Mid-Term Misgivings
That time of year is upon us, when we have to strap ourselves into the roller coaster that is ‘to Study’ and answer X marks worth of questions in Y amounts of time and actually be good at it. ‘But Mid-Terms are better, they give you a sense of how to write your Finals!’. Of course, and I’m going to write my Finals the way I prepare – Slowly, and then all at once. Thanks, John Green.
_______________________________
The clock strikes 12,
And you realize you have an hour
Until the flat, pulped tree –
By that, I mean paper –
Is snatched from your hands
And is taken away from you
F o r e v e r.
Your hands rush to spill onto the page
With new found vigour
The words you learnt
The night before
In an impervious haze
Concocted by caffeine.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
The paper rustles
Against your pen
As the two tear-fully battle
To win the hand of Question No. 4,
Subsection 3,
Division (i),
And you can see –
The words are finally making sense,
This answer was in Page Number 3,
Reading 2,
Module 5,
You’ve read it word for word,
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Your pen will not lose this battle.
It is Lord Stark
Of the House Stark
Of Winterfell,
Of Winterfell,
Of Winter Fell.
Fell.
Fell asleep.
Asleep.
ASLEEP.
Sleep.
Eye. Lids. Close.
The pen continues to
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Like little mice.
You start with a jerk,
Your eyes scanning over the page –
Zooming on the line
Your pen has drawn
Connecting ‘Evaluation’ to ‘French Fries’.
Wait.
French Fries?
Your hands scratch it out in panic but
Your thoughts stop short.
The clock strikes 1.
Hurriedly, you string together
Some words that make
Marginal sense
And hand over that reconfigured tree
To the Devil (some days);
The God (some days);
The Professor (all days);
And leave.
The air seems
Crisper
And the sun seems
More golden
And the leaves seem
Greener
And the lift stops exactly at your floor
And there is a good lunch being served
And your email tells you
‘Morning class has been cancelled’
And the world is right again –
Until,
“What did you write for Question 5”
“There was a Question 5?”
“Yes, on the second page.”
“There was a second page??”
And there,
Your heart
Stops.
