1. Limehouse TasterExit Through The Woundby North Morgan Chapter Three

2. 1 This is the Monday after the weekend and on this Monday I opt to goto work, for no other reason apart from I have to. Had I chosen to stayand live in Athens, Im pretty sure that I wouldnt have to go throughthis daily torture. My brother is 27 years old and hes never had to doa days work in his life. I, however, am being punished for choosingto live abroad, a choice which my parents have decided to take asoutright aggressive, part of a spiteful plot to hurt them and send themto an early grave. Hence, theyve decided to only pay for my rent andbills while I stay in London, forcing me to have a job for my other livingexpenses. This, of course, is terribly unfair and it cuts me up inside. Notenough to move back to Athens, mind.As a job, I have chosen to underperform daily in a central Londonbusiness consultancy. My full title is Associate in the Media Sector, andIm not sure exactly what that involves, but I think it has a lot to do withturning up every day, emailing my colleagues Danny and Harper whowork there with the same vicious abandon that I do, and occasionallyinteracting with clients who should know better than to pay me for myso-called services. 3. 2 I got this job soon after I finished my MSc in European Public Policy atUCL, which I only took on just to delay getting a job another year (andit seemed like a good gateway to living in London). My first degree,a BA in Medieval and Early Modern History from Durham Universitywas just about as useful as it sounds and it only served its purpose asa means for my Mum to show off to her friends. Admittedly, pointlessarts degrees do sound quite impressive and Im not going to pretendI wont push my children into something similar; if nothing else, justfor the prestige. Any degree thats practical or pragmatic or actuallyuseful indicates that you need the work its likely to get you, which is asunattractive a concept as Ive ever heard.It took me just a couple of months in my current job to realise thatworking in an office is a wonderful thing, if you want to lose your self-respect and dignity nice and quickly. I estimate that people who workin an office doing something as tenuous as consultancy die insideapproximately 34 years earlier than people who have other, meaningful,worthy occupations. 4. 3 In my brief office career, I have come across two types of people:those who dont give a toss, and those whose lives are otherwise soempty that they do. The latter group is usually made up by people whoare good at this. Im not very impressed being good at your office jobis about as admirable as being good at wearing a hood and pointing outmembers of the resistance to Nazi officials in Germany circa 1939.People who like working in an office get a huge sense ofaccomplishment and gradually develop a very smug, superior attitude.I come across those people occasionally. My bosss boss, Jonathan,once mentioned in casual conversation that he gives 100% toeverything he gets involved in (verbatim). I find it very hard to take insuch a concept, considering that I havent given 100% cumulatively toeverything I have ever gotten involved in grouped together.In my lovely office, which occupies a provocatively gigantic buildingjust off the Strand in central London, some people go into work earlyand leave very late, in order to impress their manager and benefit fromfuture promotions, pay rises, bonuses, etc. The last time I had to playgames like these, where I tried to appear busy in order to deceive 5. 4 somebody who held power over me, was when I was 11 and I had torun, open a textbook and pretend I was doing my homework every timeI heard my Father come home. I am not pre-pubescent anymore, so Iwont play along.Soon after I started working there I realised that in an officeenvironment, the variety of topics you can discuss with your colleaguesin a social manner is both very limited and predictable. Having had alobotomy will help you answer questions such as: Any plans for theweekend?, How was your holiday?, How did your client meeting goyesterday? and Have you got any annual leave left? for the millionthtime in a manner thats friendly, neutral and non-offensive. In fact,perhaps lobotomies should be offered upon joining my consultancyinstead of the usual pension scheme contribution. I know which one Idbenefit more from in the short term.I do know of three or four former colleagues (of the same graduateintake as me) who tried to break free after deciding that their currentrole was not fulfilling, so they tried to get out of it and pursue a careerchange. Three months later, all these people found themselves working 6. 5 in a different office down the road for a rival consultancy, still wantingto kill themselves, but earning 10k less.In the mornings, as I walk into my office, I often recall the Smiths lyricabout looking for a job, finding one and still being miserable. But thisdoes seem awfully pessimistic. Its not all that bad. I try to keep in mindthat working in an office will only take up on average 9 hours a dayfor 43 years of my life. Then I will suddenly be 67 and Ill have the restof my life ahead of me to do whatever the hell I want.Ive worked here for just over two years, but I think they regrettedemploying me right about the second week. I dont see this asa personal failure though; I blame my lack of work ethic on myupbringing. When I was younger, every time it was mentioned inconversation that a friend of mine had got a part-time job after schoolor college or even university, Mum and Dad would sneer that theirsmust have been a poor family, that they had to resort to pushing theirkids into child labour, that its generally an embarrassing situation to findyourself in. Consequently, the lesson I took away from my parents wasthat work equals humiliation. And in terms of lessons that Ive learnt 7. 6 Im not willing to ever let this one go.There is just one time when I tried to escape this embeddedpsychology of idleness and thats when I was doing my post-graddegree, soon after I moved to London. I had plenty of free time, soI enrolled in a lifeguarding course which I thought would be a goodway to impress new friends, potential girlfriends, random people Imet in bars, everyone really. When I finished the course and took aridiculously undemanding part-time job at the university swimmingpool, which involved sitting on an elevated plastic chair for hours andwatching people I recognised from the student union walking aroundhalf-naked and wet. Dad eventually found out and threatened to cutme off unless I gave it up immediately. As the lifeguarding job waspaying 4.28 an hour before tax and Dad provided 2,500 per monthstraight into my bank account, I decided that my loyalty to my familywas stronger than my commitment to working the Wednesday eveningshift when the universitys female swimming team used to train. Mycareer as a lifeguard lasted a glorious two and a half weeks. Id neverworked before and I never worked again until I graduated and startedmy current job. Dad predictably also disapproves of my position as 8. 7 a consultant, mainly driven by the fact that Im not making as muchmoney as he was at my age. Perhaps his mind would be more at easeif he knew that at least I do very little work for the pittance that theypay me.On this Monday morning, I walk through the revolving glass doors, takethe lift up to the 6th floor, lower my eyes to the floor and walk to mydesk. The beginning of a good day is one where no one says Goodmorning from the moment I enter the building to the moment I sit onmy chair. Today has been awesome so far. I turn on my laptop, openOutlook, ignore three client emails and make the executive decision toprioritise an email from Danny, a workmate I actually like, who joinedthe same time as me, is sitting three desks down and is one of the fewpeople in the office whos making my work ethic seem unbeatable.Danny has written:Have you seen the video of the guy who was killed last February at theOlympics? Im about to watch it on YouTube.Wait, somebody was killed six months ago at the Olympics? This ishuge. I need to turn on that TV more often.Yes, Im watching it now. Its horrific. 9. 88 Is there blood?No.OK. Ill watch it anyway. Link?He sends me the link and a few minutes later I write back:Right. You had made it sound worse. You dont really get to seeanything.Well, how often do you actually see somebody die?Every day; when I look in the mirror.I spend the rest of the morning locked in the bathroom talking toSadie on the phone and then back at my desk reading Wikipedia entrieson Albert Camus, Melissa Joan Hart, the TV show The Big Bang Theory(which Ive never seen), Kelsey Grammer, Franz Kafka and Coca ColaZero, which brings me to 1255, so I head out for a walk. During thiswalk, I listen to the album Elastica by Elastica in its entirety whilstpacing up and down the Strand and eventually go back.In the office again, and while Im actually busying myself with somework-related tasks, I receive the following internal group email fromLuan, extravagant South-East Asian and self-appointed social secretary. 10. 99 Luan tells us:Hi Guys, due to popular demand Ive provisionally booked the Charlitorestaurant on Friday 17th September at 79pm. If you havent beenbefore its basically a mix of Mexican, South American and Spanishfood in a fairly lively atmosphere. Can you let me know if youre keenso I know how many people to confirm?This email, which has gone out to all 45 people making up mydepartment, is obviously hilarious and needs to be analysed in depth,so I look over to Dannys desk and disappointed that hes not there start to email Harper instead, whos sitting at the other end of thisopen-plan office.I write:fairly lively atmosphere I hear ,Harper replies:Exactly. Im definitely out. Thats like saying someone is fairly sexy, itjust doesnt work, does it? Other examples:He is fairly suicidalShe is fairly pregnant 11. 10 Then I write: He is fairly paralysed from the waist down She is fairly a bitch He is fairly shocked to his core Then Harper writes: Im fairly having a mental breakdown Their marriage is fairly on the brink of collapse He is fairly willing to die for the love of his life Then I write: He is fairly in love and regretting the rest of his life so far and all the choices he made They are fairly married She is fairly lobotomised She is fairly dying to see her boyfriend Then I get bored of this game, plus I think weve killed it a bit, so I write: Hi Harper, I wanted to ask you: What were you doing on this date, at this time last year? 12. 11 What were you doing on this date, at this time two years ago? What were you doing on this date, at this time three years ago? Oh, you were sat at the same desk doing the same thing, you say. I just wanted to check. Harper lives in Whitstable, a small seaside town in Kent, which makes her total commute per day approximately two hours each way. She has worked here two or three years longer than me, but she recently got married and rumour has it that shes about to hand in her notice to stay at her lovely seafront home and prepare to start a family. This is the lamest excuse for quitting your job that Ive ever heard, not that I blame her one bit. ENDS 13. Maine Hudson has a high tolerance forpharmaceuticals and a low tolerance foreverything and everyone else. This includes his Greek parents, who bankrollhis glorious isolation inLondon.This includes his career as a consultant, hisclients, his boss, the majority of his colleaguesand people he sees on the way to work.This includes the dumb model boyfriend ofthe American girl that he has decided to fall inlove with.This includes her also.WhenMainefails to obliterate himself throughdrug overdoses, the obsessive changing of hislegal name and half-hearted thoughts of suicide,it falls to his central nervous system to pick upthe challenge of trying to kill him off.CanMainesurvive with his lack of valuesintact? 14. North Morgan was born in 1980.In 2007,he created the fictional blog London Preppy,which has been featured in Dazed &Confused, Time Out and Attitude amongstother publications.London Preppy has beenan internationalsuccess, attracting over1.5 million hits by the time North publishedhis first short story as part of the Boys &Girls anthology, launched at the LondonLiterature Festival in 2010.He currentlylives in central London.Exit Through The Wound is his first novel. 15. Limehouse Books is an independent publisher of quality fiction andnon-fiction. Founded in October 2009 originally under the nameGlasshouse Books we have grown to publish ten print titles.Uniquely we commission every title we publish and obtain WorldEnglish Language rights in both print and digital. Our aim is to be asmall, focussed publishing house with a global reach. We have aneclectic list of titles, all of them with one unifying characteristic:Books that are beautifully designed and produced, printed to respectthe environment and published for me, you, everyone.