An Undeniable Failure.

Gray and hidden passion slips into my eyes, haziness defines my vision and crude blindness becomes me. I stare without discretion and my pupils must be huge by now. Trembling hands reach for the tin of mints in my pocket, something to distract me. As my chest pounds and my toe taps relentlessly, I suddenly realize where I am. I look up and see my thin, oily math teacher, the frame of her sharp, chic glasses being gently adjusted as she looks around the drab collegiate classroom. Shes Italian and willowy, with moderate olive skin, and I used to think she was alright. She has the sort of artless charm that comes from imperfect English and which is best paired with the inane quality of always sounding kind of funny. Now that I was doomed to fail her class, quite pettily I thought to myself, I truly hated her. I set my pencil down and cracked my knuckles nervously, glancing to either side. The guy next to me seemed to be at least as skittish as me. A scruffy geek with a beard and awkwardly proportioned limbs sits behind me, exclaiming his ire over this wretched exam out loud, "Well what tha--", he mutters. He is the insufferable jerk in class that constantly raises his hand to ask worthless and hateful questions and thinks himself rather clever for it. He typically makes a point to express out loud to no one in particular the score on his homework when it is handed back, most often in a faintly disdainful and snobbish tone, something like "Oh wow, I got a 37. Much better than I expected." As petty as it is, I hate him for it. But even hearing this snide billygoat of a kid audibly struggle cannot divert my senses from the dread and panic before me. The loathsome stack of papers laid messily in front of me, my futile attempts scrawled on each page, front and back, solely filling space. This test will be my undoing. I work to the bitter end and pass in my packet limply, my spirit broken and my will crushed by calculus.