el fin

there's something about finals that heightens the senses.

maybe its that there is a sense of time that Fabian never accounted for. that sense that everything is about to end. The world, at least in its current state, will cease to exist after the next week. the clock is ticking and the sand is running out. nothing matters beyond next thursday. everything is urgent.

I spend all day in climate controlled environments, florescent lighting, the hum of the heater, the clicking of the keyboard. The copy machine blinds me. It is dark when I arrive and dark when I leave. The only light I see is the brief walk outside to the library.My bed is just a pitstop. I shed clothing leave it on the floor and find something new in the morning, just to repeat the cycle, leaving a mounting pile of discarded apparel next to the bed. My life is in disarray.

i carry books home just to set them down, pick them up 7 hours later and carry them back here. For all intents and purposes I live at this desk.

My sustenance comes from the convenient store downstairs, the free bread from some random event nearby, oatmeal that’s been sitting on the shelf for over a year and tea that we bought last spring for a department event. I have not eaten a meal at home in a week. Cookies, canned soup, an occasional bag of jellie beans.

Its as if everything is about to end. And suddenly everything must be solved now. This paper, which should be the pinnacle of my academic career thus far must be concluded. Anything I am passionate about cannot wait. I cannot be patient, I cannot take a deep breath and think about it. i cannot breathe except to write more. the feeling of time constraint makes it feel like something has to be secured before it all ends. it makes temptation scandal and excitement explosive.

But even in acknowledging it, I cannot fix it. I cannot slow it down. I cannot stop the keyboard clicking in my head, that blurs into the ticking of the clock and the heater’s rhythmic buzz, and the flipping pages, and beating hearts and churning stomachs and blowing wind, and my cell phone alarm buzzing and the coffee maker percolating and scanner screeching and I just can’t wait for it all to stop.

But when it does, as always, it will be a little too quiet. A little too lonely.