the exam ·
2 August 04

I sat on the ground; grass I think it was. The sky was bright, a few clouds in the distance, but nothing that could be called dull. The ground, however, was a different story.

It was quite dull, gray and overcast across the whole stadium and the people there. Very few seemed to have turned up as we watched a few athletes running around the track, doing their sprinting, relay and jumps, amongst other activities.

The stadium, if it could be called that, was oval in shape, and not deviating from the original pattern that most stadiums use. It’s almost gladiatorial in that respect, and I guess this works for all sports in any case. The seats were green. Those folding plastic ones where you need to lift the seat down in order to keep it in place and to have yourself a place to rest your rear. Getting up would flip the seat upwards. It wasn’t fixed in place. A fence surrounded the track from the spectators, but somehow a friend and I sat on the ground, very close to where the action was.

As I looked across the almost empty stadium, only a few people sat to the far right on the stadium itself, or is that in the stadium? I don’t quite know. They wore red track suit bottoms, with an elastic top which had a zipper, underneath was a white T-shirt; while on their heads they wore a red baseball cap, and on their feet they wore white trainers with red stripes across the side. The bottoms and the top contained stripes similar to the trainers, but in white instead of red. Those people were female, and were cheering the few people doing the activities.

“This place is fucking tiny man” I said to my friend, turning, butting my forefinger and thumb together to indicate the small size of the stadium.

I try to comprehend her logic, and how she knew what exam it was, and why she was telling me all this.

He nodded.

“Look at it man. It’s like no one could be bothered to turn up, no one cares.”

He nods again.

“See, and they don’t even have the Para-Olympics. No one fucking cares. Look at those girls sitting over there,” I begin again, wanting to go over to say hello, “they’re practically the only ones here.”

He looks at the girls too, and then looks back at the track, and then surveys the stadium, and nods in acknowledgment. There really was hardly anyone here, and we didn’t question the reason as to why we were there, we just accepted it.

“See, the Para-Olympics are just as fucking important you know? They deserve to be seen as well, but who’s going to turn up? No one cares about the able athletes as it is, who’s gonna care for the disabled ones?”

He nods.
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As I look down on the ground before me, I see a glimpse of the track in field of view. I look back up, and it seems that an age must have passed as now the stadium is almost full. The seating area directly in my vision is completely packed with people wrestling for their seats. The same is true for the rest of the stadium.

To my back, and to the left the crowd is roaring; you can hear the hustle and bustle as everyone takes their seats in waiting for the events to begin. To my right, the girls are no longer there, replaced with other people there. To the bottom right of the stadium, it’s barely full however, and I except this to be packed. It remains barely full, with only a few people sitting sporadically instead of together.

“Fucking hell! It’s well packed, and the stadium’s fucking HUGE!“ I say, as the stadium does in fact seemed to have increased not only in its capacity but in its size. It’s taller, it’s wider and almost double the seating size of the original one which was this morning. This morning, because now it’s mid-day, and it’s a fine line between light and dark, the transition taking place slowly.

There really was hardly anyone here, and we didn’t question the reason as to why we were there, we just accepted it.

As night takes place, we watch as the athletes do their thing. It’s all very entertaining, and the crowd are jumping for joy, they’re cheering, but there seems to be something odd. There are hardly any athletes on the track. I can see maybe 4 or 5 athletes at most. It’s almost like one athlete per event, on their own.

I’m aware that some events require athletes to take turns in single order for an event, but in the entire stadium there seem to be only 4 or 5 athletes, and the track and centre field area seem to have shrunk to accommodate only these few. The crowd are still cheering, and my head is confused and frustrated. I think at this point I close my eyes.

When I open them, the stadium has disappeared, and I’m in the school hall. At the front of the hall are single desks laid out in rows of three with the side being viewed by us. There is a teacher, with huge curly hair standing around, arranging students to line up sitting on the floor. My friend and I walk in, and think it’s quite odd that every one is so huddled together. We sit down, crossing our legs as the other students, but sit at the upper rows.

The teacher waves her hand around and the students that were once crowded together, separate, leaving a sea of space ahead of us. The teacher waves at us to move forward, but no one does. Then an entire row ahead of us shifts one line down, and the gulf between the lower end and the top end seems much greater.
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As that line starts to shift downwards, my friend moves down, so now I am one row above, but the row I am with has broken off from his row. The rows are split, but I don’t move. He keeps shifting downwards with the row of students until the reach the bottom. We’re waved downwards, with a moderate scowl. I start to shift as the others remaining on the now broken row shift to meet up with my friend and his row.

My friend decides to move down the far, far end of another broken row. I move down with him, and the teacher waves indicating that she wants us nearer to the middle. I am quite angry about this, and spin on the floor lying on my back feet pointing towards my friend, and say,

“Do you want me to lie like this as well?” delivered with sarcasm, which gets a laugh from the crowd. The teacher, however, has now moved us down to the second to first row at the bottom end. The top row seems a long way off now. I hate that fucking teacher right now, for making us shift so far. She indicates to me she wants me to sit at one of the desks.

I get up and sit on the first row, second desk, next to a girl with blonde hair. She looks up, and then back down at the desk to write her name on a small green book, about the size of half a diary. As I am given my green book, I notice that opening it doubles the size, and closing it keeps it that size. When I write my details, such as name, class, and subject on the book it’s all illegible hand writing. As if that of a 5 year old school child’s. The other students no longer seem to be there, and it seems I’m taking part in an exam.

The paper given to us discusses English literature, with paragraphs from a writer that we need to understand and interpret, and explain what he’s saying. I cannot seem to get my head around this, and it’s confusing the fuck out of me. I look over at the girl. She’s wearing ear studs lined from the bottom of her ear lobe upwards. They’re different colours, some transparent, and it all looks rather cute. Her skin seems soft, delicate, and she lifts her hair so it hangs over one of the ears. I don’t quite understand why girls do this, but she does it anyway, much to my confusion.

Behind me sits an aggressive, animal of a man. The teacher doesn’t say anything to him, as he tries to disrupt the exam with his fellow friends sitting by his side at the desk. They’re looking at the book like imbeciles, not being able to understand which way the book is meant to be. They laugh like idiots, and it pisses me off. The text is confusing me, and the noise is disrupting only me it seems. In fact, I seem to be the only person that seems to be bothered by anything happening.
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I get up off my seat. I want to talk more to the girl, and find out more about her. But decide to do so after the exam, I just cannot be bothered right now. My mind is too preoccupied by confusing text I have read.

I make my way to a shop outside of the school. I pick up a bottle of water, Evian I think it is, and stand behind the row of customers as the slow line begins to move. I realise I need to get back to the exam, and put the water back in the fridge and leave the shop in a pissed off mood.

There’s another shop, thankfully, and I decide to go there. There is no queue of people, so I grab a bottle of Volvic water this time, and make my way to the till. Stood there is a fat Asian girl, and she takes the bottle and puts it on the desk. She starts chatting to me,

“Don’t you think that exam is stupid? See, I don’t understand it. All that English literature stuff. I failed that, so I got a job here, and I’m quite happy with that. I don’t get many people coming here, so it’s always good to have a natter with a customer. Honestly though, they expect you to know everything.”

My friend and I walk in, and think it’s quite odd that every one is so huddled together.

I look at her with a face that tries to understand whether or not what is in front ofme represents an alien or God’s fatal mistake? If they did a DNA test, would they find it is in fact, not human? I try to comprehend her logic, and how she knew what exam it was, and why she was telling me all this. Was it a warning, or an invitation.

She was also a dumb bitch. I gave her £1 for the water, she keyed in 59p to the cash register, she then put the £1 in the till, took out another £1, with a £2 coin. She put the £2 coin on the desk, the £1 coin in the bag, and asked if I wanted anything else. I grabbed the water and walked out of the shop promptly.

As I headed back, I wondered whether this break would actually help in trying to understand the exam questions better. I got back to my desk, and the idiots were still behaving as such, and girl was still with her head down, writing away, doing the exam, just as the other students were. The hall was practically empty bar the few rows of desk occupied by the students.

I sat at my desk, and opened my writing book, but the first few pages had been filled with drawings, they were quite interesting shapes, like sea shells, or patterns from the ancient past. I wondered whether I had done this, or whether it was someone else. I surmised I would have remembered had I done this, the idiots had not stopped behaving like idiots, there was no one to the right of me, so was it the girl? I looked at her, but she buried her head even further, noticing me with her glance. I looked back down and got back to the text.

I heard static, and woke up. The alarm had gone off; it was time to get up.