{"id":24244,"date":"2016-04-27T14:41:13","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T18:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?p=19949"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:59:29","slug":"erins-blog-end-term-gothic-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/2016\/erins-blog-end-term-gothic-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Erin's Blog – END-OF-TERM GOTHIC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Erin's Blog – END-OF-TERM GOTHIC\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n
\"Erin
Erin Shields<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Read Erin’s Bio<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s four a.m., if time can still be said to have a meaning\u2014as of late, it has seemed, to you, to move by deadlines instead of hours, in fits and starts. You sit at your desk, which seems to have developed a fortification of books around its outer border \u2014 (\u201cWhat even are those?\u201d says your friend, a Criminology major, when you plop six ponderous tomes onto the caf\u00e9 table. It seems as if the earth itself rattles as they touch down, and you wonder, as a cloud of dust rises from the stack, if you have made a wise decision in unearthing these words. \u201cI haven\u2019t used a source that isn\u2019t available online since I started my degree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You tremble, eyes watering. These tears could be dust or sadness. You no longer know.) \u2014 inside the walls of your book-prison, loose journal article print-outs have mixed with Tim Horton\u2019s wrappers and post-it notes. The kettle is always on; your very sweat and tears of despair have become a caffeine concentrate. The computer holds a universe that is more real than the world around you; your body twists toward its bright blue light, as if asking for nourishment, or benediction. You can no longer recall the warm touch of the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere amongst the blurring lines of your readings on postmodernism, you have become convinced that nothing is real\u2014you <\/em>are not real. Why are you writing? What are you writing? Hands move across the keyboard, but they no longer belong to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You enter a kind of fugue state; when you next look up, you find that the essay is done. You go to put on your coat, only to find that you are already in it. Outside, snow collects on the ground. You could have sworn it was spring, but perhaps you have woken up in a different time, a parallel universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you move across the whitened plain, someone calls to you (is that your name that they shape with their foreign lips? You check the paper in your hand; perhaps it can tell you). You try to communicate\u2014you have been on a journey, although you are not sure where you have been. The words in your hand must be sacrificed to a tower in the distance. This quest seems to have been given to you in a dream, or in another world; you vaguely recall that this person was there with you. You feel that you have not always been as you are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your companion disappears. You go on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chill wind carries you to your destination. Inside the building, you press a button, and hope to be carried upward. You hear screams from the elevator shaft, but when the doors open, no one is there. Someone has written \u201cthis is the worst elevator\u201d onto the ceiling. There are smudges beside the words. You do not know if it is blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You make it to your destination safely. Standing beside a small slot in the wall, you scan the pages in your hand, but don\u2019t seem to remember writing the words on the page. You submit it anyway. There is no indication that the wall approves of your sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your quest is complete, but you feel no sense of relief, of resolution. You go back home; you are not sure if your books have rearranged themselves while you were away. From the corner of your eye, you seem to catch a strange glow emanating from under the front cover of one particularly audacious volume; you know this portal must be entered, but tomorrow, tomorrow. For now, you clear yourself a nesting-space amongst your papers, and close your eyes. The world goes dark. You are not sure you will wake up again. Your last thought is of a desperate hope: that there will indeed be a tomorrow, in a recognizable universe, with a recognizable you inside it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read Erin’s Bio It\u2019s four a.m., if time can still be said to have a meaning\u2014as of late, it has seemed, to you, to move by deadlines instead of hours, in fits and starts. You sit at your desk, which seems to have developed a fortification of books around its outer border \u2014 (\u201cWhat even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[206,26,117,90,44,25,849],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-students","category-english","category-erin-blog","category-fass-news","category-for-students","category-student-blogs","category-student-voices"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53673,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24244\/revisions\/53673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}