Pass by Catastrophe

The pills I took fifteen minutes ago are starting to kick in. I slowly lay my head onto my left arm, outstretched across the width of the black plastic table. My head tilts to the right. I see a small stack of papers printed with questions, answers written in blue ink. I see the outlines of a female figure to the right of me; her fingers dancing salsa with a pen.

I see dark. All is over.

"Students, you must now stop writing."

I place my pen to the left of my paper. I flip the papers to its front page. I see no written ink. I look around. A female student three rows in front of the column on my right refuses to stop her mesmerizing finger choreography. The approaching male invigilator snatches away her paper. A male student three rows behind my right is crying. The female student who was had her paper taken away is now staring at him, although he is now six rows behind her. The exam hall has seven rows and two columns of students. I am at at the fourth row, left column.

More papers are currently being snatched. I hear screams.

"Please, sir, I just need to write my name!"

"No means no! I've already reminded you about this ten minutes before the end of your paper. Get back to your seat, now!"

"Please! Please! I'm begging you... I don't want to fail... I promise I won't repeat the same mistake again!"

As the intensity of the male invigilator's rejections grows louder and more ferocious, the female student's wails gets more heartbreaking. I am listening to stories about her sick mother, her dying father, her sister who died in a tragic car accident yesterday, her boyfriend who cheated on her last week and two of her best friends who died mysterious deaths this morning. I know her well enough to validate the truthfulness of her terrible, horrible life.

"NO."

The male invigilator walks away. He approaches the female student to the right of me; the one who's exhausted from all the salsa. He looks like he is not noticing the student. Nope, he does not.

"Sir, you have not collected my paper."

"Sir, you have not collected my paper."

"SIR, YOU HAVE NOT COLLECTED MY PAPER."

The male invigilator is already beside the crying male student, three rows behind me. Tears waterfall down his chiselled face. I know the student. He is one of my two enemies, yet I am his "friend".

I am an addict of attention; I would even allow myself to be mocked or disgraced so long as it brings positive attention towards me. Yet, I was never unhappy, for my experienced societal communication skills has allowed me to shape the positive attention into a form of control, in which I can tweak the behaviors of those around me to suit my need.

Yet the crying male student is more of a control freak than I am.

As the male invigilator tries to hide his disgust of the tear-soaked paper, the male student resumes his extremely pretentious crying. He's not sad at all, he's just trying to exert control over the male invigilator.

He's just damn good at it.

"Enough of your cries! I guess it's finally time for that "smartest student" pride of yours to drown, you asshole student."

He was never in good terms with the male invigilator since the semester started. It is currently his fourth semester. The male invigilator was a high school language teacher who had the crying male student as his smartest kid. He treated the crying male student like his own son. The integrity of this bond quickly broke, for both were subconsciously trying to control each other. Four semesters ago, the language teacher started taking up a part-time job as a university exam invigilator. The crying male student enrolled into this particular university for that reason alone. He had to regain the control he lost.

He understands all too well that if control cannot be obtained during examinations due to position differences between the two, then a huge blow to pride will do the trick.

By willingly lowering himself to a level far below that of a student, it makes his eventual first-class results seem a lot more surprising, and to the male invigilator, a lot more agonizing. If he cannot gain the male invigilator's respect, then he will gain the male invigilator's hatred.

By hating on him, the male invigilator indirectly offers the crying male student full control of his emotions. This is the power of anger.

The male invigilator is now strolling down the left column. My column. He walks to the front of the hall and begins his garbage collection. He stares at the girl who had her paper snatched. Her face is planted onto her table, seemingly dejected from everything that is going on.

I turn back. The crying male student is watching the male invigilator's every move. I know his plan. He knows that the male invigilator has trouble differentiating pretense and real emotions. By redirecting the rage of the male invigilator onto him, he would have stabilized the male invigilator's haphazard emotions, hopefully enough that he will give the girl a second chance.

For control freaks like the male invigilator, exerting control is simply happiness.

The girl is important to the crying male student, for she is the only one he knows (other than the male invigilator) that outright refuses to socialize with him, as his hidden desire to exert control is not a secret to her. Nobody likes being controlled.

The crying male student gets desperate far too easily. Whenever she rejects any of his requests, his commands grow louder, angrier. He started threatening her and her family. He brewed colorful vulgar cocktails one too many times. She remains unfazed. Nothing can bend her to his will.

She is the living proof that his tendency to exert control is not "perfect". He has to change that.

He found one way to do that. The girl has a habit of not writing her student details until the last minute, yet she always spend her last minute doing anything that is not writing student details. She usually waits until the invigilator approaches before writing her details, but this time she isn't so lucky.

He knows that the girl is smart enough to catch on with his plans. He wants her to know that control is good. Even with position differences, there is no limit on what one can control.

The male invigilator approaches her. Her head, now laying on her left arm across the table, is tilted to the right, away from the male invigilator who is on her left.

"Hey... Wake up, I'll give you a chance. Don't make me do this again."

"I'll walk away if you don't wake up!"

He gives her a light push. A harder one follows. She is no longer on her chair. The ground shakes a little. She is not moving.

"Are you okay?! Say something! HEY!"

The students in the examination hall are surrounding her. They are checking her pulse. Nope.

"All. Your. Fault."

The crying male student drags the male invigilator away from the crowd. He punches the latter's guts. The head. The chest. The male invigilator is helpless, for he is truly the weakest although he exerts the most control over the students.

The crying male student permanently lost control of the girl. There is no way to gain it back.

Soon, there will be two deaths from this incident. The crying male student may be good at exerting control, but he will be charged with murder. He shall spend his entire life behind bars. In the end, he is nothing but weak.

Yet I am different.

Knowing the standards of my class, the only student that will pass the exam is the crying male student. I hate control freaks. I hate the crying male student and I hate the male invigilator.

Only I can be in control of everything.

My life is a living hell, spiraling further out of control. My family's broken, I have no friends, I have no soul mate, I have no purpose.

I desperately need to control everything that is happening around me; it is the only way to prevent the separation of myself from reality.

Twenty minutes before the incident occurred, I was already fully aware of the events that were to unfold.

I no longer want to live, but I want to die while still having some degree of control over the world.

Why? Because I am her conscience.

Everything goes according to my plan; the sleeping pills, the lack of student details, even the deaths of two of my best friends. I was testing out the efficiency of the sleeping pills I bought this morning. Both of them started to lose consciousness after fifteen minutes, dead by twenty. Both of them are seated at the fourth row.

I thought of committing suicide after the examinations, but why die alone when you have the potential to leave a lasting impact on the world?

Due to my death, as a form of bereavement consideration, all students that were in the hall (ten of them, minus me, the crying male student, and my two dead friends) will be granted a "pass" for the unit, even if their actual results are poorer. They will have an improved perspective of life, a more mature mindset, and will be inspired by my life to become successful individuals.

The male invigilator and the crying male student will have lost. They are not needed in my ideal world.

Without my student details on the exam papers, I will not have imprinted my great name onto papers with this very essay written on it, for I know that the higher-ups will associate this essay with a dark incident.

If I am the conscience that instigates her suicide plan, then the female figure whose fingers dance salsa is the conscience that plans for her future, and who writes this essay. We are one, and together we control the girl who forgot to write her name.

The plan is settled. Also, I will have answered the question my way.

"Write an essay about control."