The school is steeped in absolute silence that leaked through the walls, infecting it like an insubstantial cancer. I'm isolated in a classroom with other like-minded students, trapped in front of an old computer that hummed a static melody. The teacher that oversaw our examinations leaned into her chair as a soft snort croaked out of her nose between five-second intervals. She was fighting against sleep, barely conscious, while anxiety spurred my legs into a passive spasm. I wanted to leave. I need to go. My mind drew towards the door and focused on the clock that hung above it. It was only eight in the morning and time seemed to have frozen in place. I'm writing my provincial English exam for high-school, and I want to escape.

I can't do this.

I sat on my chair like a side-stop idiot as the fingers of my classmates steadily danced across their keyboards, making their way through the test. Their thoughts were churning with intellect and imagination while mine began to short-circuit. Years of constant reinforcement towards my stupidity had done its job--I was physically incapable of writing a single word on the page. My brain was unable to keep up, so I sat in place, conjuring up fleeting fantasies of other worlds or modes of being, anything I could use to distract me from the present. Day-dreaming is my only coping mechanism, one that distracts rather than aides, and in this case, it did nothing but waste my time. 

I'm a worthless idiot.

Tick-tock the clock went as students slowly began to exit the classroom, laughing and giggling outside the door as they joke about the exam. The same test they must have aced, they were the geniuses that wrote something while I haven't typed a single word. Their happiness became a growing echo that pounded against my head, deadened my nerves, and vivisected my flabby stomach. I felt the shame, sudden and knife-like, swarm around my body, piercing my brain as the page remained empty.

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This is a disaster

My lungs began to gape for air, but I kept myself quiet to not make a scene. There was still nothing on my screen. There is going to be nothing on my screen. My eyes screened the monitor as I found my goal, the submit icon. If I click on this, the exam will be over… I will be over. Any prospects I had for my future were over, will I have a future? I see it in my mind's eye, a forgotten humanoid crouched alongside an alley wall, hoping that a passerby will take pity on him. My eyes started to sting as I blinked away the tears; the realization crushed me.

I can't do anything.

I stood up, knees quaking, and click submit. It's done. I'm finished. My body moved past the half-asleep teacher and through the closed door, in a moment I was outside. The laughter was thicker now, a drowning chorus, dragging me to tears as I made my way to the restroom. Immediately, I locked myself within the stall and plopped onto the toilet. The room, formerly white, was stained yellow from piss while the stale scent of moist shit wafted through the air. The bathroom is a tainted place, perfect for a disgusting human like me.

Why couldn't I write something?

The thought festered, rotting the defences I built up within my mind as my subconscious struggled to spawn a fantasy. I kept circling back to the shame, guilt, anxiety, and pain, the ugly emotions that seeded within me. It forced me to see myself for who I was, a sad invalid incapable of thought. My eyes blurred as I sat on the toilet crying, a soft sound that remained unnoticed even as boys went in and out of the restroom.

Soundlessly, I stood up and made my way to the sink, submerging my hands in water before washing my face. I look at myself in the mirror, noting how my eyes were stained red, and how the tears left invisible creases in the skin. Then I breathe, slapping my face before leaving. 

I'm going to be okay.