Examination

In my dream the fresh dampness of the air crept its way into my sinuses and my unwashed hair, laden with grease, repelled the droplets of water that slid in all directions in a magnificently symmetrical divulgence from the crown of my skull.

In my dream I rotated my neck to find what had cast a pale gray glow across the opaque stalagmites emerging from the cave floor. It was the caws of the ravens that coaxed the rays from the sun’s darkest crevices.

The cave was large enough. Within it was a small clearing where no mineral structures would coalesce. It measured about a king-sized bed, excluding a protruding strip that linked it to the reasonable mouth. In my dream the fabrics of the cave had been twisted and restrung such that the clearing’s unsavory, bumpy surface was instead soft and cushioned.

A cold rain had begun, consisting of fine droplets that rode the wind at a slant and paid my cavern a visit. Though my bronze skin remained as before, my pajamas, spattered with deep wet patches, had lost their hue. My hair stuck to my cheeks in thin clumps. Eventually, its black strands found their way into my mouth, and I detected an infinitesimal hint of last night’s rosehip shampoo. I had been expecting more; the eye-staining needle fluid was gradually eroded and replaced by a salt flavor laden with jagged rock edges that I set atop my tongue and bit down on. They tasted of dust and grime.

I took to the back of the aperture in an attempt to avoid the rain. Instead I came within eyeshot of a small tubelike pathway leading from the room’s far left corner. As I descended, my narrow shoulder blades contracted superfluously; I was even left with a few inches of space on each side. I peeled myself back open, resembling an unfurling, ascending lupine, grabbing the suddenly stiff ledges of the gap above me for support at full extension.

I descended slowly, clenching and unclenching the surrounding rock with all my might, staving off freefall. Except I arrived nowhere. Hours had passed, I’m sure, when my grip began to slide on an algae-laden section. Anchoring my feet, I was able to scan the walls properly.

They consisted of oysters. Their foul taste signaled to me that water had not reached them in days. Perhaps if I had been able to shuck them properly instead of creating an impressive amalgam of chipped tooth, blood, oyster, and mildewed shell, my impression would have differed entirely. Still, I kept eating them, voraciously, until the gashes in my hands were coin-deep, though no pain beseeched my nociceptors into activation. My appetite was as never-ending as the river of blood flowing from my hands.

In an instant I went limp. The oyster I had been holding to my eager teeth fell below me dramatically. I felt hands on my legs, lifting them gingerly from their stiff positions, and I was awash with relief, even as I had been under no discomfort. Their muscularity reassured me as I rested my neck within someone’s clenched hook. My eyelids shut; the elevator I had clambered into refused to leave the second floor of consciousness.

Without opening my eyes, I knew my environs had shifted, in spite of the transition’s seamlessness.

Without opening my eyes, I could see that I had been restored to the suburban cradle of my youth. The juniper-walled classroom’s vast window panes allowed the sun’s melodious alto trill to pass. I was sitting at a wooden desk that echoed the rest of the room in design and pattern. It stood alone.

Or so I thought, before I noticed a tall man behind me, his oversized gunmetal suit brimming with scrutiny. His frameless glasses, resting on the very tip of his upturned nose, possessed lenses that were about four times as wide as they were tall. Who are you, I wondered; humanity had not graced me for a while.

He had clearly noticed me, and likely perceived my question, but stormed off into the corridor without more than a glance in my direction. Time passed slowly here compared to the cave. He returned with a stapled stack of papers, a splinter-inducing wooden pencil, and his trademark glower.

I looked down at the papers. Tertiary Cognitive Assessment, Written Component. I hesitated.

“Take it!” the man barked in my face without a moment’s hesitation, pressing his hands on the corners of my desk. They were not the soft, muscular ones that had settled me in; they were long and veiny, with mangled fingernails and flaking skin.

The questions were cryptic and odd. First I was asked about which of the five climate zones support strawberry cultivation. Then came a long response in which I was meant to outline how to synthesize a béarnaise sauce. The test went on and on.

What is the range of commercial drain snake length in Austria?

How long does it take to complete an undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin?

Name three NPR podcasts.

Name three films by Polish director Andrzej Żuławski.

In what parts of the world can one find the wildebeest? What is another name for this large animal?

After hours of scribbling I reached the final page. It was blank. The man, who had been pacing the room, hands clenched behind his waist, back bent slightly toward the ceiling, snatched the booklet. He stared at the blank page, and vigorously repeated the motion of running his eyes over it until he appeared satisfied. “Good,” he said curtly. Still, it was clear he had intended this comment sincerely.

He let the stack slide from his hands, which began to tremble. The amplitude of the tremors was slight, yet the frequency was rapid. His hands seemed to be in many positions at once, or otherwise widened incredibly. His eyes had gone bloodshot. Saliva was spewing from his mouth, and to prevent its accumulation on his chin, he occasionally gave his head a few rapid shakes, sending particles flying in every direction.

Before long, he made up his mind to storm at me, expression crazed, lower jaw ajar and pulled to the side. His breathing was now rapid and labored. Sweat gathered on the ends of his hairs and on his forehead. I remained startled but unafraid.

His face had inched its way ever closer to my own. The synapse between our heads was probably not much larger than between neurons. I could feel the mad bee honey-infused warmth emanating from his throat and brain. I could smell the bitter black coffee dripping from his cheeks.

“Where were you….” He paused, his voice congested and quiet. “Where were you right before you got here?”

Stitches lined my hands where they had been sliced, throbbing as I racked my brain. I opened my mouth and stuttered a soft vowel. The man waited, snarling, drawing close to the point at which his temper would collapse and he would release the tension that had been building in the joints of his spindly arms, sending shockwaves reverberating off the juniper slats. His saliva pooled in the pencil slot near the top of my desk. His hands pressed deeper and deeper into the rim.

“I was in a cave,” I managed, choking on the precipitous, rocky ‘c’ sound. I was not fearful, only expectant - yet it was as if I had forgotten how to speak properly.

“And?” he demanded, his temper deceptively cool in spite of the raging expression he wore.

“And the mouth was wide and looked out onto…it looked out onto a dark forest and birds encased in layers and layers of pigmented black feathers flew overhead and rain needled its way into the gape.”

The stitches seared anew with stabbing pain. My head felt heavy and I heard a low tonal note that echoed like a wind gong or a singing bowl. I struggled to remember.

“And?” he grew a little louder this time.

“And I left to escape the wetness down a…a tunnel.” I squinted my eyes and raised my right hand to my forehead, palm flush against it, elbow resting on the desk below.

“Which side of the cave was the tunnel on?”

“It was on….” Suddenly the detail eluded me. The pain had become too distracting.

“Think!” he barked, infuriated. “Try to remember!” He started pacing animatedly about, bringing his arms to his temples then shoving them to the floor again, wringing himself of discontent and storm. But I was at a loss. He let out a cry of anguish and continued his passionate motions. For a while he refrained from using his voice, which had now gone hoarse. I straightened my back and searched for his eyes, my expression laced with confusion and pity, my hands clenched together on the desk.

“Which side of the cave was the tunnel on?” he asked again, hushed, and composed himself as best he could. The Saliva River had dried up, but not before tainting nearly every square inch of the classroom.

I decided to guess. “The right?”

He began to roar, eyes overflowing with redness, mouth raised to the heavens, as the fabric of the dream began to dissolve around me. I came to my senses near the top of a mountain, clad in a navy sleeping bag. The events leading up to my arrival at these circumstances were overshadowed by the somnolent vision within which I had become subsumed. Conifers blocked the horizon, save for a small patch of cloudy blue sky. The very peak of the mountain was shielded, but I sensed snow.

I scratched my head. In my dream I felt as if I had not been dreaming. I pinched myself and the sting of millions of cuts and the tinnitus ringing in my ears and the craterous ache in my cranium came rushing back, compensating for the distorted nervous senses of the dormant world. I was awake.

The small hole in the pine ceiling was soon filled - only for a few minutes - by a blimp flying far overhead. A banner flew from its rear. On it was plastered the number one hundred and twelve.