Real victories start at home. Real defeats too.

It happened on Friday. I slugged out of bed at around 10am. The demigod Chaos had made nest in my apartment again. Socks and other smelly objects mingled with notes, unmarked papers, trash, half read books, unsorted DVDs, dirty dishes, and I lay strewn about.

“It’s Friday.” Fridays are supposed to be preparation day. I’m supposed to use it to exorcise Chaos from my space and prepare for the blessed peace and orderliness of Sabbath. But on this Friday there is an important post-graduate workshop which I need to attend. The topic is “boundaries and liminality”. And since I am planning to commence with a PhD I guess it would be good to show my face.

I dress up: White button-up shirt with striking blue tie, enveloped by a black waistcoat to hide the creased shirt, formal pants, black shoes, and black framed glasses to match. The effect will work. It will say “young, smart and confident”. It’s a lie. Today I do not feel confident. I feel like a loser, unsure about my future and my place in it.

I pad myself with sun block, mount my bicycle and leave Chaos home alone. Maybe he will have mercy on me, get bored and leave before I get back.

The workshop started hours ago. I try to sneak in, but everyone is too happy at the disturbance. It gives them something to do. It breaks the monotony of listening to one academic blah-blah after another. They all look at me. Wait for me to find a seat. Some pretentiously frown at my complete disregard for timeliness or disrespect at unsettling a highly qualified scholar in the middle of her highly academic discourse.

The literary professor seems untouched by my fashionable entrance. She quotes someone: “Die dood spreuk tog vanself.” [Death speaks for itself.] The title of her presentation is “Still lives and the still life of death; voices and silences in Memorandum by Marlene van Niekerk and Adriaan van Zyl”. If death speaks for itself why such a long discourse about it, I ponder.

Next up is an old classmate. She reports on her PhD. It is about Oliver Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm. (Schreiner is probably best known for his quote: "There was never a great man who had not a great mother.") She quotes passages from the book and I’m struck by “only the milk bushes, like old hags, pointed their shrivelled fingers heavenward, praying for the rain that never came.”

And so it goes.

Hours go by.

We are fed.

More hours go by.

We listeners are confronted with death, nostalgia, vengeance, banality, gender issues, Apartheid. . .

“What does it all mean?” I ask myself. “In the greater scheme of things, what does this matter?” I’m frustrated with the futility of it all. “Are we changing the world? Does this help anyone? Is this of value to anybody, except us handful scholars sitting like mythological gods on a mountain, removed from reality – our only interaction with it is through the arts.”

And then, everyone is finished. There is actually some time left and I’m put on the spot. I have nothing to say about my own future studies. “Tell us about your master’s degree.”

I stand up, armed with a white board marker.

I start by explaining the difference between Literature and Creative Writing. “Literary scholars are like connoisseurs,” I flatter them. “They taste the food, dissect the flavours, discuss the qualities and write critical reviews.” I smile. “Creative Writers are like the chefs. Both the connoisseurs and the chefs work with food. They just approach it from different sides.” They nod their heads in understanding. The analogy has caught its prey.

“The creation and representation of a postmodern character identity in prose” – the title of my dissertation. I explain my research and methodology on the white board and begin a flamboyant discussion concerning the creation and representation of character, postmodernity and pop culture. I answer questions eloquently and at length. I throw my knowledge of Postmodern Identity and Creative Writing around like candy to a crowd. I make references to Nobel prize winner, J M Coetzee, to Frank Miller’s film adaptation of his comic books, to the imago’s in Dogville, to the stereotypes in The Simpsons and American Dad, to the blend of classical and contemporary music in The Matrix, to postmodern subcultures, to narrative layers, to E M Forster.

And I hear my alter-ego cry out: “What does it all mean?!”

I return home, uplifted with the endorphin rush of academic acknowledgment.

Chaos awaits me. Valiantly I put up a fight. I start in the kitchen. I wash the dishes and wipe the stove. But Chaos’ martial experience outwits me long before I reach my room.

“You think your small victory can dissuade me?” He asks. “I’m not a scholar persuaded by rhetoric. I’m not overcome by white board markers. I’m not subdued by analogies. I’m not awed by your knowledge of Postmodernism. I am the Cause of Postmodernism.”

And that . . . that was Friday.