The Challenge

 Today, in a small lecture hall situated within Kingston university, myself and several other youths graduated from "The Challenge". I feel that it aptly summarizes "The Challenge" that during a period in which we were confined within a room and encouraged to mingle, the background music provided had been found (as it became painfully obvious when we looked at the screen of the computer attached to the speakers) by going onto the music streaming site Spotify and typing "gangster" into the search bar (I promptly went on to find and play "Gangam style" to the general gratitude of the juvenile community within the room, proving that despite my lack of knowledge concerning pop culture and trends, I am still more "down with the kids" than the people at "The Challenge" being paid to be exactly that).
 The Challenge is a patronizing program for the youth, based on the assumption that young people will, if not kept off the streets by camping trips and community service, inevitably go feral and commit racially motivated murders or something. The obvious flaw, which still appears to not have been noted by anyone running the program, being that no one likely to be committing such offenses would ever be caught dead taking part in something like The Challenge (they would, presumably, instead be caught literally dead in a crossfire between two street gangs or some other equally horrible incident of self implementing social Darwinism).
 The entire program, like any well thought out devastating master plan, consists of several phases. The first phase is a week spent in the remote countryside participating in team building activities (such as walking, rock climbing, walking, camping, complaining about all the walking, raft building and walking) whilst living in a repulsive youth hostel that would be awarded black holes if any lodging rating organization were to visit. The second phase consists of a week spent inhabiting a block in the Kingston University campus, which felt like a palace compared to the youth hostel (though a palace infested with scuttling insects that I could have sworn had gone extinct several thousand years ago), while the youths study a particular art (be it media, drama or photography). The third week is devoted to planning several community serving projects (like fund raising or litter picking or euthanasia)and the fourth phase, a few weeks later, allows the juveniles to implement these projects. Then finally, after all this, comes the graduation.
 As the team organizer(the figure of central authority who, annoyingly, had a lazy eye so no one could be quite sure who she was angrily shouting at) stood up to give a final speech, I recalled all the character building activities we had taken part in during the course of The Challenge. Like the time when myself and Sergeant Salt (the very picture perfect image of a white middle class boy, nonetheless proud of his self-proclaimed working class up bringing. Complete with the political views of an ultra conservative, the accent of a private school student, the education of a state school and the vocabulary of an American gang member, he still somehow possesses a certain inane charm.) had a deep meaningful conversation whilst camping, discussing such topics as the meaning of life, humiliating anecdotes and who in our group were attractive. Blissfully unaware, until the next day, that the walls of our tent were very thin, the camp site quiet and our voices loud.
 As I vacantly listened, the team organizer stood at the podium began to recount of how the team had been entertaining as well as occasionally problematic, or rather in terms of the latter, not the entire team but more specifically, myself and Sergeant Salt. Even going on to reflect about the time when we deconstructed our team mentor's bed and the occasion when we created a wall of toilet paper with which to block the door of another group during the night.
 One such event that stood out in my memory was a particular evening when two male French students wondered into the campus area occupied by The Challenge proceeding to, in a hormone and probably drink fueled course of action, attempt to hit on the teenage girls from The Challenge residing in the building. The natural reaction of myself, Sergeant Salt and one Cedric (An aggressive widely built and crude American, that is to say, a stereotypical American) had been to shout abuse, utilizing every piece of French we had ever managed to scrape off our linguistic educations, at the two students. Shouting, then, because we were situated on the ground floor and facing the courtyard, swiftly closing the defensive window for fear of a French invasion into our kitchen. When this failed to drive the intruders off, I took several small tomatoes from the fridge as ammunition and threw them as hard as I could, pathetically displaying in the process why I had never got anywhere in cricket. This then escalated into a vegetable war, with an arms race that meant the projectiles became ever more damaging, transforming from small tomato to large tomato to carrot to potato. By morning the courtyard had looked like a post apocalyptic farm, a state of affairs for which I and my comrades were punished.
 After a few dull minutes, the team organizer stepped down from the stage and another member of the Challenge staff began to hand out certificates and take photographs of the proud youths. Youths who had contributed to the community through their own personally designed projects. Our group had decided to do a film festival for the community in order to bring the people together. Though we managed to purchase eight short films to be watched and a site at which to show them, a sports hall belonging to Ricard's Lodge school,  none of us had thought to advertise it thereby meaning that no one turned up. Since none of us had any particular interest in cinematography, we watched three of the eight short films, for which we had collectively had the council pay eighty pounds, and spent the rest of the time stealing food from surrounding groups and abusing each other with the school's carefully maintained sports equipment.
 Finally it was my turn and as I held the certificate, frowning at the camera whilst I did, a thought hit me, a thought suggesting that though I may have done a lot during The Challenge such as: drinking tea containing tomato puree, rebelliously kicking over a bowl of flower, accidentally summoning the fire service numerous times, jumping through a window, microwaving an egg and so forth, nothing I had done had even remotely been helpful to the community. And this thought pleased , and still pleases, me to no end.

Alone in the Mansion

 The once crowded mansion stands empty, its heavy oak doors, which once shone with a refined polish, now sit in slow lusterless decay. Those poorly maintained gates have been motionless for a few hours now, no one has entered or left since the rusty creak of the last departure which echoed forlornly through the dusty corridor. The fading gray rooms are filled with the desolate silence of an abandoned building, gone are the days when the sound of snide and mocking but nonetheless happy laughter had bounced through its sparkling structure. All have left to pursue a vast and varied life outside its thick impenetrable walls, all but one. This is the Bachelor Mansion.
 The lone figure sits hunched malignantly by a fireplace black with soot, a cold empty fire place in the shape of a heart. In the figures twisted malicious hands is clutched a once fine china mug, its pristine white surface now stained to a dull yellow. The mug contains a deep dark brown fluid, tar like both in appearance and texture, very strong tea without milk or sugar. Very bitter tea. Very very bitter tea.
 How did it come to this? There used to be others here with me. All snidely talking about the foolishness of love and the stupidity of relationships, mockingly discussing romantic ideals or viciously insulting those clueless fools roaming outside the mansion. Now there is only me, me and my thoughts which provide no comfort at all.
 I'm certain everyone has experienced that one long distance race at school where the five or so non athletic friends line up at the starting line, smiling humorously at each other. After a brief minute of amicable discussions its decided that all of them will take it slow, go at a nice jogging pace, take it easy, cruise it, chill. The starting pistol is fired into the air and one secretly competitive supposed comrade suddenly breaks rank, running with all his strength so as to get as far ahead as possible before the others realize they have been deceived. In that instance, everyone shakes their heads and roundly agrees that the one former comrade dashing aggressively ahead is, to put it mildly, a complete dick and should be excommunicated from the alliance of the non athletic.
 However this time round, we all agreed to take it easy but all except one, at the sound of the starting pistol, revealed themselves to be secretly competitive dicks charging headlong down the path of romantic success. By the time I realize what's happened and decide to quicken my jogging pace, that is at present infinitely close to a walk, it's all too late and my former comrades have crossed the finishing line, cheering as they do so. I watch them celebrate, teeth gritted and all I want to do is take the starting pistol and take careful aim at those distant , now coupled, figures.
  I thought we were all on the same boat, all proudly sailing under the fluttering banner of "Awkward", the academic cynical types whose only knowledge of love came through a study of biochemistry, a bunch of social outcasts united by our ability to insult romantics in Latin. Now "Amicus" has turned "Hostis", "Callidus" has turned "Stultus", they have all recently dived into the surrounding oceans to leave me bobbing up and down on the unstable raft, feeling more than a little bit nauseous.
 Riding the wave of a drunken kiss or holding onto the helpful dolphin of previously hidden charisma, my former fellow sailors swiftly move across the ocean to reach their own idyllic islands, overgrown with convenient coconut trees and pretty flowers as I watch on from a distance. My last fellow bachelor sailor dived from the raft a few hours ago, or rather was gently pulled into the waves by an enticing mermaid (I sincerely hope that this is a mermaid of slightly older, more brutal, less Disney type myths which will go on to ravenously shred and devour the ex-comrade turned turn coat). Now I stand alone, realizing suddenly that my raft has developed a hole and is sinking fast. It's either swim or drown from here and I haven't done much swimming since I received my Kellogg's Frosties 200meter swimmer badge seven years ago.