Jinx

“The way you shake it, I can’t believe it. I ain’t never seen an a*s like thaaaat… STOP. STOP IT! YOU FOOL!” , he scorned at himself.

A distant satanic laughter in his own voice popped and vanished as he desperately tried to stop the song in his head that has been playing ceaselessly since long now. He looked around the exam hall. He found the white noise of the ceiling fan and the page flipping noises eerie. He looked at the question paper. “Crap! This subject is not what I prepared for” said he as his eyes scanned the questions. “These seem a little familiar. I think I have studied them before! I can manage”, he thought feeling a teeny bit confident.

He gazed around seeking a familiar face, for comfort. Strangely, all the heads were bent over the paper in a similar fashion and their seemingly programmed hands moving exactly the same way as each other. Like a military parade! He ignored the odd knot in his stomach and continued writing.

The noise of friction of his pen on the paper calmed him a bit and gave him a sense of satisfaction despite the tons of nonsense he was filling the paper with, involuntarily. Words seemed to flow out from his fingers without his control like a broken faucet. He reached the end of the page “…Doing Doing Doing.”

“May I get a sheet of paper ma’am?”, he raised his hand.

The invigilator who lifted her head looked more like his least favorite aunt who constantly advised him on his career, nodded disapprovingly with every single mark he lost in exams and kept asking about his future plans. Only she looked more cruel this time �" her nails long and sharp, painted crimson; her fang teeth deadly. She came to his table and sniggered wickedly looking at the paper filled with the song that endlessly looped in his mind.

“Are these enough?”, she asked and kept sheets of paper smeared with blood.

The scene shattered. When he opened his eyes wide, his forehead had beads of sweat and the fan rotated slowly coming to a halt. He realized that he had been dreaming again. He felt cursed with the same recurring dream of exams that haunted him almost every night.

“Drink the coffee before it gets cold!”, his wife called out from the kitchen, “And get up. It is already 9 now. How will the sub ordinates be if manager himself is unpunctual?”

His usual vigour at work remained unaltered in spite of the chronic nightmares. After his long day at work, he felt pretty sure that he would go to sleep as soon as he hit the bed. He lied down on his cozy bed and closed his eyes.

An hour passed before a familiar voice asked, “Are these enough?”

He took the blood smeared sheets. He felt like his hands were being controlled by a puppet master pulling the invisible strings. He saw the blue ink pen in his hand, write in deep red,

“THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!!”

Reviews

[Bear]

Critique: (How will the sub ordinates be) subordinates is one word

Review: You have a good eye for detail leaving nothing to your reader's imagination, that allows us to empathise the full impact of both the dream and the story which you did masterfully. Also, it is very relatable as I think that almost everyone has a haunting dream but not with the longevity of this one. I want to thank Jyoti_Ablaze for sending me the read request for this story, it was a pleasure to read and I want to thank you Fathima Fara, for posting it so and giving me that pleasure. I give it 5 out of 5 Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! ClapQ

[Jyoti_Ablaze]

Wow! Many can relate to it, for we all have dreaded exams at some point in our lives. I loved the twist! Even after leaving school/college exams way behind, the nostalgia still can give us a chill.
Well done!