Tick tock, Tick tock, Tick tock…
The clock wears me down. I can deal with most subjects. Granted, I am not an extraordinary student, but I am good at what I do. Maths and science, I can handle. One question – one answer. You write that answer, you get the mark. As simple as that. No two ways about it. And then there was English…
You have to write an essay, I mean how hard can it be?
You write it, satisfied, that you have answered the question, and then comes the shock. No matter how much you tell yourself, you are never quite prepared to see the fruits of your labor; when you know that you have given it all, but the red number at the top right corner of the page shows otherwise. You hide it, afraid of your own failure. Fear is the darkroom where negatives develop. You start to think all sorts of things – maybe it’s the handwriting? Or perhaps the teacher just didn’t get what I was trying to convey; after all it doeshave layered meaning. Maybe if I explain to him what I meant, he’ll understand. Genius is often misunderstood…
When you have patted your ego enough, and still no plausible answer comes up, with each option politely proceeding to excuse itself, you begin doubting yourself – maybe it’s me – I’mnot good enough…
They tell you all sorts of things, you know, the teachers. Do this, do that – add a topic sentence, link it back to the paragraph blah, blah, blah… You scribble desperately, straight from the horse’s mouth, into the notebook. After 5 pages of torture, when your fingers just give up, and your hand begs for mercy at this unwarranted execution, you are none the wiser. And to be told – “yeah it’s good, but you see, you just haven’t got it”.
What isIT?
They never quite tell you that.
I’ve looked far and wide for ‘it’. It’s like opening a crammed drawer and you’re searching for nothing in particular and when you don’t find it, something falls out of the back that is interesting, but that is not ‘it’. I went back looking for answers, never quite knowing what to improve. Physics, chemistry, maths, I can handle. There is logic behind it. And they tell you to see the ‘better’ answers, and that doesn’t help, does it? I mean sure, that guy maybe has a few more ‘therefores’, a little splash of ‘hitherto’ and a whole lot of tongue twisters like ‘verisimilitude’ and god knows what but basically, when it comes down to it, he’s saying the samething, and in the samelanguage – English!
I would watch him, as he went about his business. I marveled at this fluke of nature. I mean, honestly, the guy had no skills – he didn’t even know when to lie! How else do you expect a person to survive in this world? I wouldn’t call him my friend; that would be pushing it. He just sat next to me, that’s all. Ordinarily, he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid – never knowing when to shut up.
I tolerated his presence, not because of his domineering figure, but because he was bloody good at English, something which I wasn’t. Sure, the guy was nuts, but he had his moments, kinda had a way with words. I wasn’t even sure that he spoke English. Sure, it sounded like it, but wasn’t the same thing; not the English we speak. It had a lot more… words to it. Words which no one ever used while talking, words which I could not make head or tail of, words which I’m pretty sure he made up. Words, words, words…
But when he put them on paper, boy was it magical! Something like fairy dust, I presume. I used to spend hours comparing his work to mine. It had an azure quality to it, something you dare not copy, lest you pollute it. And so I didn’t. You know that feeling, when you just look at somebody else, and he just makes you feel… small; knowing fully well, that he is no better than you, knowing that if it was anything else, you would beat him hands down.
CONTINUED...
