Dance Hominidae, Dance
A flash fiction about an ordinary examination.Outside the examination room I stood, waiting, sweating. holding my notes tightly in my wet, shaky hands, crumbling them as my nervosity threatened to take over my body and send me on a 5 mile run away from here. I looked in my scrambled notes, trying to find the hidden answer that would save me from the bloodbath, from the judging eyes of the censor. Alas even though I looked long and hard, and examined every bit of my notes I found none, nothing, I was doomed. The door opened with might as my professor gazed upon our helpless souls, standing in line like cattle waiting for slaughter. His eyes carefully searched for his target, until finally our eyes locked in a short agonizing moment. The professor then gave a slight nod with his heavy wisdom-packed head. Now was my time to fight, to survive.
I slowly entered the dusty classroom with the censor sitting behind his desk, which was aligned like a long table before the blackboard. I quickly noticed the clean board, which had only traces of mysterious symbols left behind, most likely written by the previous student. The white chalk dust near the trail made it clear that much had been written, and much had been erased. If it truly was chalk dust, it could also be trails of grounded bones, it was hard to tell. It reminded me of a king's courtroom with the censor and professor on the throne, waiting for the new Joker to test out his worth. I walked carefully up to the censor and took his hand, a firm grip and our eyes locked, his determined eyes versus my flickering ones. He snickered under his breath; he knew he would win. The professor gave me a soft nod and I was to begin the trials. I scrambled many symbols on the blackboard, trying my best to suppress my nervous voice from cracking as I explained my thoughts and method. Nothing was heard from the censor or professor, they simply gazed at my symbols with slight mistrust. Suddenly the censor cleared his throat and pointed at one of my symbols, he was not satisfied. Surprised, I took a step back from the board. I looked at the symbol, which were no more odd than the rest of them, but the censor was unhappy. I slowly tried changing the symbol, but it did not appease him; a grin played around his mouth as he launched a series of unreasonable questions, neither related to the symbols nor my explanations. While I tried to deflect them, my professor's eyes became more and more unfocused as he began to draw doodles on his paper. He had left me to die. I tried as a last resort to draw an impressive series of symbols, combined in such a manner that they would surely cause wonder and amazement, even for my censor.
However, as he spotted my attempt he quickly changed the subject. He banged his fist upon the table, startling both me and the professor. "Dance" he said in a frightening tone. I stood still and uneasy, trying to comprehend his demands, "Dance!" yelled the censor once more; the king had to be entertained. Slowly, I started waving my arms around together with my feet in a rhythmic fashion; I couldn't remember this from the curriculum. For five more minutes I danced like a depressed monkey straight out of a circus, trying to save myself from damnation. At last, the censor seemed satisfied enough to let me out of the classroom. I picked my scrambled notes up from the table and left.
I stood outside their courtroom for what felt like an eternity, awaiting judgment. I looked at the man on my right, he stood with a pale face as he was next. Finally, the door opened and my professor appeared in the doorway. As I approached him he handed me a note, locking my eyes as he passed it. "Good" he grunted with an approving nod. I gratefully accepted the note, and the professor turned to the next victim. I unfolded the paper containing my grade slowly as my hands started to shake out of control.
"C-"
