The pencil slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. As he leaned over to retrieve it the throbbing againts his forehead and temples deepened. His fingers attempted to pick the already slick pencil up but the task almost became impossible with the sweat permeating from his palms.
After about three attempts he finally felt a solid grasp and pushed himself back up to once again be face to face with the very pinnacle of his future. Who would have thought that the one thing in Peter’s life that could stop him from his dreams would be a one inch thick stack of white papers.
Tik, tok, tik, tok
The ticking of the clock was always the loudest thing in the mundane, drab room. He frequented this place multiple times a semester and never has the ticking got to him. This time was different though, this time the ticking of the clock instilled anxiety. With each tik and each tok he was closer and closer to running out of his allotted time to finish the gods forsaken test.
Freedom was on the other side of that clock though. Also with each tik and each tok meant that at some point he would be free. Time could not stop here in this unbearable anxious moment. It was just a matter of if he would be free in the way he desired.
With his pencil finally in hand and gripped firmly the tension in his head pulled tighter focusing its hold right in the center of his eyes. It hurt like hell but his mind was focused, concentrated directly on each question and each bubble he darkened for an answer. With each darkened circle his tenstion loosened a fraction of the built up pressure, realeasing each piece of knowledge from his mind like keeping a shaken soda can from exploding. Bit by bit the pressure eased. Scribble by scribble the tension waned.
He knew the answers and rarely second guessed himself. All those late nights of studying, skipped parties, dates, and spontaneous vacations he choose to forego were all paying off with each turn of the stack of papers in front of him.
_Tik, tok, tik, tok _
The beating heart in his chest kept time with the rhythm of the clock now. Each beat growing rapidly. The future he knew he could have, the life he knew he could live was right there just in reach of his grasp as long as he could just extend his mind a little further to grasp it, and cradle that future like a newborn babe.
Sketching his number two pencil along the final tiny bubble, he flopped back into his chair, allowing his lungs to release his breathe he didn’t realize he had been holding for the last minute. The thumping of his heart now slowing to a normal beat, away from the ticking clock on the wall. Sweat on his forehead sticks to the hair there and with a slight tossel of his right hand he smooths it back and off the moisture.
Now it’s time to let it all go, there is nothing else he can possibly do at this point. Peter turns in his chair to stand, grabs his test and number two pencil and makes his way to the front of the room, through the door, and on to the future that this moment brings him.
Leaving. What is leaving? Leaving is a losing. Not necessarily losing like in a game of chess or a cricket match. Its having something or someone that you hold to be of value to you to be gone. Could be forever, or temporarily. But you feel it though. You feel it deep in the valleys of your emotions as that value that some way meant something to you either now or at some point in your life, slips through your grasp and is just gone.
At least that’s how I had to describe it to myself that night I left. He was my forever. He was my lifelong plan. But plans change, and that value you once had in a person can become invaluable. Do I regret it? No, I couldn’t when I had three of the most precious things in my life asleep in the backseat of my twenty year old Toyota corrolla.
I knew if I stayed, because of my own fear of losing what i used to value or still could, I would risk losing my beautiful angels in the backseat. And they are more valuable to me then what used to be or maybe could be if I stayed.
The console was buzzing from the fan now spinning violently just trying to keep it from overheating. Three of us were energetically and unconstitutionally determined to take down the fourth player.
Slight grunts and sighs from fingers mashing the buttons on each controller indicated that we were giving it our all to take down the collective foe. Trevor and his freakin pikachu had to be stopped.
Greg and his, Zelda protecting, Link were already out of the fight. Brandon and Solid Snake had one life left and Nate with his Yoshi had two. Trevor dominating the Smash Bros playing field had all three of his lives left.
Our chatter and tactics of how we would succeed in this endeavor reverberated off the small walls of the one bedroom apartment Trevor lived in. Cold pepperoni pizza littered the stove top in the quaint kitchen and you could barely notice the glossy finish of the coffee table in front of us from all the empty Mountain Dew cans.
Losing to this damn pikachu had to stop. Brandon swore if he got hit with that thunderbolt move one more time he would quit after this game and never touch it again. Trevor chuckling at our frustration of the macth and knew that he was untouchable with his pikachu, but we were irrevocabley determined. “Kill Trevor!” Brandon shouts,
“Ya, get him!” Greg chimes in wanting vengeance for his lost character.
Trevor gets a forward lunge on Nate’s Yoshi and he flies out of the screen losing another life. Alright two lives between Nate and Brandon and Trevor had three still.
Trevor’s Pikachu is hurting real bad. The guys know if they can touch him they can take him down a life. “Come on kill Trevor!” Brandon expresses again.
“Ya let’s corner him.” Nate adds hopefully leading a plan of attack.
-Ding Dong-
The doorbell rings unexpectadly, prompting all four boys to glance at each other as if someone has an answer to why the doorbell was rang. No one was expecting anyone.
Brandon volunteers, “I’ll get it.” Lifting himself off the hard matted floor. Nate paused the grueling battle of the century as they wait to see who their surprise visitor is.
Brandon approaches the door, feeling the cool night seeping in from the metal door knob as he turns it.
Bam!
The door flies open and a wave of dark blue uniformed men start charging into the tiny apartment. Each holding a gun as an extension of their arms “GET DOWN! DON’T MOVE!” All four boys immediately drop to the old soiled floor and lay like a flatfish on a sea floor.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! NOW!” They can see that it’s at least four bulky officers fit into the inadequate space and possibly even more outside the door.
The blue uniformed men begin giving orders into the mobile communication units strapped to there vests. One officer makes his way into Trevor’s bedroom scanning for any other personages. Once he returns they all seem to come to a nonverable agreeance that they have the situation handled. The officer with a sergeant tag labeled on his shoulder steps forward and asks, “Alright boys, where’s Trevor? What did you do with him?”
The pulsating throb from Dossen’s palm was a reminder that shit had officially hit the fan. His tense stiff trigger finger was giving out. Damn fucking bugs. The hell his men had to go through to keep the colony safe wasn’t worth the lifeless soil it sat on.
Burning batteries were a smell him and his squad were all too familiar indicating him to drop his clip and hurriedly grabbed a replacement off his belt. Jamming it into place he could see the Arackion charging up a crimson heat in its mouth for another sweeping deadly ray. “TAKE COVER!”
Standing about 8 feet tall and within leaping distance,he takes off running like a gazelle escaping its predator behind the inpenatrable rock. A wicked vibration quakes through his body as sweat begins to bead along his forehead. Andre leaning next to him, wide eyed glares into his scratched up visor confirming that at least one of his squad members took heed of his warning.
An ear piercing screech bounds from above the rock. Dossen has fought enough of these damn spiders to know what that means. He gives the command, “CLEAR!”
Moving around the safety of the rock, the scope of his ray gun as his eyes. He spots it, a pile of charred black metal. His heart pounds with the quickening steps of his comrades back in the battle. The smell of fresh welding and human flesh nauseate his senses, “Jeremy.” Not another friend. Sinking into his gut, sinking and sinking, his determination disappears and rising from the abyss is now heat flowing through his veins.
The ray gun draped at his side is now an extension of his arm. The rising anger now fueling him. “DAMN YOU ALL!!!!” An illumination of blue showers the infestation.
