a PH short story

     The time: Mariana Trench. The place: the Moon. The issue:

     I have two huge tests and a project due tomorrow and my Muse is being mute.

     There's a speck of dust under my thumb and I'm trying to set three words down to describe it, three drops of water into the parched landscape flashing on the computer screen before me. They aren't coming. All I can feel is a deep nameless dread that in my sleep the speck of dust will change places with me, and I will be crushed under the speck of dust's thumb without being able to make a sound.

     So I sit still in my seat, enthralled by a waking dream of glory that will never bring peace to my feverish brow nor bread on my hungry platter. I want to finish my homework and go to sleep; but what would be the point of that? Work just leads to more work; school, being completed, only leads to more school, and then a job just like a bigger, smellier extension of school. Knowledge only increases the questions you can ask.

     What's the point of it all? Is there one in the first place? Someday I will die, just like any other fragile instrument made of flesh, bones, and thin cashmere blood. I could die now, I could die in three years, I could die after another century has come and gone. But what difference does it make if my life doesn't even matter? 

     Two huge tests and a project due tomorrow nibble at the mouse-bitten recesses of my mind, chewing three jet black streaks of horror and darkening my whole composure. I know I'm not supposed to cry. But when words are clogged, pressure builds, and dewdrops of frustration start squeezing out of my eyes.

     I have passed the Mariana Trench. The deepest hour of the night retreats, and now begins the dawn. I sigh, save my untouched files, put my computer to sleep.

     Another day, wasted. And now it's school again.