A Failed Test

I envision myself sitting in a chair with a desk in front of me. I have a pen in my hand and a sheet of paper with numbers scaling the left side of the sheet. Her name, never forgotten, goes at the top - engraved forever in every cell, on every line, silently, by every number. I look at another, eyes as peaceful as they have suffered, she looks at me and smiles weakly as she says “I can’t remember.” No name goes in the second space, no proof of remembrance, but the mark remains. Several join her unnamed, but one with a face so beautiful it compels tears, tells me her name and impossibly her name’s beauty surpasses her own. She nods, with no contentment, as I list her name. Dutifully I look at the next face in the circle we have created – reluctantly, I ask and with a mix of displeasure and satisfaction I learn another name. My hand stiffens as I continue, it is made heavy by this burdensome recording. The tips of my fingers are struck with pain – it travels slowly and I feel compelled to finish before it presses on and upward. Another name, another face, another pound added to the load. It crawls past my wrist and its intensity grows – I know where its journey will end. I struggle past each letter and make my way slowly down the ladder of this once white, perfect page. The pain quickens and seems to devour every inch of my body that it passes over. It stops for a brief moment to allow tears to fall from my eyes. I cannot continue this Pyrrhic fight. The pen falls from my hand and rolls to the edge of the desk; and just as it begins to tumble over the edge I understand that the reason I am in this classroom is defined by what that pen can determine. So I reach for it – and catch it. The pain is unbearable now. Just a few more and I have fulfilled this task I have given myself. And there she is – magnificent! The breathtaking owner of the final name. As I write her name the skin on the back of my hand begins to shred and pull away from itself. The blood that flows spills onto the blacj and white canvas. But I must finish. And with each letter I write on this paper, a letter is carved into my hand. I take my left hand and push away the blood on my right and there lies his name. I look up and all the chairs are empty and I am left in the classroom of his mind, with the test of his past love, filled with my blood..........

and the pain strikes my heart.