The air was thick and stale: the scent of leaving the club at 5am, coupled with sour morning breath—a scent so incredibly familiar, thick with anxiety and regret.
The kind of scent that clings long after you forget where you picked it up—impossible to shake.
It stuck to my skin, clung to my hair, filled my mouth—and overhead, that damned light joined in, buzzing violently, violating my ears and burning my retinas without hesitation.
I shift in my seat, the cold biting through the fabric, the scratchy texture scraping faintly against my skin. My skin, in return, oozes the remnants of last night, seeping into the chair—dulling the scratchiness, but doing nothing for the indignity.
I let out a loud—inaudible—sigh, the sound swallowed by that damned buzzing light.
12:16, the screen says.
Already? How?
Time oozes and clots. The walls inhale and collapse. In another universe, soulless figures look through me—dark shadows threaded between a family of houseplants, a hopeful flicker of green life against walls that seem to pulse red, alive with danger.
Are these figures judging me?
Are they even paying attention?
An older gentleman—my competition, I’d decided—sits with his head bowed. His long hair mocks my fading widow’s peak; his slow, deliberate speech leaves me scrambling—too many syllables, too much depth, too smart for me to keep up.
A small label sits by his chest: Peter.
Had he already made his mind up?
Was I his target?
A cough interrupts the shadow speaking.
Who even said that?
I can’t hear over this damned buzzing.
The palms of my hands try to repel my fingers; perspiration building, thickening, refusing to let me settle. My heart thuds, louder and louder. I almost can't hear the deafening buzzing anymore.
Silver linings.
The shadow repeats their question—no anonymous cough this time. Just dread. They say silence is deafening. I can assure you, there is nothing silent about this moment: the orchestra of my heartbeat and the fluorescent buzz fill the space, setting the tempo for my slow demise.
The shadow stares blankly at me, waiting for my reply.
This is it.
No more delays.
No more wordplay - no slipping on slick sentences or hiding behind hollow half-truths.
No more strategic deflections… maybe just tactical evasions?
The gravity of the situation crushed me more with each passing second. Was this why my heart was pounding so intensely? Was I actually at risk?
As my eyes focus, the shadowed figure reveals themself; blurred sharp edges and a smorgasbord of colours blending and repelling to reveal the interrogator.
I can see him now: middle-aged. Strict. A wise, but friendly face with kind eyes. But a face that I could see ready to drop at any point. A face that could make the ultimate decision that determined my fate.
I think about all the choices that had led me here.
The missed opportunities.
The casual mistakes.
The way that small, unimportant decisions, when stacked together poorly enough, could topple and collapse an empire with disgusting speed.
The kind-eyed interrogator, haloed by that damned buzzing light, clears his throat and rearranges his papers—movements sharp and efficient.
They glance at their watch.
I glance at the counter. 12:17.
The dull-eyed interrogator clears their throat again; like a judge, ready to issue marching orders to death row. The beating in my chest passes; now replaced with that feeling of deep sickness, curling in my stomach like something rotten left in the sun, growing heavier with every breath. This feeling wasn’t just about today though—it was about everything:
The work. The time. The sunk costs of hope.
I had built my future on the assumption that this moment would go just right.
That there would be no need for second chances.
That there would be no need for re-writes.
That I wouldn’t require a generous embrace of support, or the offer of mercy.
As my eyesight blurs, the interrogator retakes his shadowy form; fading back among the others—Peter included, dissolving into the same grey nothingness. When everyone else fades, the ones who believed in me take their place. I see my parents—their happy faces when I told them about the path I was taking. Their quiet pride as the first in our family to set foot in a university.
I thought about the money and time I had wasted, the hours ripped out of weekends, the evenings that could have been spent doing literally anything else.
I ignored the nights where I had neglected study and done literally anything else.
Like last night, when study made way for cheap alcohol and expensive decisions.
I thought about all the people who had warned me: quietly. Politely.
Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for it.
I’d nodded at them. Smiled. Believed I would prove them wrong.
And now here I was: moments away from destruction.
The tired-eyed lecturer—or interrogator, or sentient shadow, whoever they were—clears their throat again; still waiting on a response.
Their screen flickers.
That damned buzz returns.
The silence was back.
My leg begins to bounce under the desk; rapid. Erratic. Uncontrollable. My pen, tapping against the table in time—a frantic plea for help—a morse-code of rhythm that signalled nothing but my own breakdown.
The hollow-eyed lecturer says something.
A chorus of chuckles and groans replaces the buzzing.
Were they groaning at me?
Had I been caught out?
If this went badly—if I failed here—it wouldn’t just be a bad day.
It would be the beginning of the long, slow collapse of everything I had built my life around:
My degree.
My future.
My increasingly fragile self-esteem.
My future children and their private school education (full scholarship, of course).
I’d probably have to move back in with my parents.
I’d probably develop a quiet drinking problem—all because of this moment.
I’d tell people I’d taken a "gap year" if they asked.
Hell, maybe I'd piss off to Thailand—I hear it’s warm this time of year.
A kettle whistles loudly in the background of the lecture hall.
A dog and young child keep each other company; playing games with rules that neither understand, yet both earnestly try and follow. I can’t see them. I can only see the shadows.
But I can hear their delight. How I wish I was playing with them. They just don’t realise how easy they have it.
I flex my fingers and try to slow my breathing, ignoring the knot tightening low in my gut. I look down at my notes. Pigeon scratchings ¹.
¹ Pigeon scratching (noun): a tangled mess of chaotic, illegible writing; usually produced in a fugue state of panic or sleep deprivation. Way, way worse than chicken scratchings.
12:16.
No! That can’t be right.
Maybe the screen was frozen.
Or maybe I was.
The red-eyed lecturer clears their throat.
“Can you please make sure you’ve muted yourself if you’re not talking?”
I look up properly for the first time; the shadows unblurring from the corners in. This wasn’t a courtroom or an enquiry. This wasn’t a final exam nor a live lecture.
It was a Zoom recording.
A recorded lecture I was supposed to have watched three weeks ago.
Paused at the 12-minute mark—for the eighteenth time.
I sit there, fully dressed from the waist up, moth-eaten socks below, still sweating into the cheap fake leather of my chair in my temporary study. Alone, except for the judgmental silence of my houseplants. And maybe Peter, still out there somewhere, pitying me.
The heavy weight of expectation pressing into my chest was my own. The imminent doom, imaginary. The consequences, for now at least, were limited to the familiar hollow shame of being wildly, pointlessly behind.
On screen, the calming green-eyed lecturer fiddles with the mic again.
Someone else’s dog barks in the background. No toddler for this one to play with.
I hit pause again. 12:17.
I close my laptop with a slow, careful finality; promising myself I would start it again properly tomorrow.
After a coffee.
After a reset.
After a sleep.
After I rewired my brain, my habits, my entire life.
Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.