At SHS in April

Editor’s Note: The Falcon sought out freelance writing for this issue. This story was written for English 11 Honors. Students were assigned to imitate John Steinbeck’s style in his interchapters in “The Grapes of Wrath.” The following is a piece describing the slump juniors experience in March and April as they approach finals and AP testing.

        Pace accelerates when the bell blares for the second time. Wallowing students fast-forward and doors swing open to the sound of a pounding heart and a shallow breath. It was deliberately assembled without a snooze button, this alarm, prudently constructed to jolt the sleepiness out of the sleepless.  

Even so, the room is quiet, even after the reverberating tolls. Still, the students sluggishly file into their seats, like water seeping through the cracks of cement, as they avoid the grey stink-eye. “The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States …” The honeyed voice sounds sickening today, drizzled with the pungent tang of whiteboard aerosol that drinks the milky flavor out of the freshly-lit candle. “… supported South Korea while the…”  What felt like a blanket envelops the hunched shoulders and the numbed elbow becomes soft. “… Kennedy …” With a final jerk, the lids slip closed.

The night before, fingers flew across the keyboard, much like a pianist's. The maniacal clicking formed a melody, one that embodied the frustration of the inharmonious data in the titration lab and the medley of exams conveniently scheduled on the same day. Under the flourescent bulbs hovering mere inches from her face, her lab calculations hid from the light, shying away from the harsh beam that would victimize them under the girl’s gaze. They didn’t want to be examined, and frankly, she didn’t want to either. With a final click of the period key, the piece crashed on a final cadence in unison with the soft tick of 3 a.m.

The room is quiet but their minds are not. The soft scuttles of a pencil, the crisp rustle of a turned page, the occasional throaty cough: All mask the turmoil of thoughts in the students’ minds.

The chain rule … My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone … The limit as n goes to infinity … An Ox, Red Cat … SAT scores are in … “5 minutes left” … Not getting sleep tonight … Still need to get a prom dress … ‘Cause if you like the way you look that much, oh, baby, you should go and love yourself … “Time.”  

Instead of fading into relief, the pre-test anxiety has morphed into indifference. The shaking hands and the shaky breaths are now numb, and the smug confidence has turned to detachment. After they step out of the dimly lit room, their eyes barely adjust to the glinting sun before the crimson shades of the math mural began resembling more of the obnoxious red downward grade trend arrow on Aeries rather than one of Saratoga’s school colors.

       They are quiet but the room is not. While animated chatter erupts, they examine their loquacious classmates carefully. Are these classmates human? No, they are machines. Light circles lining their eyes, coffee stains whitening their brilliant grins and postures boasting no hint of a slouch, these machines are capable of running off of minimal energy. But humans need a full tank. Gas is costly: Gain an hour of sleep, lose an hour of homework. Gain two hours of sleep, drop a letter grade on the upcoming test. Sacrifices must be made. Time becomes a luxury, an indulgence purchased through the successive payments of sleepless nights. And if you manage your time well? At a school where recommendation letters are fought for as much as summer internship spots, if you aren’t ahead, you’re behind, but if you’re behind, you’ve got to catch up.

They are quiet; but as the laptop hummed against his leg, the siren call of Netflix pierced the delicate ambiance of the quiet room. Although journals lay dejectedly open to half-filled pages, he ignored the accusation of neglect his incomplete work seemed to give him. Ironically, procrastination serves as a stress reliever for him: a quick escape from the idea of having not enough time to do all that needs to be done. Netflix was the specter that toyed with his perception, distorting the aggravating reality to glossy idealism. No longer did he have to exert Sisyphean effort into an endless mound of work; instead, he took a detour to Elysium.

The gentle patter of rain on the windowsill reverberates through the quiet room. It resembles a black and white painting; the furniture ashy, the walls smoky and the windows foggy. The students hope for the gentle glint of sunlight to color their canvas, to penetrate the wet sheet hindering their line of sight. That time may come, they think, but not in April.