Maggot Time

'It was your time', W. says. My time, and that of people like me. The time of the new breed, of contractual staff, desperate staff, harried and harassed. The new breed: people like me, W. says, rats crawling over rats. People who will do anything. People who will do anything for a job …

‘You would say, “yes” to anything, wouldn’t you?’, W. says. Oh, he remembers how it was. I was everybody’s monkey. Everybody’s jester, the bells of my cap ringing as I passed down the corridors. Everybody’s carthorse, everybody’s houseboy, the slave who danced in his chains. The dancing bear, and grinning court dwarf …

How he would have loathed it, W. says! How he would have longed to stand upright! How he would have yearned to have his blinkers removed, and his iron collar unlocked. How he longed for the bit to be removed from his mouth …

But I didn't mind. I, and others like me, would do anything. We followed every order. We dashed like idiots. We lived as though a serial killer was chasing us down. Never waiting. Never taking time.

Everything was slapdash, everything was done in a hurry, every corner cut … We knew nothing of patience. Nothing of slow, calm work, day after day in the library. Nothing of real research, which takes months and years.

We knew nothing of the methodical. Nothing of real understanding. Just a panicked dash through texts. Just a race through secondary and introductory texts. A dash through idiot guides and Wikipedia entries …

'It was your time', W. says. 'The time of the maggot'. The time of the wriggler-opportunist, bred by Capital, laid by managers, spreading, disease-like from the general decay.

I was a maggot, nothing more, W. says. I was a nightmare the old university had about itself … I am where it festers, and its festering. I am where it rots, and its rotting …

And there's worse to come, W. says, shuddering. My breed, the new breed, are only the beginning of the end. The Beast is coming, W. says. The Beast of which I am a prophet and augur, W. says. The anti-Christ of which I am only the anti-John-the-Baptist.