AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the Vice-Chancellorian fatwah on Dddwwchllyff leads to global slaughter of Elvis impersonator impersonators. Now, back to Snought-of-fictitious-student-fame..

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 31

‘Snought.’

‘Smithy.’

Those two words was the limit of their exchange, it had been for years now. It was the usual routine. Whenever they failed to avoid each other and accidentally crossed paths, the two academicians would go through this customary custom of each grudgingly acknowledging the existence of the other with an absolute minimum of calorific expenditure.

One of the two despised the other with a passion and veracity almost unmatched in the whole of the Welsh University. The other felt the same way. Childish academic jealousy and petty rivalries were the life-blood of all academic institutions the world over. Nothing, nothing(!), had had more impact on the progression of academic research then the desire not to be outdone by ones own colleagues. (The quest for fame, money and ‘minor celebrity’ status had certainly become a strong driving force in recent times but even that didn’t really come close.)

Snought, having semi-retreated into his own office for extended periods of time, had become wrapped up in his own imagination. The pressures of inventing non-existent students had taken its toll on his previously fragile mental state already besieged by the violent envy and disgust for his academic colleagues and the general underlying paranoia common to everyone. Consequently, his status within the department had vaulted to Olympian heights, and although Snought himself was not athletic at all he felt a vicarious pride. But how long would his dementia be mistaken for genius? At least twenty years, possibly a few more – and then what? Death. The thought gave Snought comfort: yes, if he became a serial killer when the sheen began to wear off his brilliance he could probably remain widely reviled indefinitely…

Smithy, for his or her part, had long suspected Snought, Snought suspected. He wasn’t totally sure what Smithy suspected him or her of, but he suspected he was suspected all the same.

Nobody really knew just what it was that Smithy did in the Quadology department. He or she seemed to do little but stand beneath the spreading chestnut tree in the biopoetry lab. It made for a general sense of distrust generally. Some suspected he didn’t do anything at all – such thoughts sickened them. Sickened and angered! Why should he or she be the one to get away with being paid to do nothing at all. It just wasn’t right!

And the subject of Snought’s research? The fine art of leaving: judging when, in a social setting (such as a party or reception), one had outstayed ones welcome and how best to make ones exit with minimal fuss and embarrassment. Making an exit was a fine and delicate art that few people truly understood. Snought had spent many hours considering the problem and developing a theoretical solution to it. In simple terms it was relatively straightforward: Suppose you attend a social event, a birthday party for example, the theory had it that there was a point after your arrival where it would be the height of bad taste to depart, no matter how bad the party was, how many stupefying dull people one got cornered by or how many ex-partners, and future ex-partners were in attendance. Then, as time passed, there would be a brief period where to make an escape would cause the minimum of fuss among fellow partiers and least amount of offence to the host. Snought called this the ‘window of optimum departure’ or WOD for fun. But this was something that needed to be judged to perfection if it was to be carried out effectively. Once that brief period, the WOD, had invisibly passed you would once again be plunged into a lengthy and indefinite phase whereby an unjustified exit would only result in a collective sense of dismay and consternation for all present.

The topic of research was born out of numerous personal experiences of being unwontedly invited and dragged along to a lengthy string of awful gatherings. Having devoted so much of his adult life to the apparent problem one major fact had almost totally escaped Snought’s attention – he had isolated him or her self for so long that he was never invited to parties anymore and therefore the problem of when to leave without causing upset and commotion was something he or she never had to actually deal with anymore.

Snought’s own toil was increasingly becoming a topic of gossip and debate with those around him. Even by the standards of an academic his behaviour was considered to be bizarre. It may have been cause for an amplification in Snought’s sense of paranoia had that not already reached it’s maximum level.

Of course it wasn’t all a case of individuals being so entrenched. Small and fleeting alliances were often formed between faculty staff. Invariably these revolved around some expected mutual benefit to all concerned. Such coalitions, while possibly advantageous to the participants, only served to further fuel the hysterical paranoia of other academics. And now this latest edict from the Vice-chancellor; the one about having wasted time time-wasting when they ought to have been wasting time wasting time. OK, so it wasn’t a formal statement as such but in the Welsh University it was hard to keep most things secret for very long. In a way, Snought was surprised he’d managed to pull off his false student scam for as long as he had. He didn’t know that the inquisitive Librarian was steadily piecing pieces of the puzzle together and learning more and more each day; still less did he know how much she could piece together from the two pieces she had, piecing and re-piecing them together differently the same way each time…