A Dialogue on Graduate Studies.

Radio static disturbs the silence. 

The intercom dial swivels on.

A voice states, “Rest assured, failure results in regret.” I pause, decoding the content of the announcement. Aloud my voice permeates the static, “Will this be the last time?” 


It fails to respond. 


Fingers fluttering, flourishing over the text. Pens, pencils, paper escape my grasp, rigidly, pouring their contents over my blemishes, over my faults, over the pores of skin. A misconstrued tear escapes the buoyant pocket of my cavity and pours over my lips, into the thick of my mouth. 


“Is this what I am made for? Is this what I crave?” I demand the intercom; my final attempt at rationalization, of critique and ingenuity, of what remains. 


My neurons collect the message, jump into position and take aim. A gunshot echoes above a crowd of starving soldiers and their blood runs sour. 


The intercom crackles and vocalizes, “ERROR.” 


“ERROR, ERROR, EEROR, EERRR, EEERRR...”


Limbs spring forward, tensing as my body jumps out of the sheets. A cry escapes from my spine, from the torment of my left hip, to the rim of the calloused finger which I itch and twitch before snipping the stitches and licking up the sweet crimson resting over the ditch. 


I purge.


I move to the source of my dismay: the alarm at the foot of my bed. I confiscate its power, switching off the loop of disagreeable noise. The ringing bursts into silence. The now pitiful grenade lies deceased in my hands, stripped of its nimbleness and nature, no longer a source of torment. I admire the enclosing of black metal and the swaying of its tiny hands.


A sour taste fills my mouth, the acidic marker of tin and lime: a Moscow mule. The seconds tick, tick, tick as I lick up what remains of the dream.


I pick up the tangible block of united pages, place a palm on either side, and rip its vertebrae to shreds. I stare down, intercom static still echoing in my mind. I slam the text closed. 


The realization I have yet to understand comes into existence. 


“This, this is what I am.” 


Finally, the radio static ceases.



18.1.24



mp3 audio of text


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