Past Examinations

Word vomit that's insightful. Just an experiment with this sorta vibe.

He could never quite grasp the ability to focus. He normally cannot concentrate �" but this time it is indeed different as he needs to. He sits in the room staring at his books,paying the utmost interest to every single inscription he stumbles across as he painstakingly tries to ignore every distraction.

It really is amazing how the situation has changed him into a focused individual. He sits through the night 'revising' or rather trying to keep his mind on what he is supposedly doing. He lapses every once in a while when he reminisces on earlier years and times gone by. He thinks of all the opportunities to study that passed him by, just because he couldn't just sit and concentrate like all his friends. As he zones back in on his math books,that are gradually beginning to stare at him, he realizes that time keeps moving. He looks up at the ticking clock on his bedroom wall �" every passing tick beginning to sound more and more like low-pitched,loud snare drums of the music he would listen to when avoiding the thoughts of sitting down and going over his work.

With the metronome of the ticking clock on the wall pre occupying his mind,he stares at it for about as long as it rotates it's long arm approximately 45 degrees from when he had started staring. Soon enough,he snaps back into normal consciousness when he sees the short arm nearing the two,whilst the long one was now fast closing in on the ten. It must've been 1:47 am and he was awake on the eve of his math exam. He wasn't studying but was trying to gather enough concentration in order to go through work he cant even remember doing. When he finally musters the guile to look into his book for more than 3 minutes he is often ridden with contemplative and retrospective thoughts.

Maybe he should come up with a way to avoid writing tomorrow �" buy himself some time. He finds some humor in the irony that thinking about ways he could possibly buy himself time, is also currently the single-most waste of his time. Even if he did think of some way of avoiding the opening paper of his final examinations, how will he avoid ALL his finals? Maybe karma is finally catching up to him,and judging by the anxiety that purged his heart at that very moment in time, he knew it.

Time was elapsing,the next morning was fast approaching and he knew next to nothing. At least he had set out with aspirations of changing that,but unfortunately he couldn't reach a point of learning long enough for things to actually change. Now,he starts to see the results of all those bunked classes throughout the year,when his more dedicated classmates were in the classroom �" toiling - trying to make something better of their minds in preparation for days like the next. All the negative utterances to his friends who worked tirelessly throughout the year, for their hard work were now haunting him,plaguing his mind. Even the words of his teacher that were very few and far between because of his frequent absconding were now starting to resonate within his mind. “If you're not in the class while I'm teaching,then you are not going to learn anything” - and unfortunately for him,he did not.

He reminisces about all the hours he spent just chilling. Right now it would seem that he's carrying on in that vein. What's there left to do? What he doesn't know by now...he will probably never come to know. The best possible option for him is to shut his eyes for the night and hope that somehow things will work themselves out for the best. Even in his consciousness' withdrawal into sleep,he is purged by thoughts of impending failure,worst of all,it is a failure he is fully responsible for.

This young man knows his own capabilities. He has never been a genius but he has always had the potential. His life in school thus far has been depressingly average,with the glimmers of hope for better in the next test always being extinguished by further mediocrity for far too many times. He is the perfect 'every-man' �" always closest to the mean. He is a statistic. Surprisingly,his teachers showed belief in him and his abilities. The only problem was that the confidence he needed placed on him,had to come from within...unfortunately for him,there was nothing.

Perhaps he just gave up hope rather too soon. Perhaps he could've been destined for something greater had he applied himself better throughout his school life so he wouldn't be having this crippling conversation with himself as he looks up the time on his cellphone. It is now 13 minutes since he tried forcing himself to sleep and it seems he wont amass enough sleep by the time of his dreaded alarm next morning. Then suddenly,a clattered blankness prevails and in the loud silence of his apparent sleep,he begins to re-imagine the entire situation.

He is slung back to his days as a youngster,when he still had a positive attitude towards learning. He was an avid pupil,not brilliant,but brimming with potential. He could've been a top achiever provided he was prepared to put in the work.

Suddenly,he realizes that it is a beautiful day outside as he views from his living room window. He is in the third grade, about eight years old again and asking his older brother for help with his homework. Thomas was his hero,always able to help and even when reluctant,always willing. At this specific instance his older brother was sitting side-by-side next to him,doing his homework too. Thomas was far more intelligent than him and in a much higher grade - doing much more difficult things. He briefly peeks into Thomas' books and sees a bunch of meaningless numbers and alphabets. He is perplexed with this abstract notion of sentences having numbers and equal-to signs.

He looks back at his own books and makes light work of them. Thomas also eases through his strange homework. He wondered for a while what Thomas was doing and when he could no longer contain his urge, he cleared his throat as to get his brother's attention without actually saying his name �" for he knew that Thomas was the type of person who hated to be interrupted while thinking or doing the things that he loved,which included thinking.

Prepared to bare the risk of Thomas losing his head at him and overcome with curiosity,he asks his brother what those mysterious inscriptions in his book are. Surprisingly calm,Thomas answers him with the simple utterance of “algebra.” After the brief answer,he felt more confused and intrigued by this new preposition. Algebra. Knowing that his little brother had reached a stumbling block in his thought processes,Thomas further explains. “Its a language. The language of mathematics. Its universal which means it can solve any problem in the universe as long as the rules are followed right. One day you'll know what I mean kiddo.” As confused as he was at that very moment,he knew that Thomas was always right, and with a certain sense self-contentment accepted what he had been told without further questions.
He smiled at his hero,who smiled back at him. He did not know,but he understood.

When they were done with their homework,they went outside and engaged in their brotherly past time of kickabouts. He especially enjoyed their game on this beautiful summer day crawling towards it's end. Thomas was able to perform the most enchanting tricks and when little brother would try them,he'd always make quite the hash of things. They laughed as the golden light that filled the sky that afternoon,gradually subsided. In a completely unexpected turn of events,a loud boom. It was the sound of thunder that interrupted their game. As abruptly as that,it was all over... the fun,the laughter,the dream...

He woke up at that very moment. As in continuation of his dream,it was an incredibly gloomy morning. He heard the rain beat on the ground outside and it was especially cold. When he looked at his phone to inquire what time it was,he realized that it was well before his scheduled time to wake up. It was 5:09 am and he only had to be up in about fifty-one minutes. He had only been asleep for three hours or thereabout. He was unprepared and was to write the exam of his life. But his main concern at this juncture was his dream.

It was a dream based in nostalgia �" and nothing more than times gone by. Thomas was no more than just a thought and a memory. He wondered why he dreamt of his deceased brother for the first time in a while,on the eve of what is to be his life's greatest failure. Thinking about Thomas brought great grief to his heart and turmoil to his mind. The story that was of Thomas was indeed a sad,sad tale. Such wasted potential. He didn't want to end up like him but emulating his big brother's intellect was also simultaneously his biggest goal.

Thomas died on the eve of the last of his matric exams. His death came about as abruptly as the end of the beautiful day in his dream. He just didn't wake up. Thomas died in his sleep at a sadly young age �" before his dreams could come to fruition,before his life could begin. Thomas only had great potential but none of that was manifested into something greater than just potential. That is when his little brother lost hope. He lost faith in all that was good,fair and overall purpose. That is when he decided that learning is not even worth the trouble and that his life was an insignificant period of time that can be denoted as x years.

Perhaps algebra really was the be-all and end-all of his universe. It haunted him even in his dreams and while he remained transfixed on his thoughts, he suddenly found himself in the rain �" this time as his present self and there was no nostalgia. The rain was pouring down and his brother,wearing a hood that sealed off the contents of his face,stood a few yards across him. He couldn't see Thomas' face but could almost feel the larger than life aura as he looked to the shady individual. He knew it was Thomas and as the rain pelted down, he began to release the emotion he had concealed within ever since his death. He asked him why. Why he had left so soon,why he had to die without teaching him more. Why he died before he showed him how to convert potential into results.

He asked all these questions and received no answers...As he got angrier,the thunderstorm got more violent. This dreary figure remained nonchalant throughout and as he got closer to it,he got pushed further away. The asymptote of his meaningless existence was his unresponsive brother.
As he became more frustrated,the storm seemed more likely to strike them where they stood and it grew inhospitable.
Then it finally hit him. He realized that he needed to make peace. Peace with the world,peace with Thomas and most of all,peace with himself. It was,after all,his dream �" his delusion. It was all within his mind. Then he realized that the resentment he bore for his brother was unnecessitated. He realized that the hatred he garnered had become somewhat of a self-hate. He felt that he had failed to save his brother but now he had a sense of acceptance at it all being beyond his control... and that is when the sky miraculously cleared up and the hood gradually peeled off and Thomas' facial features became evident. Though Thomas did not answer any of his brother's questions,he did say “All the answers are in your mind. You just need the right questions for yourself. You can solve anything-” at that very moment they spoke in unison,and said 'algebra' like in the earlier dream followed by a brief laugh. The sun suddenly rose again...Thomas eroded into the sunlight as the alarm sounded.

It was now 6:00 am. The sun was now bellowing in the sky when he looked out the window. The change in the forty-seven minutes in which he fell asleep was drastic. He fell asleep an indifferent boy but he awoke as a different man. He was ready for anything that might happen in the exam later on that day. The algebra was all in his mind. He had underwent a self-discovery of sorts and as he knew himself,he knew the world around him and all the laws that bind it. Mathematics was no longer a problem. His mind was open and that paid dividends from the moment he woke up. He looked into his open books and did not study but learnt. He actually already knew many of the concepts of mathematics and he also knew that many relied on algebra. The concept Thomas explained to him was then clearly reminisced upon like a dream he had had the night before.

It all made sense to him. He had never concentrated in class but he was on a different level that morning. Even when he got to school,as opposed to squatting along with his fellow classmates outside the exam room with books attached to hands trying to steal the last bits of knowledge �" he meditated within his mind about his dreams. He stayed cool,calm and collected and they all could see the difference in him that morning. His aura was now similar to that of Thomas in his second dream. The sun was shining bright that morning and as they walked into the exam room with their fate already on their tables, Tim has became something in his own.

He is no longer the anxious,distraught human being that fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Now Tim is a person - a person who controls his own destiny and reality...and a great person at that he proves to be. Perhaps the teachers who saw this persona within him were right and as the sun shines bright for the rest of the day,he celebrates,because he knows that surely it is a sign of great things to come.

Author's Note

Go easy on me,I started this like 3 months before I had time to finish it