Jammed

It was as if someone had opened the floodgates; thick mud rolled into the clockwork chamber, seeping into every nook and cranny. Wheels started to slow, springs became restrained, and gears struggled to keep ticking away. Suddenly everything halted, defeated by the gooey intruder. The mud filled the cranium cavity to its brim; nothing could be seen, nothing could be detected, and nothing could be contacted. The brain was officially jammed.

Outside of the brain however, everything seemed to be functioning at a normal pace. The girl’s eyes widened slightly in a panic, as she, the owner of the brain, realized she couldn’t contact it…again. Glancing around the room, she saw the rest of the class scribbling away at their assignment; unaware of the calamity that had befallen the brain of their fellow classmate.

The girl stared hopelessly down at her math assignment. She was still on the first problem, while the rest of the class seemed to be finishing their last few. Concentrating hard, enough to bring a slight blush to her face, the girl sensed a slight tremor from within. The gears shuddered as they struggled desperately against the confines of the thick substance in which they were trapped; but it was to no avail. She tried again, focusing furiously on forcing her way through this brain jam, but again she came away empty handed. She would have to wait for the mud to disperse on its own.

“How is it going?” A friendly neighbor to the girl’s right, asked. “Are you almost done?”

The girl shook her head with embarrassment, tears pricking at her eyes. No. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t cry here in class. Nobody ever understood the battle she fought. No one could seem to comprehend the feeling of having their brain immobilized, petrified, unusable. She would have to try to explain it if she started to cry. So no, she wouldn’t cry.

“Here, let me help you.” The kindly neighbor leaned over and started explaining the steps to completing the girl’s unfinished problem. The girl nodded, pretending to understand; only she couldn’t. With her brain numbed, she couldn’t process any comprehensible information. Her neighbor's words seemed to evaporate right before it reached her brain, merely brushing it with their dispersing wisps.

The girl thanked her neighbor for the help and tried frantically to absorb what she had just been shown. She was starting to feel panicked. She hated being the last person in the room still working; she HATED it! Another straining shudder from the gears, told her nothing was going to move quite yet; no success. The girl felt her body begin to tremble slightly in unease. What if the teacher came around to their table and saw her work...or rather, lack thereof? She felt humiliated just at the thought. Finally, after many grueling seconds, the mud rolled on out just as fast as it had rolled in. The girl felt instant relief, as though a suffocating clutch had just released her skull. In reality, she had only been jammed for about thirty seconds, but she was now left with a brain fatigued from pushing, straining against the solid mud. A headache now threatened to surface, as the girl pushed on with her still unfinished problem. She couldn’t stop to rest though; she had a whole assignment to complete and most everyone else was now done.

The wearied girl turned towards her neighbor and bashfully asked, “Do you think you could show me how to do this problem, one more time?”

Author's Note

~Were you able to feel the distress/anxiety this story is trying to portray? If not, how could I get that feeling across?
~I'm not very well versed in the placement of my commas or semicolons. If you could let me know if I used them correctly or how to use them correctly, I'd much appreciate it.
Thank you! :)