When what finds space in the Mind is but Useless 

A colourless, but implacably shabby Wednesday is not the right time to undergo any sort of examination, Junn thought to himself, as he absolutely could not grasp at even the most outer bits of inspiration to help him survive the two hours of answering even a portion of the upcoming questions.

So instead he fantasised about what kind of a music group could he start at his youthful age of sixteen. He had hoped that such thinking could get his creative juices flowing again. But the more he concentrated on an appropriate name, the less and less was he certain of other things as well: There came doubting whether his Xbox console was green, or brown, or whether the new episode of his favourite TV show has already aired, or is only yet to air this week.

For a moment, then, he felt paralysed, unable to make a decision about whether he should listen to his pride, which was telling him to take this opportunity and exit the whole subject changing it for another later, but still being the cool kid with others in the class, a pride that was fond of pretending that it was his voice of reason, or to actual reason, which did not seem to be the most reasonable at that moment at all, simply because it did not think that it is the fit thing to do to defend itself against the insults it was constantly getting from pride by suggesting that a request for medical assistance wouldn’t necessarily have to mean he was insane. They wouldn’t tell me that to my face anyway, right?

Why is this happening to me?, he touched his head with both his hands, covering his ears. Of course, this sort of panic was only natural, since he was a fairly attractive young man, but as with any panic, it could only make things worse. Then he tried to stop thinking about it altogether, just repeating his own name, in an effort to remember that, at least.

That helped in improving his mood, for he at least got the answer he was looking for when he asked himself: What’s my name? Junn. Ok... Good. He did not dare ask anything else for a while, and just simply sat there on the bench in front of the school building, the sun looking like it was about to break even with the clouds, grinning to himself. But then he tried it, tried to think about something else entirely. Perhaps of anther boy’s name.

Oh, the dread of not knowing where to even…with this! Nothing but his own name rang back from the head. Oh, but try on a different subject, perhaps? Nope, he couldn’t get his own name out of his mind, and so it happened that his own name was now the answer to every single question in the world that he might have.

Looking out of the window when he was finally sitting in class later that day, as the wind, which moved so fast it was impossible to tell whether it’s asking permission to enter, or working on just point-blank break-in through the window, was not encouraging either. Than the much dreaded biology lesson came, and Mrs Luvik caught Junn off-guard, when she suddenly burst out, in front of the whole class: ‘How are you getting on with the homework?’ The problem with this rather casual question was, that it seemed to Junn, in his paranoia, that she must be talking directly to him. And yet… Impossible! He waited for a while, saying nothing. By this time it took all concentration to remember what his own name was. It is too bad when one is…unable to recall their very name. Really bad.

Thus at last he blurted out: ‘What homework even?’ Probably something everybody else was thinking, only he didn’t mean it like it ended up sounding in that cursed room at all. If there was any homework set out, he is surely into it already. Only he couldn’t verify that now, couldn’t see it as a fact.

A guess, even an educated one, is a guess nonetheless, pointless in the end, as it neither feeds the misery, neither it puts a smile on one’s face. A sure way to eventually end up miserable. Heck, what a life! Wait, why care so much? Obviously she would just tell him and that would be that.

Only she wasn’t so keen to let that pass on easily.

‘I must let you know that it really is much more complicated than it appears’. Silence, if anything even heavier than before. But as the atmosphere in the classroom was getting more and more awkward with each new utterance from the teacher, Junn became oblivious to the need of remembering in haste. In fact, he told himself, it does not matter whether I remember anything at all or not.

Suddenly he sensed a change in the atmosphere. The dim lights of the room were turned off. It became darker, but warmer. It stopped raining and the sun reappeared above the clouds, slowly, as if afraid. The boy knew at once what he had to do: He had to remember what the homework was about, only, there was nothing but black hole in the place of that memory. Trying to look normal made him stare, looking weird consisted of him smiling and stretching his hands.

Frankly, he was a bit taken aback when he was forced out of the class. No need to visit the toilet, so he just opened that door and went back in as soon as the doors were slammed after him. He was completely sure at that moment that he looked like a complete idiot, but that was all right, since he’s been feeling like one for quite the while.

Seeing himself walking towards Mrs Luvik’s desk, bowing his head and murmuring an apology for something he didn’t even feel guilty about, well, he almost did it! The plan was luckily scrapped by the mind a few seconds before the disaster, and instead he just decided to ignore the woman even more than before. If such a thing was even possible.

Biology, right. A sadly abandoned plant of green and yellow leaves, that was supposed to bring variation to the room of poorly painted white walls, which made it look both larger, and more cold than it really was, sat at the window and has obviously given up the fight to get some attention. Not to even mention some water.

Than a couple of different things started to happen at once: Junn got up, grabbed the plant, observed it for a rather long period of time (some witnesses of the phenomenon later claimed it was for as long as half an hour, but in reality it may have been just over a quarter), he consequently proceeded to put the plant back in its place, went to Mrs Luvik desk, and had a go at an epic monologue in which he attempted to explain his strange behaviour during class. Mrs Luvik was nodding all the way through, moving her head up and down with such speed, that her neck must have hurt somewhat. She seemed to be somewhat absent.

Joun explained that he was under some stress over the results of a Maths test, and the anxiety of expectation caused him to forget the most basic things that he was otherwise always so sure about. ‘It only happened this morning. I needed a bit of calm to reorder everything in my head, make a clear plan. You know, if you find it so impossible to remember things out of panic, deep breaths rarely help.’

When, in a sweep of panic, it is not really about breathing, it is about time. Forgetting everything about Biology at once, he needed to make some natural, logical connection with the subject again.

Seeing the plant on the window, it reminded him that Biology is about plants, and then it went on from there: He recalled that plants really come from nature, and so Biology at large, is about nature. All the things in nature: Animals? They went over those two months ago. Plants?

No, really, they finished talking about those back in December. Humans! An enlightenment struck him like the lighting. The work is about humans, so what exactly about humans? That’s… memory!

Going back out after the episode was finally played out and done for, while walking her way back through the corridors of academia, Mrs Luvik still shook her head. In fact, she never before saw such commitment to the matters of school from students: Twisting and itching until he was back on track. Just like, after all, she herself had once experienced, because humans must do at one point, or the other either way.