Processes of Elimination

[Frozen Smoke]

If a picture was shown to you of Faith's room around 15 minutes previously, and you were asked to guess whether or not you thought a bomb had gone off in it, you'd probably have reacted with a mix of confusion and terror at being asked to analyse a teenager's bedroom for bomb damage. But assuming you ignored that instinctual response and actually answered the question, you'd struggle to say that her room hadn't been hit by at least a low level natural disaster. Used clothes were strewn across the floor, looking like blood sacrifices made at the pillar of a freshly folded but unsorted pile of clothes occupying the top of her dressing table that was nestled in one corner. That tower of garments precariously leaned to one side, resting against the wall as it fought the inevitable clutches of gravity and/or being worn. Beyond that, schoolbooks were kept segregated from the magazines and other books by being in the vague vicinity of the desk that sat in one corner, and the walls were mostly bare - only the faded outlines of where posters had once stood in her earlier teens and the marks on the paint from pulled off by the sellotape which used to hold them there disrupting the simple cream colouring.

Still, she did at least keep it hygenic - No plates or pizza boxes lingered, even cups were all moved downstairs as soon as they were done with. Living in the debt-fueled squallor of #StudentLife was something she could maybe look forwards to in the hazy reaches of the future, but until then she'd continue to keep the place under control. No, The Mess was because Faith preferred to wait until The Mess became an Actual Problem that she could actually feel some accomplishment for succeeding at, as opposed to the drudgery of making sure all her clothes made their way to the clothes bin every time.

Unless of course, Faith had something to procrastinate about. Which was why she was picking apart the sediment of that long accumulated pile of fresh clothes and why her room in general looked now less like a natural disaster scene and more like a botched FEMA rescue attempt. Piles of clothes gathered on her bed as she laid them all out in the categories they needed to go in to be neatly stored away in the appropriate drawers. She wondered how people like Myles even managed sometimes, dealing with so many goddamn clothes - and hers could handle a lot of rough and tumble, wasn't like a crease on one of her shirts would ruin it. Probably by having a bigger wardrobe, and a lack of other problems to occupy his time, she decided.

A few minutes later, with the task of sorting through her textile inbox done with the attention and enthusiasm one normally expresses when absentmindedly checking distant friend's Facebook updates, she sat back down in the well worn, black, fabric office chair that sat adjacent to a less well worn but equally bland aluminium-and-plywood desk, upon which sat the blandest thing in her room. Chemistry revision.

She had decided that she didn't hate schoolwork. She tolerated it, because pretty much everywhere needed you to not screw up High School to get involved at any level that mattered, but she got very little enjoyment from the hours she spent trying to figure out a way to drill the sorts of things she apparently had to know into her own skull. Like the difference between Ionic and Covalent bonds. Or whether the Cathode or Anode were the positive ones because that's how you knew which one would get the other metal on it, but she could never remember which one was which. She questioned why all of this was so important to the people who determined her future, sometimes. This was not one of those times however, as she forced herself to contemplate the task she had been 'taking a break from'.

Faith glared at the first of the three questions which remained unanswered on her little mock test, determined to at least put something down on each of them before looking up the answers, to push herself as much as she could. The question, obviously, did not glare back. She liked to imagine she could feel the implicit malice of whoever wrote the question glaring back at her though, giving her someone to compete against other than herself. In reality she merely read the question again.

"Most alcohols are ________ with water, because they easily mix with it in any amount to form a solution

A) Miscible | B.) Saturated | C) Unsaturated | D) Immiscible"

She could scratch off saturated, she knew that one - It meant full up with something. So that left three options. It probably wasn't immiscible either, because she didn't know what that meant but knew that a bunch of things that didn't mix like oil were that. Oil and Water were Immiscible. That was, in fact, the answer to one of the few questions she'd answered right away. So, that left Miscible and Unsaturated. Both of those kind of worked though, didn't they? Unsaturated solutions could have more saturate-y stuff added to them, like salt. Miscible just meant they could be mixed up together. So both worked. Urgh.

She shook her head and slapped an A in the option box, deciding to go for the one that sounded the best in the sentence. She felt like she was being tricked, and debated changing it for a moment, pen hovering over the A, ready to scribble it over and put a C in instead. There was a pause, a hesitation, and then her pen moved down into the second box as she decided to just stop second guessing herself and get on with the rest of it. Two more questions to go. Come on Faith, get it done.

"Convert 375.12K into Degrees Celcius

271.5 C | B.) 648.27 C | C) 101.97 C | D) 475.12"

Urgh. Why did they insist on mixing Maths and Science too. It was something to do with adding a number, she remembered that. Her eyes trailed the numbers involved and noted the pair of trailing .12's.

That was a good enough coincidence to bank on, she decided. D went in the box, and her eyes trailed down to the final question.

"What is the name of an atom with an atomic mass number of 18 and 8 protons?

A) Oxygen-8 | B.) Oxygen-16 | C) Oxygen-18 | D) Oxygen-26"

The temptation to simply swear at the piece of paper and demand it give up its answers to her was high, but she held it in. She had to try, right? Ok, process of elimination. Oxygen was 8th on the periodic table, so it had 8 protons, so that was a red herring. What she cared about here was the atomic weight.

Oh, Oxygen-18 was the only one that made sense. C went into the box.

Faith put her pen down on the table, and felt herself feeling a little less frustrated at everything as she sank back into the chair, leaning back against the loose springs that fought to keep her posture upright. Okay, maybe she didn't like doing schoolwork, but it was at least nice to have it put well behind her for a little while longer. She'd be able to figure out what she'd done wrong soon. Part of her knew she could do it right now if she really wanted to, the internet did exist, but she'd worked enough already today. She could deal with finding out how badly she'd messed up that practice test tomorrow, and maybe she'd do better next time.

Much like she'd done with those last few questions, she'd already eliminated most of her options for activities today, she supposed. No option of partying - not in the middle of the week, no option of calling her friends over or going out to the range as it was already getting dusky, no way she was going to do any more school shit, and she didn't want to crank up the tinny speakers her laptop had and badly mouth the lyrics to rock songs like she normally did. She supposed she had two options now. Procrastinate or sleep.

There was a decision with which she didn't find the two answers remotely close, she thought as she placed the sorted-but-not-stored piles of clothes on the floor beside her bed, mentally promising to put them away in the morning but for real this time.

When she woke up in the morning, she even thought very briefly about following through on that promise.