Shadowy filaments of my dream teased me, but without clarity or full recall. It hovered just beyond reach, diffusing an indistinct uneasiness. I love the smell of cryptic bullshit dreams in the morning, I mused. Maybe it’s just test anxiety.
That made the most sense, as today was my last final exam. I’d spent the last several weeks grinding for my Hospitality Law Finals, but I’d always had shit confidence taking tests, study or no study.
Nevertheless, I stumbled into the bathroom, with my bitter, black poison in hand. My mirror had been replaced with an opening in the wall, and there lurked a hideous, sub-human gargoyle, instead of my own pleasant reflection. Or... Maybe the mirror was perfect, and I just looked like shit.
Still, I went through the motions of my morning grooming rituals, crowning the travesty on my head with my signature messy bun. The bird’s nest sticking to my scalp was now reasonably disguised, thanks to the familiarity of minimal effort. With the adept skill of a four-year-old, I slathered on enough makeup to conceal the iron black circles under my eyes that my dreams had so generously bestowed upon me. Then, I gagged down the mug of disgusting ‘Re-Heato’, (i.e. leftover dregs of black coffee sludge heated to the temperature of molten lava), grabbed my bag, and made my way to campus.
The walk to class was something I’d learned to love over the last five years (yes, I am on the five-year plan). There was an old-fashioned charm to the University of Georgia, with its beautiful gardens and green grass, setting off buildings of aged red brick. Tradition and tranquility lined these streets of Athens, home of the Georgia Bulldogs. But today, flocks of black birds cluttered my path. Crows. Upon reflection, I realized that the crows had been a recurring fixture lately. I’d been seeing them all over, wherever I went. Their increasingly creepy apparition stirred some vague premonition of… well, I wasn’t sure what, exactly. I assumed it was just an amorphous negative outcome approaching the horizon, like my anxiety dreams – just more cryptic bullshit. Chalk it up to a morbid imagination.
Stopping at the last crosswalk I glanced back, to find that the entire murder of crows had trailed me like an avenging posse. How many crows are in a murder, anyway? I thought. I’m glad that’s not going to be on my test. One of these crows flapped past me, fat and feathery, landing directly in front of me with a startling caw.
“Yeah, whatever!” I muttered. “Fuck off, you jinx! I’m not failing my final because of you!”
I crossed the street and climbed the steps into Hale Hall. With each step, I felt like I was getting closer to my demise, mounting a scaffold for my certain fate - execution by exam.
This feeling was more than just the finals; I felt unusually ill at ease, riddled with a disturbing level of distress, more heightened than ordinary test anxiety. I had nothing to pin the sensation on directly, just a free-floating general worry. A fretful apprehension wrapped around my core, one I could not seem to shake. This eeriness was on a whole other level of screwed up.
However, three elaborately strenuous hours later, I finished my very last final exam without incident. Thank goodness I pushed my malaise aside as soon as those little blue books were being passed around. As I walked out of the room, slapping that blue book on the desk in stride with my exit, the realization began to sink in; I was finished. I was a B.A. now. Let the bachelorette party commence!
I left the old bricks of Hale behind me, and made a beeline to meet up with Katie. My remarkably amazing, brilliant but slightly ridiculous, only-late-on-the-rent-occasionally, best friend/roommate. Reliable as she was, I knew she’d be ready, as always, to slap some badass on me. As the bricks grew smaller behind me, my head began to clear, and as that silly grin spread across my face, I could feel myself beaming as I turned the corner into the quad.
Just ahead of me, I saw Katie in the shade of a grand old magnolia, glued to her fucking phone as usual. I was just about to yell out her name, but my body had other plans.
Suddenly a powerful rushing burst loose inside me, sparking through my veins like a charged current at lightning speed. I felt a burning, buzzing heat on the inside of my skin. My very bloodstream felt carbonated, my heart pumping out fizzy bubbles. The world around me began to spin like dry leaves, caught in a whirlwind. A wave of vertigo staggered me, and I stumbled a few steps backwards, despite my feet feeling like they had nothing to stand on. Like Wiley Coyote running past the edge of a cliff for a few steps, I stumbled again before looking down and finally finding my footing. I collapsed to my knees and wrapped my arms around my chest, rocking, moaning, staring vacantly at the blurring world around me. This fitful episode wasn’t painful per se, but it was disorienting on multiple levels.
I tried to get moving. No dice. I couldn’t even stand up just yet. I’d need at least a minute or two, or maybe I’d just say “fuck it” and take a few weeks to recover from the shock of what had just happened.
Things went gray.
Then they went black…
… I heard Katie’s muffled voice penetrate the ball of cotton my brain was marooned inside. The sound of her voice alone was reassuring, a thin rope tethered to a world that was still tangible and solid. I could always count on Katie, even when my body betrayed me.
