Pain & Panic

A brunette entered the examination venue with literally nothing in her mind. Well, there were a few songs repeating themselves like a broken record but other than that, it was a blank. She had never felt so clueless upon entering an exam hall before.

Sure she had done something similar in the past but she knew she had something going on for her-luck. In the eyes of her ex-classmates back in secondary school, they assumed that she had something called luck on her side. The assumption must have been based on the fact that however badly she did or however blank her mind was, she would always pass the test with ease and also most of the answers she had guessed would turn out correct, not to mention whatever crap she had written on her answer script would be awarded with a few marks.

That morning was no different, she entered with that mindset and also with the general knowledge of the subject she could summon at that moment. She sat for her paper and came out when time was up.

Two weeks later, that very same brunette was seen crying on a bench somewhere in her campus. Her friends were there to comfort her but it wasn’t the marks that made her tear, it was the thought of telling her mother that she had failed her midterm weeks before. It would mark her first fail in her perfect-no-fail record in her academic life.

The guilt was killing her, worst than that time where she was almost last in class back when she was in her second year of secondary. Back then, out of 45 she was placed 37 in the whole class, based on her results. It was written in her diary that keeping that secret from her mother was as difficult as keeping a bike in her room. A secret that was never meant to be kept and would be exposed sooner or later, for her class teacher was a good friend of her mother.

That night when her mother called and asked if she had anything to tell, she quickly told her about the results she had gotten in the afternoon. Again she was reduced to tears when her mother told her it’s alright and not to be afraid to tell her about these sort of things next time. It was guilt that washed over her when her mother talked to her over the phone. There was a tinge of relief that her mother didn’t sound upset over her results but instead comforted her. Still, the relief was overshadowed by guilt which had been residing in her ever since earlier that day.

About a month later that brunette faced that subject again in the second test of the semester. There was that fear of going blank and failing again. It constantly ate up her confidence whilst she was preparing for the test a few days before. The fear grew as the test drew nearer till it was time to enter the hall again.

Once she took her seat and the papers were passed around, she tried to calm herself with some breathing exercises but they failed her miserably. When the invigilator announced the start of the test, her trembling fingers picked up her pen and she stared at the paper. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she began to write, praying hard that her trembling hands won’t give way and that what she wrote made sense, unlike previously.