abracadabra

I was restless. Why wasn’t it enough? Foot tapping on the carpet, a maniac’s tic, a brain-numbing metronome. Waiting and waiting and waiting, breath held as if imitating a helpless victim hiding motionless in the dark closet, serial killer two steps away from the brass knob.

The first step was anxiety, the looming deadline branding a scorching scar into your flesh, bumpy and tender. You were given a day, nonchalantly, and into the test room you were delivered— unprepared, a premature baby wailing silently as Greek symbols and formulas ambush you, hellish metal coils and cations and anions smiling wickedly on test pages. One, two, three— and the severity of the situation registers, adrenaline thawing from its frozen reservoirs under your knuckles and wrists, yet again. Your fingers now see routine in this familiar dance, flesh raw and buzzing after clenching the pencil for five straight hours. Your pencil: your sole weapon of self-defense, coated with sweat on summer days, thick with snot on winter days, and fresh blood four seasons year round, red leaking from every nail bed where you aggressively pick your cuticles as deadlines materialize and new scars burn.

The second step was relief, the break in the marathon when you gasp every breath as if it’s your last, limbs no longer aching but deadshot— devoid of feeling, just a machine now. One, two. One, two. Gasp. The sticker around your waist, bamboo-thin from 4am-nights without meals the day before, only black coffee that made you gag with its bitter austerity— why keep it on? Eighteen years, you feel like stripping in the middle of the highway, falling naked and face-first onto the asphalt to be trampled by the thousands of runners behind you, thirsting with leery eyes at the finish line, propelled by the same pairs of eyes you feel behind you.

Then came the taser from her, behind you right while you were contemplating your morbid plan and stooped down to put your face closer to the ground, to feel some heat or coldness or just something to make you feel like you were feeling. Her jolt shocks you into believing, again, foolishly, that the marathon was worth it— or, if you weren’t lying to yourself, made you realize that death was too painful to attempt a taste.

The third step was restlessness, blissful ignorance of lamb lined up for slaughter, but behind the veil of the guillotine could lie an oasis. Did you do well? Not well as in excellent and better than 97% of your same-aged peers, no.

Your bar was the tippy-top of the mountain peak, so tall it probably broke into the gates of heaven and was kissed by fucking Jesus Christ himself. And even if you accomplished the impossible, journeyed up the treacherous slope and received a golden medal from Jesus, like Mulan from the Emperor of China, her contentment lasts only for fleeting days. Even the oasis would turn out to be a short-lived mirage.

And the guillotine? It’s more of a death sentence that starts the execution internally, twisting and clawing and wringing you out until only your stringy skin remains. Lemons smashed and emptied into a juicer, but sometimes — or a lot of times, it seems — you get wringed out no matter if you’re sweet or sour. 88 — squeeze, twist, wring — sorry Ma I’ll do better, I was lazy but I’ll try harder. 91 — squeeze, twist, wring — sorry Ma I shouldn’t play video games anymore, I spend seven hours in school then three hours on homework, then one hour on video games then you start to scream. 93 — squeeze, twist, wring — sorry Ma I know it’s A-minus, only A-minus I know I know, please stop screaming.

When 90’s meant you were safe until the next test or essay came around, soon it’s 95’s. The thick, viscous golden juice trickles down her calloused fingers and lands in still puddles on the kitchen table where you deliver your papers and she delivers your sentences. You don’t feel golden anymore, not the same foiled facade your classmates boasted as a genius or your teachers praised as a golden child. Rotten purple, mulberry bruises and mauve eye bags on olive skin. Please stop screaming Ma, I’ll do better.

Three steps to my very own guillotine. One, two, three. Fall term, winter term, spring term. One, two, three. April, May, June.

One, two, three. Fifty page research paper over three months of dripping drool on computer desks at midnight, regressions and neural networks and artificial intelligence spazzing into my empty eyes sockets from the still computer screen, gurgling into my throat and gagging me until I vomit a bullshit algorithm code. National gold prize. International silver prize, but then even that’s not enough for her.

Three steps until my legs snap and I fall face-first and die in my fated race. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Blue Dream Catcher

(this story requires the use of a mirror)