it's 10:31 and all i can hear is the four clocks ticking, ticking, reminding me that time is not static, it moves and flows and you cannot go back, no matter how much you regret not covering more exam material.
it was 3:15 and i got flooded with emails of last-minute prep work for english, all of which i ignored in favor of cramming thousands of vocabulary into my mind - じこしょうかい is when i stand shaking in front of the class in my first year, it is my second year when i provide the class with more reason to snigger at the tears in my eyes. しゅふ is who, despite being pushed and pushed and pushed to achieve the very best, is who they want me to become.
it's 7:45 when i stare at a page comparing iago to the devil himself, but on the very next page they then compare othello to satan, his dark skin, his wifes body at his feet (desdemona and emilia never deserved any of this, but they were women, and the world has it out for us). i wonder why people cannot agree as to who someone is, with differing views, i wonder why, when othello was a good man, he is still labelled as the villain by a white woman in the 21st century. i look up from where i drifted off and it is 9:10.
it was 10:11 this morning when i watched a little girl the age of my sister cry as the nurse next to me put cookie to sleep, ending a life as easier than creating one. i look at the girl sob into her mother's side and wonder why my mother won't let me cry over death anymore. i leave the appointment room and go back to stroking hope at my veterinary station, who's curled in the sun on the desk, with no pressure, no stress to be something she isn't. when i was a kid, i wanted to be a cat when i grew up. that clearly hasn't changed.
it's 1:15 when i find myself desperately sorting the dishes, cleaning the kitchen, my room. never the lounge, never the bathroom. they're too big, too empty. i need something to do with my hands as they shake and my brain yells at me for not studying, even though i have an exam the day after next, and i don't have any time on the next. my hands shake and if i chip a plate, i shove it to the back of the pantry, where no one will see it. sometimes i wish i were a cat. sometimes i wish i weren't a chipped plate.
it's 10:48 and the clocks are still ticking. the pressure of grades looms above my head, and yet i still ignore it, maladaptive daydreaming taking over for hours at a time.
it's 10:49.
YOU ARE READING
KAFKA ON THE SHORE.
Random"what I think is this: you should give up looking for lost cats and start searching for the other half of your shadow." PERSONAL @MATCHIMOCHI 2018
