Examination

The world is too tough now.  We’re never going to be tough enough to survive complete.  Undamaged.  Nobody is saved from being scathed.  We all scratch and kick and bite in our weakness because we know, we all know, that we are weak.  This…we all know this. 

  In this, a morning; a small class of twleve begins work.  Their begin work on higher algerbra, higher physics (quantam and classical) and a rigourously techinal form of shorthand grammatics similar to CPU language; almost such as a spoken computer data code.  Between lessons the class enjoys logic based word games that sound like highly formilised riddles.  None of the class are older than fifteen years.

  As I am where I are I wonder, in uncharacteristc fashion, how it all came to this.  Actually it is not uncharacteristic.  Cause and effect; that’s all.  I am just looking at the links of this chain seeing how each one connects to each other from the begninning.  The first one looks like this:

  A girl, girl A, walking into the gates of a school.  The day is hot and clearly grey.  There’s intensity in the air.  A tension of sorts.  Girl A’s uniform is clean/smart and her straw hat is immaculate.  Her shoes are polished.  Her eyes are sharp.  Her head is dry.  She walks on the boiling concrete towards the large white buliding of the school.  She enters the large double doors containing her future.  Inside she looks around for the classroom she is supposed to be in.  There seems to be nobody to ask a question.  Then after a little walking a voice calls out from behind her.  She turns to confirm the voice’s presence.  The voice is confirmed to be a tall woman.  The woman recognises the girl as the new pupil and tells her to follow.  The woman is called Miss Brand.  As they walk through the corridors Miss Brand talks to A about the school, the studies, the schedule, the students, the structure of the building and of the day.  Girl A absorbs.  When asked if she has any questions she would like to ask the girl simply replies that if she does have any questions she will ask them at the end of the school day.  Miss Brand is satisfied.  They enter the classroom.

   That first day is the clearest memory I have of my time at the I.  A pinnicle of importance.  That was what I had climbed up to.  Everyday before that first day I was reaching up for that moment putting every effort into every step to move upwards and dared not to slip an inch.  I was walking on the tightrope where every step forward never prevented or secured myself from falling.  I never looked down to realise I had a fear of heights, I never worried/beileved that I was high in the air, that was how I kept on taking another carefully balanced step.  I never looked back either.

  In the classroom the pupils were working.  They were not at desks writing from a board but they were sat down on chairs that formed a square and they were debating a subject.  Though girl A had entered the room she was not noticed by any one of the pupils, or they were delibrilartly ignoring her so they could keep the flow of their arguments at full pressure.  They put forward an argument and agreed and improved it or disagreed and improvrished it, they attack the lanuage of their opponent, they critisied their development of theme, they exagerated an opposing point to turn it ridulous, they muddled and disgised their points in order to confuse the others with technicle words-sometimes even made up- they played dumb before they striked cleverly and they would be varied in their methods and ranged in their modes.  Though they argued they never shouted.  Though they disagreed they never felt their person insulted.  This was work.  It was unclear what the outcome from the debate was but the pupils all felt that it was finishead and so they all turned their attention to her and watched acutely.  The girl watched them in return.  There were eleven pupils in total.  There was one with ginger hair and one with black hair; the rest had either brown or blonde hair.  Girl A could tell almost immediately that all the pupils had similar qualities even in their differnces.  She knew she was no different.  This could not trouble her as she knew that it was these qualities that made her who she was and she did not apologise nor complained.  She knew that this place was for her.  She had found her natural habitat.  An environment she could thrive in.  Her eyes smiled.

  My lips smile but I do not beileve in them anymore.  I do not beileve there is a true smile within me.  Nothing in the methods or means or in the results or ends of this can make me smile.  There is nothing but instinct in me.  My life is levelled down to the esstential grass and ground of passing; passing each breath, passing each step, passing water and food and heat and air and energy and time all through me.  Passing each exam with impeccably flair and answers exact.  Living to pass judgment; those who cannot pass through shall pass on.  Passing…passing.

  The class were excited with the new person to enliven an old routine.  To test and try out this unknown entity, this unknown force trapped inside this girl.  She had to be good.  She was in this class; that was proof enough that was had to be good enough.  How good?, they wondered.  Further proof of her qualities was a needed nesscessity.  They were not worried though they were calculatingly cautious.  They created some small talk but she was well aware of what they were up to.  They were examining her and she let them know that she was examining them.  These children play but there are no games here.

  I've been cruel to life. 

  There was a year left to their education, on this level.  Afterwards they were to help others with their skills.  They knew that they had no choice about this, this way worked out better for the majority of them, but some of them had an inkling that they might be quicker and sharper than their teachers; and so there was always another option.  Girl A was eased into the class and she sloted in wihtout complaint.  The first month of the year was a very happy time for the pupils.  They all worked and played with equal strength of energy and enthusiam.  They enjoyed being with each other.  The winter sun burnt through their icy intellects and their characters shone out.  After that first month came about a significant change of the nature of their work, also to the tone and style of themselves.  At the end of the first month the pupils had an exam.  Nobody worried about a module exam; they could only improve from it if the results were weak.  They had no fear of failing.

  No-one expected it.  We weren't told anything, nothing was clear, we weren't told or notified:  we were unprepared for the I.  I am thinking how far it was all predicted in advance.  Could they have predicted such an end?  Have we been manipulated every day of this year?  Logic can cut through uncertainties only so far.      

           

          
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