The fourth try
There was no exit. It was “do it or die”. The endless trials to get out of this average tag Susan put herself into. She had exactly forty-five minutes left to finish successfully – hopefully – her exam. But she had this unbearable problem: the lack of concentration.
Susan was a pale girl with big swollen brown eyes and oily brown-brick-colour-hair. When she was nervous, she used to bite her nails and play with her hair. It was a nasty, odd, but inevitable habit. She would start by softening the white part of her nails putting it inside of her warm mouth full of saliva. After having the nails humid and the skin around the nails with wrinkles, she would sight and tickle the top of her head, especially the roots of the hair. Her roots would absorb the saliva and allowed her to feel every feature of her thick hair: it would be like running her fingers through hills of sand. Then, she would start to realise that her nails were giving in to the softening process and in a blink of an eye, she would bite them until some blood started to appear joining this shame of having “boys’ nails” again.
These nervous habits are supposed to calm people down, aren’t they? She thought getting even more nervous than she was seven minutes ago.
Susan stretched her legs, inhaled and exhaled a couple of times and looked around. Every student was so focused on their test and this pale teenager was feeling the pressure of time making her hands sweaty and even more difficult to hold the pen. Then, the noises started to appear and bother her: the tick tack of the clock, the pen scratching the paper, the breath coming out of each pair of students’ nostrils, the sole of the shoes tap-dancing on the floor.
What is missing? Self-doubts? She murmured to herself irritated to have this blank space in her test sheet.
13 minutes left. The professor warned.
God damn it, Susan Saunders! Write something! I will not pay you another semester, young lady. It was her mother yelling in Susan’s head.
She closed her eyes and demanded herself to make up a short story. Her cheeks started to blush and her nostrils expanded. She sat correctly in her chair, her muscles contracted and she couldn’t hear a thing. As soon as the concentration had returned, she started to write furiously.
