health and safety regulations the food was cheap and good.

Wednesday provides the same intellectual stimulation that Tuesday does. Lectures come and go. You spend Wednesday morning flirting harmlessly with the cute blonde sat in front of you in American literature studies. She has a boyfriend. This never stops you, the game keeps you alive. You have no end goal, you're destined to lose but the faint blush that occasionally appears on her cheeks gives you all the satisfaction you need. Wednesday night is karaoke night. Cat, Josh, Imogen and Luke drag you to the same run down bar. Paint peels off the walls and the same drunk shouting about the episode of Coronation Street sits at the bar. He reminds you that life is merely a routine. Everyone has their own. By 10pm you stumble up to the mic, you have only had three pints but your tall lean figure had never provided you as a good place to bear drink. You find yourself slurring the words to Champagne Supernova while Cat complains to you about how the Oasis classic is the only song you ever do. It's the only song you know that the old machine has. Lyrics would often stay in your head but not a whole song, you kept lyrics harboured in your brain until you found a use for them. Lyrics would find their way scrawled across scrap pieces of paper in your room. Lines would make you feel something, you didn't know what but something. Whole songs never stuck with you, the songs were someone else's story. Although you could relate to fragments of a person's story, be it a feeling, some sort of dark twisted broken emotion through a simple line in a song, you could never relate to the whole story.
Thursday mornings brought peace. You slept in. Lectures didn't start until 3pm. Imogen cooks you breakfast and then continues to talk to you about the night before. She forgets you were there and experiencing what she was experiencing, she enjoys to tell stories, Imogen likes expressing past memories. You however do not, you keep your memories to yourself, you like to know how you felt, and no one else will understand how you felt. Memories are personal. You like this aspect of Imogen though, a small part of you envies this trait, you secretly wish to be able to word memories but you can't. The smoke alarm will interrupt Imogen's stories, reminding you both of the food she was cooking. Imogen curses before you hear Josh emerge cursing out Imogen. This is routine, the words, the expressions, the timing. Everything was routine.

Thursday night was student night. Alcohol flows through your veins, the quantity of it reminding you of the discounted price. You stay out until the early hours until you stumble in. Lips pressed against the neck of a girl you met in the final club. She's never as drunk as you but the passion is still evident.
Friday morning left you hungover, the girl is always gone. They never stay. You replace the feeling of an empty bed with the streets of Northern Quarter. You walk there, change for the bus is always absent from your pocket. You purchase a vinyl, one a week, you pick a band you've never heard of. You buy coffee, it's overpriced and too bitter for your taste.

Friday night you stay in, clubs are too full on a Friday.

Saturday you walk. You never know where you're heading but you walk, you walk until you find somewhere new, to find something that breaks you from your routine. Finding somewhere new becomes part of your routine, it leaves you questioning whether anything is ever out of routine. Saturday evening you go to an open mic night. You watch young hopefuls climb on stage with a guitar performing covers. You promise not to drink, Luke calls you. He asks where you are, you tell him, he shows up and alcohol flows. You're walking home, cigarette lit in your mouth. You promise every day that you will quit, you hate the way it tastes but your body craves it. Your body craves the burning as the smoke hits the back of your throat, the taste it leaves on your tongue. Addiction. Addiction is an off shoot of routine, addictions fuels routine.

Sunday morning, you sleep until mid-afternoon. Imogen is hungover and doesn't make you breakfast. You make coffee, cheap instant coffee that Luke buys on his way home from lectures. The sugar you pile into your cup makes the taste easier to handle. Imogen wakes up. She takes your coffee and you are left without a drink, it never occurs to you to make two. Mid-afternoon turns quickly into early evening. Your evenings are spent with Luke, Imogen, Cat and Josh squashed onto the sofas that have springs coming out of their seats. You put on a 80s film. Usually a predictable chick-flick. You drink cheap wine out of plastic cups until the early hours of the morning.

Then you're back to Monday.