The Test

My eyelids drooped as I poured yet another cup of coffee, so that I might stay awake long enough to study the last thousand pages or so in my notebook. Maybe it was just too much caffeine, but it seemed to me that the coffee machine was laughing at me, as it seemed to say “you’re hopeless, go to bed.” I had been studying for so long now that the few things I did know for certain at the beginning were now beginning to baffle me. Facts and figures jumbled together in one huge pile in my mind, useless dates and numbers that meant absolutely nothing to me in my exhausted state.

“Why don’t you go to bed now, honey?” my mother asked kindly when she found me studying in the dim light in the living room. “It’s really late, and you have to get up early.”

I groaned. Thanks for reminding me! a little voice screamed inside my head. Only four more hours and I’d have to get up for school, and here I was, absolutely clueless despite my efforts of cramming.

“No, not yet,” I pleaded. “I’ll go to bed soon, I promise. I just want to go over this last little section.”

Mom sighed, but nodded, flicking on another lamp for me on her way back to bed. “You’re going to ruin your eyes studying in the dark,” I heard her mumble as she left the room.

Ruin my eyes? As though that was all I had to worry about! After I wrote my exam tomorrow, my life was going to be ruined! My chances of getting accepted into a decent college were gone out the window. I’d never get a decent job, and there was not a chance that I’d ever get married or have children. Who wanted to marry a failure? Visions of myself in thirty years, alone and impoverished, popped into my head. I could already see myself, sitting in my tiny one room apartment, spooning Kraft dinner out of a worn pot. My clothes were in tatters, and my only companion was a skinny stray cat I’d sneaked into the apartment. My phone would never ring, and there’d never be any letters for me in the mail. My family would disown me, my friends would forget me . . . yes, I decided, my life was most certainly ruined.

Although I tried most diligently to stay awake, my efforts were in vain.