The dark cave is always there to greet you. You’re in a slate-grey valley filled with mist, and shale skitters loose beneath your weary feet. Above you is a white featureless sky without birds and without clouds. You’ve been doing good lately. You got on the Lion’s Mane. You’ve been running and hitting your protein goals. The Minoxidil spray is starting to work and you’re seeing thin, wispy shoots of life around the hem of your hairline.
Recently, you have been thinking back to university, and you’re not sure why: not the people there, certainly, who you don’t really talk to anymore. Not the course, which was interesting enough but perfunctory. Not the building, not the town, not the pubs. Everything about it is starting to slip away now—what was the name of that pizza place everyone went to at the end of a night out? ‘Big Jack’s’? ‘Jack Bigs’? Did that big hill connect to the high street, or—? You think about maybe going back—not while students are there, Christ, but in the off-summer months when the place is vacant—because what you’re looking for isn’t the Trainspotting poster and the Topman T-shirts and the fairy lights over the sofa and the cans of Strongbow. No.
What you’re looking for is that feeling, that feeling of vital frenetic bulletproof cocksure youth, that every day could be sunshine bleaching a pavement, that maybe indie rock will last this time, that maybe a girl from second year will come back to your box room. You are, without knowing it, back at the start of the cave. Inside is pitch-black, but down there in the distance, you see a flickering fire glowing orange. There is a drumming sound drawing you in. And before you know it, the sky has gone…
You hum around, and you try to find something to do. It is worth noting that winning the league in three seasons flat with Everton is still a fairly extraordinary achievement—the season started with us having to sell Nuno Tavares to Al-Hilal just to open up enough financial room to anything; we still had Ilaix Moriba on the books, and I still secretly thought he might actually happen—but, fundamentally, the game worked with me to help me win. Saudi Arabia kept throwing me money for squad players.
