The Test - Benjamin Ruszala
It is Sunday, the start of a semester, in the fall, and I have a very infamous and horrific test waiting for me at the end of it. When it will be cold and dry, and the
leaves will be dead, is when I will be taking that test. I am interested in maybe a fifth of what will be on the test. Or at least, what I expect will be on the test. But by
my count, there are around a thousand things to memorize for it, but I know there will only be two hundred questions. So naturally, as I drive to the campus for
another class, on another day, in another week, in another semester, in another year, in my third decade of life, the test is what is on my mind.
This is not my first semester at the college, but I still don’t really know my way around the area. Actually, it is better to say I have no idea of my way around the
area. Ever since I turned thirteen, my dad would always give me a hard time on longer car rides, if I was on my phone, or if I was reading a book, or if I was just
sleeping. He would constantly tell me to look out and begin to learn all the ways around places. Obviously, I did not listen, and I stand by it. I think that learning an
area well is an unnecessary skill to learn for those who have a near-perfect GPS, like myself.
During the fall break of the semester, on a Friday, I’m talking to one of my friends from high school. I was wearing a t-shirt for my college that I did not get for
free, and he was wearing a dark blue hoodie that he had had since ninth grade. I do not and will never admit to him that I am jealous of my friend Lucas, sitting
there with a regular job and no college to go to, also a girlfriend and also parties. And of course, Lucas always tells me, we always get into it, that college is a waste
of time. Further, it may be a waste of my life.
“I mean, what are you really like - what are you actually gonna get to do that was worth it all?” he said. And I tried to respond, but he went further, “Like at all,
you’re stressed all the time, you don’t save that much money, you could flunk your test, you probably won’t be making much more money than me in the long
run, bro. But whatever, I think you should just live it up. Live it up and do what works and what actually might get you fuckin money, but whatever,” he said, and I
talked briefly while he texted someone on his phone, and nodded along and repeated a “whatever” occasionally. I don’t like him very much. Actually, I’m unsure if
I really like him at all. But we’ve been friends for so long I might as well continue. And he was right, the test may be too difficult for me. “I mean, like don’t you
wanna get some stuff, or like some amount of stuff done before you die?”
I’m in class on a Wednesday, and the professor is teaching a mandatory course. It is the one in which I will be taking that test. After class one time, while many
other classes were mid-session or just starting, or cancelled, I went over to him and asked him for some advice on what I am to do after this semester. If I pass
the test of course.
“Oh man jee I mean I really don’t know, I mean some years I’m pretty positive like I’m tellin students left and right to keep going into even higher education or to
try out a specific field but I mean,” he stopped briefly to give a quiet little “hey” and a wave to another student he must know who passed us in the hallway,
moving through the gap in the wall, a perfect rectangle, right below the clock.
“But uh, yeah I mean we’re in kinda one of those times I mean I wish I could tell you to go big or go home but I mean yeah I don’t, I don’t know,” he finished, and I
told him that at least it worked out for him? “Well I mean I guess yeah I mean, I mean I don’t know if it like, if uh, well I mean, it’s not exactly. I kinda fuckin hate it,”
he said, and my shoulders slumped, and he tried to boost himself a bit and smile, and damage correct, to course correct, actually. “And some days I love it! And
hey! It never hurts to hone your studying skills, your note-taking skills, and be tested on it!” he said and patted me hard and laughed a little as we talked about
random books instead as we walked down the hall before our paths split. Though he did make sure to remind me of some of the study materials I should begin to
look over, for that test.
It is a Saturday, kind of far into the semester. Actually, it’s quite far into the semester. But I’m home for the weekend, and
unfortunately, I’m hanging out with my other old high school friend named Chris. I do quite like Chris; the reason it’s unfortunate is that
he has a nephew who just died, and now we’re stuck at the park just talking while his niece has fun on the playground.
“I mean, seriously man, I’ve never like, I mean. I thought that my mom could cry a lot, but I’ve never seen someone like, maintain a
crying fit for so long,” he said while we sat. I told him that it made sense to me; the woman’s son did get hit by a car after all. “Yeah, I mean, and god dude you have
like, like it was so awkward like one of our uncles tried to explain that because he got hit so fast he probably didn’t feel anything or like have time to think and be
scared, and I mean I guess that’s good but like, it didn’t really help the moment,” he explained. I tried to begin comforting him, but the niece came over, so I of
course said nothing more about it. Chris is still in college like I am, though I don’t think he has the same type of terrible test looming over him. He talked to her
briefly, and though we both wanted to get out of there, she managed to convince him to stay for fifteen more minutes and went back to the playground with the
other kids. I asked Chris if he had talked to Lucas lately, or if Lucas even knew about this whole thing.
“No he’s around so many people, he doesn’t even talk to me anymore. He’s a jerk anyway. And no don’t tell him about this. He’d probably ask for the camera
footage of it, fuckin asshole,” he said, and then I was stuck there for a while to either listen to the random shouts from the playground or to Chris dumping loads
of information on the deterioration of his friendship with Lucas that I had had no clue about. “And now he’s with all these people, like he’s some celebrity, he’s
just a dick though,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess he’s a bit overrated,” I said as we both waited for his niece to come back to the bench from the playground, where all the
kids were running around with no worries. Or at least they appeared like they had no worries.
A little later on, while Chris was still stuck babysitting, we went out for ice cream, and the girl started talking to me randomly while
Chris was at the counter.
“Lots of geese,” she said, looking out the tall windows at a V-shaped group of them moving through the sky.
“Probably migrating,” I said. “You know what it means?”
“I know what migration is. I know a lot of things,” she said a bit rudely, but I understood her attitude, I suppose. Though she kept going and said, “My brother knew
stuff too. He knew to look both ways before crossing the road. But that stupid car came up onto the sidewalk.”
It’s a Thursday, nearly at the end of the semester. And I happened to be thinking of Chris’s nephew. There was a time when I was little that I almost got hit by a car,
but I had remembered to look just before I crossed, and I remember the car just barely grazing me as it zipped past me down the straight road, with a straight
line going down the middle of it.
Since it’s so late into the semester, I should be studying more than ever, but I can only go through my pile of index cards, my informative videos, my articles and
essays, my novels and my poems, and my in-class notes so many times before I start to think that I must know everything well enough to at least pass. I no
longer thought that hard about getting a high score, but rather I’d be satisfied with simply passing.
So I turned to video games that following Monday, despite how deep I was into the semester and how close that test was getting. I started to play up to six hours a
day; actually, I played more than that, but when you play into the night, it is hard to tell how many hours per day you play. But I was more hooked than I ever
remembered being when I was younger. I got a rather powerful character going after pouring enough hours into it. With enough minutes and seconds, I was able
to feel the time it took in the weight of my character’s sword as he killed enemies at ten times the speed he did when I had started the playthrough. That
following Sunday, so deep into the semester, I was still playing video games, and my time per day studying, or worrying about my other classes had greatly
diminished. Diminished, even though I realized that it was the last day of the fourteenth week of the semester. Which, while I only sat back further in my couch, I
realized that while it was the fourteenth week of the semester for me, it was around the fourth week of the second semester for middle and high school students.
And I don’t even think that elementary schoolers have semesters. And who knows how schools in other countries segment their time, and when they start doing
it within grade levels.
It is a Wednesday; it is the night before that test, and predictably so, I am cramming. I have been in college for around four years, and I have known about this test
since last semester. And I had been studying it for the first twelve weeks of the semester relentlessly. And now, I was cramming.
It’s past midnight already, and the test is later today. And I’m so tired, but I am determined to study as long as possible. The weather is quite poor already; it might
get worse tomorrow, or it might get better. While I’m in my chair, even though I should be studying, I can’t help but lean back and remember a lot of the tests I
was supposed to take in high school. But they all got cancelled, and I was given free credit because of the pandemic. And after that, things remained slack for a
while, and now here I am cramming. It’s snowing outside badly, and I can see the white blur through my window out of the corner of my eye, even in the dark
night. It’s snowing because it’s about to be Winter. It’s about to be somewhere between December 21st and March 20th. But I should focus on my cramming.
But it’s getting difficult; I’m so tired, I was playing video games all last night. As I lean my forehead on my wrist and look down at the words on the paper, ordered
in lines on these papers, made from wood from trees, the only letters that start to be noticeable in my sleep-deprived eyes are A, B, C, and D. The first four of the
letters of the alphabet. They’re the ones I have to really worry about. Not what worded answer is right, but which of these four symbols. These four sounds that go
before all the other ones are standing next to my right and wrong answers, on this upcoming test.
I snap out of my useless and delirious procrastinating and lean back, only to get stuck looking at the clock on the wall, at the three hands and the twelve numbers
and the little lines in between and under them. In my random intrusive thoughts, I began to imagine if everyone’s clock stopped working. But because of how
important the test is, everyone would have to come in at their best possible guess to the time when the test is supposed to be. Like guessing the number of jelly
beans in a jar. Maybe that doesn’t make that much sense though.
It’s the morning of the test, I’ve woken up, a bit late, and I need to hurry, The snow has not quit since I was studying, and I’m sure the roads are terrible. I briefly
debated checking my email to see if the test was flat-out cancelled, but because I never bothered downloading the app, I didn’t have time to sign into my college
email.
So I went with, as I realized as I got to my car, a very low battery in my phone, and very bad roads, and I think they would maybe cancel the test. But I’m already
going, I’m so tired, I didn’t shower or brush my teeth, I crammed and I’m still unsure of how good I’d do. These roads are very bad, and there are a lot of cars in
front and behind me. I look up at the streetlight, green for go on the top, yellow in the middle for slow down, and red for stop on the bottom.
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Benjamin is a UAlbany Senior English Major, he loves to read anyone’s work, and it was his main reason for wanting to be an intern and editor for ARCH. He likes to write poetry more than prose and the main topic that he often finds himself writing about is bugs.