The Übermensch pub stood on the northern slope of Memorial Hill, straight at the heart of the Maze. A small house built into a leftist pub, its windows were now frozen with the icy caress of December. Winter raged outside, here was now a bastion for activists. A fine place its was, with wooden stools and tables, piles of old history books and different oil paintings depicting riots and dismembered politicians, all bathed in a delicate, honey lighting. A certain harmony of violence.

Lonely I sat, scribbling the hours away, waiting. A black espresso fumed in a small round porcelain cup, there, right in front of me. Dark euphoria filled my spirit at the eldritch potency of the bitter elixir.

In a tiny book I wrote a fragment of Keat’s poetry;

… then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Oh, what fathomless powers did the words convey? What truth had I failed to grasp, that this one rhyme seemed to encompass the fullness of existence in its beautiful, endless sorrow? My black fountain pen espoused the verses lovingly, over and over I wrote the words, tasting their strange, ethereal meaning.

And I let the instants fade, waiting patiently. My affinity group was supposed to meet here, and yet again, I consorted with poetry, caffeine and the wailing kitsch of the Übermensch.

In my backpack I carried a bachelor certificate with my birth name on it. You could say it was hidden. Eh, I loathed it more than I expected. Violation breeds academic success. Tonight, tonight I hoped to celebrate this piece of farce, to close the comedy of scholastic stain once and for all.

Noxious unto the Maze, I had sought escape through the academy, but had burned myself on this plague, this swarm of dusty ego-fucks, I mean, pompous patriarchs obsessed with posterity and publication. Strapped in Ivory towers they ruled – expensive prisons built on urine-stained bricks and ornamented by the Nation's proto-nazi flag. And none would dare gainsay their word unless they'd sodomized ten year-olds or smoked cracked in the cafeteria.

Exceptions there were, yes. From time to time you'd find a worthy spirit or two ready to teach a challenge. But what noble knights ever did charge in with lance and purple pinion raised? The worthy saved me ne’er. Gentle and meek were all but present in moments of need. All Anarchs were personae non grata, and for a good reason. We did not teach fear, but doubt.

Yes, doubt and disdain. They despised me before I was done: I had proven the inherent flaw in hope – to some extent, yes – and had laid a deep curse in the establishment. Bureaucrats can not sustain deviance. But could they ignore us still? For certain, it was over.

And what remained, now that tricks, taunts and seductions had come to a close? Rummaging my lowly way of the grounds with a meaningless degree in hand…

… then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.