The last 12 hours

Journaling the end of the world.

Midnight, the night before

I have an exam tomorrow morning.

I have an exam tomorrow morning.

I have an exam tom—

Wait. I don’t need to memorize that. It’s just that I’ve been staring at words on a screen for the last… five… has it really been seven hours? — and trying to brand them on my hapless brain. Now, it seems like every dumb thought gets stuck there.

I guess I’ve forgotten how to study — it’s been so long. I’m hoping if I just keep reading my course notes over and over again, some of it, at least, will stick.

Neurocolonization is the systematic shaping, constraining and impairment by modern-colonial systems of our cognitive processes…

What does that even mean? Maybe with a younger brain — one that hadn’t been subjected to toxic clouds of crack — I could have at least imprinted the words. Even if I didn’t know what they meant.

But these days, it’s hard for knowledge to make an impression on me unless I’ve lived it. So, I fall back on rote repetition. Just reading everything, over and over again.

There are two ways that humans adapt to a bad situation.

The first is trauma-based — we simply go numb. This often involves addiction, but not necessary substance abuse.

The second is intentional. It doesn’t give in to despair. But rather, it says, “I don’t like the current situation. I want to adapt in a different way.” It’s change from the bottom up.

Of all the frictions I’ve felt on this road to recovery, final exam stress may be the toughest to navigate. You see, it’s all about sharpening the brain — when, in the past, my response to stress would be to dull it. Smoke it all away.

But how incompatible is that with this new world I’m building?

Visionary fiction is realistic and hard but hopeful.

Even at the peak of my drug-addled premature dementia, I would have never entertained the notion of smoking crack before writing an exam. The very idea pulls my brain so violently in separate directions, I can almost feel it tearing down the middle.

Visionary fiction imagines new worlds into being. Worlds that we would want to live in.

Whatever that means. I’ll load up my head before going to bed — and let my dreams sort it all out.

5:03 am, the day of

I just woke up from two terrible dreams about missing the exam — and not one of them involved smoking crack. In the first, I went to the wrong gymnasium at the wrong school. The second dream was even more detailed. I stopped at an old crack-smoking associate’s place on the way to the exam. But get this. I didn’t get high — or even want to. Instead, I just watched and wondered as everyone there got high. It filled me with sadness. But was there something I was supposed to do…? Somewhere to be.. I glanced at the time. The exam had started an hour ago!

I woke up from that dream in a panic. Then I had forgotten to tell Google to wake me up at the crack of dawn.

Visionary fiction is realistic and hard but hopeful.

9 am, the day of

“Please take your hat off and place it under your desk,” an exam administrator tells me.

“Your watch too.”

There’s got to be 500 students in here, writing various exams. Teaching assistants patrol the aisles, checking student ID and coming down like airport security on unattended bags.

What if I need more booklets? Did I bring an extra pen?

Visionary fiction imagines new worlds into being. Worlds that we would want to live in.

High noon, the day of

Want to get high? I mean really high? Just stay up late the night before trying to cram information into your head. Then, first thing in the morning, carry that head like a tea kettle filled to the brim to the local university.

Then dump that kettle all over six exam booklets.

And three hours later, you’re so high, you’re dancing up the aisle to turn in your work. Your writing hand is sore, but you can hardly feel it. You’ll go into giddy excess, telling the professor how much you enjoyed the class. And you’ll heartily congratulate the teaching assistant too.

Then you’ll twirl outside into the big yellow sun, and imagine you’ve just brought a new world into being. A world you want to live in.