Turn the other cheek.

It’s too loud in here. Frances thought as he attempted to focus on the task at hand. He waited. He shifted his body slightly back and forth as if to soothe his mind. He tapped his boots on the floor, to acquaint himself/to rhythm himself into a pattern. He scrunched and squinted his nose and eyes to relieve the sounds of water in his head.

Once being reprimanded for “zoning out”, he not dare look out the window for a breath of fresh air. He kept his head down as if to agree with the inadequacies he had been appointed, labeled.But deep down he knew better. Still. He had to take the test.

His mind was blank. All he heard in the moment was the loud sound of his own heart pounding in his head.

He was listening but sounds were echoed and garbled. He needed to hear the directions and instructions in order to make sense. Of what he needed to do. What good is all the studying, drilling, and re-view if the recall and retrieval is no where to be found?

He decided to remain cool as the cucumber he consumed last evening. What good is eating my greens if I still catch a virus he wondered silently. What good is a test passed if I did not actually pass the test?

Not one to complain, Frances waited patiently. He always believed that where there is a “will” there is a way. As far back as he could remember, he expressed self-reliance, the definition of the word autonomy before it was a “thing.”

It only takes one moment, one sound, one thing to take away your lifetime. It can take a lifetime to figure out, or it can take your lifetime. A moment that not only takes and steals your breath away, it robs your attention and holds it hostage.

Frances was a “regular” kid. Loved himself, “As is”. About as true to oneself and others as was humanly possible. A rule follower.

Perhaps that was the problem. That Frances looked at life that way. He felt it was a duty. Something he had learned in formative years, that duty trumps all else.

Passing a test? “Kinda a why do I have to thing”, Frances thought. A challenge for some nonetheless. Changing the language does not change the fact that the test needs to be taken to be passed. But for some that is not to be and for others that will never be an option.

And still others, toil.

While others ride the waves.

Frances, however, never wavered. He would do as he was taught, take it, the test, head on and in the process, if necessary—turn the other cheek. Over and over, until it became a fixture in his mind. One that required strict and guided discipline to turn on and off. Or at the very least a belief in another. In order to survive the life that caused his mind to wander.

How many tests do we pass in a day? Many more than we think. How many do we willingly seek out to pass? Not enough. Well, not enough of the ones that make a difference. That is one area where Frances excelled, although it never seemed to matter. He knew the differences between what he wanted and needed and choice. Choosing the differences between what he wanted and what he needed.

There was no blanket of indifference with Frances. Turning the other cheek was a daily practice. Even if and especially when it hurt. Hurt to see it, hurt to feel it, hurt to do it, hurt to say it. Hurt to do the hard work. What really happened? Who wants to relive a life, a moment that takes your breath away and holds it hostage at its whim?

”Not me”, Frances thought. Study, study and more study. Will do. Practice, practice and more practice. Will do. Turn the other cheek, turn the other cheek, more turn the other cheek. Will do. Bruises are a sign of defiance. Frances liked that. Black and blue. Bring it on.

There is no joy in passing a test that one did not pass. No real accomplishment other than perhaps getting want you want—what you think you want—what you think you wanted. Because lost somewhere in there is what you needed. Really needed. Worse off, taken from another, when it was not right. To steal. To rob.

Such is life? Maybe.

The paper finally arrived and Frances stared down at it. The test. His mind still blank. Heart pounding. He was not nervous, still cool as a cucumber. But. Still blank. Something blocked his concentration.

The noise. It came out of nowhere, no explainable origin. Ever present. Always here and always there. Disturbing sounds. Ones that take your breath away. Annoyance. Frances still capable of hearing loud and clear. Which was part of the problem. Unable to shut out the noise, the sounds that murmur self doubt amplified by others, amplified by too much information. Too much negative information to process.

Scanning his mind for the shut off valve to shut off the flood of self doubt overcoming his mind. Rats. Not a good time to not find the off button for the fixture holding my mind hostage at this time. In my mind. Ugh. Frances thought.

What to do. What to do. Deal with it. Head down. He read left to right, answered those questions he was certain to know the answers to. Read, and re-read the questions he sort of knew, and made his best guess. Wrote a paragraph of thoughts and ideas about a topic he knew well:

Duty.

An obligation to give it his best regardless of the grade received. Not once did Frances think the test was stupid. Redundant perhaps, but not stupid. What good is a challenge if you do not attempt to do well at it? For the moment, while Frances was engaged in the writing, the noise seemed to lessen. Only to return once the papers were instructed to be handed forward. The test had ended.

Gulp.