 The girl to my right looked like her entire body was trying to yawn in boredom at the quizzical demands set before her.  I stared at the words in front of me, my eyes feeling like they were going to explode from their gelatinous settings onto the blue book with the force of a thousand ruptured capillaries. 
Heart relaxing, thumping pumping ocean of blood turning into a gentle bumping and then a calm river.  Dry black ink on dry white paper.  My mind read the prompts in front of me again and again.  The essay portion of the final was asking the student to relate different writings, different characters, different writers and their views into a coherent thesis on a socio-political issue from Britain spanning a period of 200 years with very clear support from the literature in question recalled by memory from the student.  My eyes cut a razor’s edge across the situation.  Over half of the final’s grade was based on this question.  Forty percent of the grade I was about to receive in the class was based on this final.  I had returned to school, put aside my dream of working on video games, put up with family arguments and family drama, ruined my credit and was about to lose my car all for this moment….
Downwards I stared, reading the question again and again.  My brain felt like a bulbous mass of greasy yellow cholesterol, a useless lump of fat.  Short lived sparks of electricity moved around the slimy, curved, gray matter inside my skull, each futilely searching for necessary information and each silently dying a lonely, unfulfilled death.  Quietly, regretfully my brain resigned itself to the conclusion that it did not hold within its jellied tubules the knowledge it needed to construct a piece of writing that would fulfill the requirements of the test sitting on the scarred and pitted wooden desk in front of it.  
Breathing slowly I anticipated waves of stressful stomach gripping pain I knew to be my bodies response to failures like 10th grade trigonometry tests, pissing off bosses, losing jobs, drinking half a bottle of tequila, or horrible sexual experiences.  A few moments more and I knew I knew would receive a D or an F and a possible expulsion from school.  While I sat staring straight ahead of me at the green “Exit” sign directly in front of my seat in room 212 of the Center building in UCSD for the final of Literature English 22, a place I figured I would not find myself at much longer, my brain made some quick, complex decisions I still cannot understand and decided it knew a way to redeem itself.  
Staring downwards, jaw clenched in agony, the muscles in my arms twitching slightly, my consciousness was suddenly drenched in rivers of rich, thick, wet, buttery liquid sensation as my brain gave me answers for my immediate situation. 