Waking up to the joys of another long, frustrating day at the post office was not how Ciaran had foreseen his life turning out after graduation. A recent graduate with master's degree in Classics he had envisioned a life of intellectual pursuit, one where he could spend his days sitting in a small office in a university somewhere delving into the secrets of the past. Instead, he found himself the supervisor of the local university post office, a place full of students and professors, international families and all those whom he had come to hate. This hatred stemmed primarily from the desire to escape, he hated seeing the people that he had taught and who had taught him on a daily basis, it was almost as if they were all players in a game that contrived to humiliate him consistently.
The bus rides in the mornings were the worst, he wished that the bus would break down and he could ring to say that he would not be in until later. There was always the hope of something changing, one morning he had even invented a plumbing disaster just to stay at home for the morning.
Ciaran was a dreamer, a romantic, he longed to meet someone and be swept away from his own personal hell. This of course was rather difficult given that he was painfully shy around people he did not know and terrified of rejection. Growing up, he had always meant to indulge in the wild nights and brief but intense flings that his friends talked about but it never seemed to happen. His one lasting relationship during his college years, if it could even be called a relationship was more of advertisement for emotional abuse. He was left with a broken heart and a constant reminder of Jay in the form of herpes. While for many this would not necessitate abstinence, for Ciaran it was just another reason to shut himself away. He had a hard enough time opening up as it was without adding the certainty of rejection. He felt dirty and ashamed every time he thought about it until it became so huge that he wanted to scream every time he thought about it. What good was putting yourself out there and trusting someone if they used you and left you broken. He wondered why it had to happen to him when he thought of the conversations he had had with Aidan, his best friend, who seemed to fall from one bed into another without any adverse effects. He went home with someone new every weekend, sometimes too drunk to remember to use condoms but smirking as he recounted the details for Ciaran at their weekly Sunday brunch. "God it was great. We almost broke the bed this time. He fucked me for two hours solid I swear. You really need to get laid Ciaran then we could talk about your nights as well as mine. Nobody gives a shit about herpes and it's not as if you have to tell them anyway! Just tell them that you just wanna fuck-skip all the foreplay."
