It's That Time of Year

The tick-tocking of the clock reminds me how long each dragging second takes to release its hold on time and hand over to the next.  The red second hand slips down the clock face.  It is not allowed to pause at the bottom before it must begin its uphill trek once more.  If I watch it, one minute is an eternity.  I take my gaze away and concentrate on the task in hand.  When I look back at the clock a few minutes later, or so it seems, I feel sure that it has cheated me and skipped forward twenty-fold, extinguishing many precious minutes of my time.

I look down once more at the question paper and the words jump about on the page.  I stare at them and they settle down, allowing me to see into them.  I reach into my mind.  Nothing there. And then suddenly, butterfly thoughts are released and they fly around in all directions, bumping into each other within the confines of my brain.  I wait for a moment until, one by one, they come to rest in ones and twos and threes.  Carefully, I pick them up and try to put them into words.

Sometimes, the words tumble out onto the paper and arrange themselves.  Sometimes, they need a little help.  It is then that I look out of the window.  The distant horizon beckons me.  'Leave now and join me,' it calls silently.  I am tempted.  The hills are pale in the morning sunshine, rested from their sleep.  But they will soon awaken and dress themselves in purple and emerald.  I want to fly to them.  Not no.  I force my gaze downwards to the half empty page and resolve to fill it before I allow myself to look up again.

For the most part, the other sounds in the room distance themselves from me, remaining on the borders of my consciousness.  But occasionally they slip into my awareness.  The rustling of paper.  The creaking of chairs.  Sniffing.  Scribbling.  I try not to look around, for if I see people writing furiously, I am alarmed by their rate of output.  Someone asks for extra paper.  Oh my goodness, I must write more.  Someone else puts their pen down and folds their arms.  They have finished.  Gosh.  I must speed up. 

And so, eventually I am done.  One final trawl of my scoured brain to see if anything else is lurking there - maybe a final phrase or piece of wisdom which I need to tip out onto the paper.  And then, just in time, I ceremoniously put my pen down and listen for the long awaited words.

'That's it.  Your time is up.  Please stop writing and put your pens down.'