BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 27

ÆSH

Exam week. First day of exams. As soon as the door opens, corpse-like I file in with the rest of the students. Invigilators are pacing the aisles. Avoiding eye-contact with all, I drag myself to a seat a couple of rows from the front and heavily slump into it.

"You have two hours to complete the examination," says the invigilator. "Once you are finished please leave the premises without making a disturbance. Your time begins now."

I click on the link and start writing.

But my brain is buzzing, fizzing, letting off sparks like some ship sinking. My eyes are bloodshot and red. When will this all end?

I look at the complex conjugate theorem:

60i is a root f(x) = x2 + 3600

Find the other root of f(x) ___________

How futile it all seemed. The meaninglessness of life strafing at me. I'm just going through the motions like some jalopied bot.

I look up at the hall clock, on the periphery of my vision I catch the sight of ... a form ... a shape. I stare at it till it slowly comes into full focus. It is a hologram in my exact image. His eyes fixed on mine like a target. Fear floods my chest. I sit there zoning in on the holographic pixels. I blink, then repeatedly but the vision doesn't fritter away. Purposefully, the hologram starts walking towards me. One step closer, two steps closer, three .... four ... I grip my seat and shut my eyes forcefully.

Don't open your eyes! I can feel dread and terror sloshing inside me. I open my eyes a crack, the flickering hologram is continuing its way towards me. Anxiety darts out of me like a man on fire running wild onto the streets. I pick up my desk and hurl it at the hologram. Screams erupt. Students near me scramble away and rush to the far corner of the hall.

"Æsh!" I hear my name yelled.

The invigilator is screaming, I can't hear him but see his lips moving. The hologram continues in my direction. I pick up my chair and throw it at the pixelated form. The chair cuts through it, the hologram flashes back into vision.

The invigilators have now surrounded me and are forcefully holding me back. The hologram crackles but his eyes still steadfastly glued onto mine. I break away and charge head-long into the holographic image like a bison goring an intruder. Screams break out. I turn and find that the students have cleared to the far end of the room. All eyes on me, some fearful, some observing me as though I am deranged. Then I realise I am in an examination hall filled with my classmates.

When I look back at the hologram it walking out of the hall.

I break away. And make a dash to chase it, but as soon as I catch up with it - it fritters away.

I run through it and make an exit out of the examination hall.

'It's better if I died,' becomes a scratch in the back of my head and I can't stop repeating it.

Run! Run! Run!

Outside the school gate, I chance upon a motorbike. I mount it, start the ignition, ramp the accelerator and drive off just as its owner desperately chases after me. I rev up speed, swerving down snaking roads, I course deeper into the forest. A cold sting in my eyes, blurs of light streaking by. I ride long, through the pine forest, past Angel Falls right up to Devil's Kitchen. I throw the bike on the wayside and I run up the cliff. Grey clouds are hanging low, merging into the mist.

The time is now. The time is now.

I near the vertical drop, a bluster of wind pushes me back. My eyes snag on white, bell-shaped flowers dangling in abundance by the flank of the cliff. It's the salvia Datura. The plant no one eats, not villagers, not cows, not even cut-worms.