We Who Are About To Die
Posted: Fri Dec 27, 2019 5:43 am
((Phillip Olivares continued from I Voted!))
Phillip was going to die.
This wasn't just some grand cosmic truth of the universe, either. This wasn't the everyone's-gonna-die-so-chop-up-your-neighbor-with-a-hatchet stuff ICP rapped about. This was the sort of imminent doom that could only stem from a single cause:
In one hour and twenty-seven minutes, his math final was slated to begin.
Phillip was in the cafeteria, his textbook open in front of him, his bag of snacks next to him, his head propped in his hands. It was not yet officially lunchtime; he had finished Ms. Prescott's exam early, and had then been released, all the better to enjoy his last moments prior to his his impending execution at the hands of Dr. Terrance. While the textbook suggested that he would rail futilely against his fate, that was far from a forgone conclusion. Might it not be better to enjoy these last few moments, before he consigned himself to the doom that was summer school even after graduation?
It wasn't fair. This right here was the sort of thing that made people go postal, flip out and go on apeshit rampages drawing mustaches on every single face on every single mural in the school or whatever. You weren't supposed to have to do actual work senior year. Hell, some of Phillip's classes were just watching movies. He'd take a movie, even a shitty one, over a math final any day. Couldn't Dr. Terrance say, hey, surprise, we're watching Battleship instead? That felt like a pretty generous compromise to Phillip, like it wasn't every day he'd even willingly admit knowledge of a Battleship movie, but it was about grids and letters and numbers and shit, which made it technically mathematical, right? Come on.
He let out a low groan, slumped forward, failed to find anything cathartic in the motion, and so lifted himself back up a few inches and slumped forward again, clonking his elbows on the table, making it scoot forward with a scraping groan and causing his paper bag to jump a half inch to the side, and drawing a glare from one of the lunch ladies. He widened his eyes and mouthed an apology at her; she shook her head at him and looked away.
He stared at the pages of the math textbook. Even the words were starting to look like incomprehensible equations totaling nothing but his doom. There had to be a better use of his time. He'd get into the zone instead. He didn't need to know the material; he could just center himself and blaze through that Scantron on the power of faith and intuition. All it'd take would be a clear mind. That was the ticket. Yeah. He definitely wasn't just scrambling desperately for an excuse to procrastinate just a moment longer.
At least the lunch room was filling up, as the others finished their various tests and filtered in. Phillip looked around, letting the siren song of false hope fill his soul. Maybe he could find someone in an earlier period of Terrance's, to give him the scoop on this exam. Maybe he was working himself up over nothing and it'd be a total breeze. Wouldn't that be a riot? All this worry, just for it to be a joke?
Ah, who was he kidding?
Phillip was going to die.
This wasn't just some grand cosmic truth of the universe, either. This wasn't the everyone's-gonna-die-so-chop-up-your-neighbor-with-a-hatchet stuff ICP rapped about. This was the sort of imminent doom that could only stem from a single cause:
In one hour and twenty-seven minutes, his math final was slated to begin.
Phillip was in the cafeteria, his textbook open in front of him, his bag of snacks next to him, his head propped in his hands. It was not yet officially lunchtime; he had finished Ms. Prescott's exam early, and had then been released, all the better to enjoy his last moments prior to his his impending execution at the hands of Dr. Terrance. While the textbook suggested that he would rail futilely against his fate, that was far from a forgone conclusion. Might it not be better to enjoy these last few moments, before he consigned himself to the doom that was summer school even after graduation?
It wasn't fair. This right here was the sort of thing that made people go postal, flip out and go on apeshit rampages drawing mustaches on every single face on every single mural in the school or whatever. You weren't supposed to have to do actual work senior year. Hell, some of Phillip's classes were just watching movies. He'd take a movie, even a shitty one, over a math final any day. Couldn't Dr. Terrance say, hey, surprise, we're watching Battleship instead? That felt like a pretty generous compromise to Phillip, like it wasn't every day he'd even willingly admit knowledge of a Battleship movie, but it was about grids and letters and numbers and shit, which made it technically mathematical, right? Come on.
He let out a low groan, slumped forward, failed to find anything cathartic in the motion, and so lifted himself back up a few inches and slumped forward again, clonking his elbows on the table, making it scoot forward with a scraping groan and causing his paper bag to jump a half inch to the side, and drawing a glare from one of the lunch ladies. He widened his eyes and mouthed an apology at her; she shook her head at him and looked away.
He stared at the pages of the math textbook. Even the words were starting to look like incomprehensible equations totaling nothing but his doom. There had to be a better use of his time. He'd get into the zone instead. He didn't need to know the material; he could just center himself and blaze through that Scantron on the power of faith and intuition. All it'd take would be a clear mind. That was the ticket. Yeah. He definitely wasn't just scrambling desperately for an excuse to procrastinate just a moment longer.
At least the lunch room was filling up, as the others finished their various tests and filtered in. Phillip looked around, letting the siren song of false hope fill his soul. Maybe he could find someone in an earlier period of Terrance's, to give him the scoop on this exam. Maybe he was working himself up over nothing and it'd be a total breeze. Wouldn't that be a riot? All this worry, just for it to be a joke?
Ah, who was he kidding?