The world is a thin, hollow place.
One wrong step, and you break through the shell, and you go tumbling, tumbling down.
It is oft repeated to students that an exam is not the be all and end all in their lives, that many opportunities await all in this bountiful land of plenty.
These words are reassuring, it gives hope, and puts your life into place in comparison to all the many other people in the world, with no opportunity to even sit an exam. In some ways, it makes you feel lucky for your high, pedestalled position.
Until you...
Sitting. Staring. Tears welling. Drip. drip.
No! I can't let her see my defeat.
Swallow these tears that blur my vision.
Feelings of worthlessness fill my mind, the characters on the page melt under the liquid weight of my tears. They fall to the ground with every drop of salt, under my desk. Swirling black ink meets the dirt as I grind my dreams to mud. Black, beautiful, calligraphy mud.
If only, if only...it would be so much easier to blame her. But I am the one at fault.
"Please, just let me on!"
"Sorry sir, but we have regulations."
"Regulations? I am a citizen of the US. I served my country, and this is how my county serves me. I am looked down upon while leather and aftershave walks past me. Hundreds spent on a single meal for two, yet I collect cans and tips to buy a single meal from the arches at night. I try to get a job, but I have no address, no phone number. I am stuck because of your regulations. And does help come? No, the ones who do good - our...
I love tests. I really do. Everyone just sits there staring at the paper - don't be in advanced calc if you can't handle it. The arcs, the plots, 3d graphs, cycloids, functions of the imaginary and trajectory's of murders - it's all beautiful. Each is a beautiful fractal within itself - a new function for a curve to follow.
Lets check out the next question.
"So what did Falkner mean by the word carrage?"
Crap - no more speed before English class.
Here it is - the teacher glaring at me. The sweat dripping off me as if I...
The problem is she was no hero; ready to cry, trouble breathing, and too many conjugations racing through her head to put anything concrete on the exam. She'd tried putting earplugs in to cut out distracting white noise in the room, but they only made it awkward when the teacher leaned down and said something.
"ca va?"
could she see the fear in her student's eyes? Smell the anxiety attack waiting to come out?
The girl hesitated, stumbled through some sounds, but settled on,
"yeah."
15 minutes passed, the exam wasn't complete when turned in.
Then I dropped out of...
He stares into her bloodshot eyes, her glaring furious and terrified back.
She has not slept in over 24 hours and it is by sheer will-power that she manages to remain erect and alert. He must not win.
It must be over soon, she dreams, hallucinates, cries to heaven and God and all her nightmarish waking hells.
Freshman Biology.
First it was the night sweats. Then the spontaneous attacks of anxiety. Her boyfriend left after the sleep talking began, screaming about failing and nonsense and the like.
A test? No, more than a test. This was it.
Her delusions extended...
He'd sat patiently on the threshold of the kitchen all afternoon. She'd dropped countless morsels of crust, of walnuts, chunks of apple and even some of her own snacks, the clumsy klutz. Yet he'd abstained, withheld, conquered himself.
Now she was taunting him -- he felt it deep in his soul. She'd left the pies to cool -- small round pies, aromatic sweet pies -- at eye level. His eyes. She'd gone from the house (where? did it matter?) and left him to conquer himself.
Taunting his resolve. He thought to his mother who'd trained him in her ascetic ways....
"I know what you're after," growled the doctor, gripping her clipboard like it bestowed her the authority of the Pope with his Holy Bible. "All of a sudden it's 'oh, my back aches!', 'Doc, I've got migraines!'
"Migraines. Ha," she sneered. "And you!"-- Possessed white finger shivering in the direction of the wrinkled face before her -- "You think CANCER will get you your hands on that stuff? You're nothing but a common criminal. A druggee. Shame."
I yanked Grandma out of the chair. We'll seek her medical marijuan
"Bitch don't know how to swim. Bitch need to learn how to swim wit da sharks."
"What?" my Grandmother said.
"You see, whatchoo need he'ah is a metafough."
"A what?" she spluttered.
"A metafough!" he insisted.
We weren't in uptown anymore.
"I think what the kind doctor is trying to say is that it helps to use metaphor to explain your condition, Grandma," I said, waxing poetic to his accented jargon.
God love her, but my granny is a racist old bitch. Nobody would be more happy to see her kick that bucket more than me, were it not for...
One left, one right. Two by two, on and on, ad infinitum.
No one has ever had any doubt about Johnny's prowess. The man has a fucking PhD in horticulture, and all without a day of instruction or a minute of in-class study. A natural, they said.
The trick was in the wrist. A little dip-and-flick, and they soar into the dirt with just enough force.
A master seeds-man, with few adversaries.
Damn 'munks don't know how to take a hint.
Bury them he did, but sometimes the little cretins would stumble upon the treasure troves and gobble the pre-germinated...