HOME | DD

Description
The task: Write a story. The time-limit: forty-five minutes. The reason: Buggered if I know – I didn’t set the exam…

So I sit at the desk smiling smugly to myself. This is too easy, I think, sure in my ability to amaze the markers. The command is given: we may begin!

As my pen scratches across the paper, the room around me transforms into my creation. The students on my left, scrawling furiously across the pages of their booklets become and army of shining knights. The remainder towards my right take on the role of the enemy, the dark parody of the glorious army of heroes. This is by no way an indicator of my preference of people with surnames in the “A-K” category over everyone else, it is simply the way my mind sets the scene around me.

Now seated at my scribes table in the middle of the battlefield that the examination hall has become, elevated above all, I wait to see what happens so I can document the entire event. But nothing does. The two great armies face each other, ready to go down in history, but neither makes a move. Confused, I look at the parodic scene for a few moments… What is wrong with this picture…?

And idea springs to mind: The battle should commence with the meeting of the Generals. As I scribble the corresponding lines across my booklet, two men walk towards each other on a course to meet in the middle of the battlefield. They stand and glare at each other, both men trying to gain a psychological advantage over the other. They glare and glare and glare some more. Action! I cry out in my mind. I realise my pen has left the page, and the armies are once again locked in a moment. Looking around desperately for inspiration, I look down at my table. On the corner in pen (no, wait, it’s carved!) is a sentence: “Outnumbered, we shall still stand and fight, for what is good and pure!”

Inspiration! I resume my fanatical scratching of the once pristine paper (make that scroll) with my pen (oops, quill), and the general of the glorious knights – oh, that’s a good name, the “Glorious Knights”… wait, maybe the “Knights of Glory”… oh, what about “Glory Knights”? Bah, enough! The general of the Knights of Glory (there, I made my selection) begins talking animatedly to his opposing commander, “Outnumbered,” he cries, “We shall still stand and fight, for what is good and pure!” The enemy leader looks past him to the “Knights of Glory” and back at his own forces with a confused look on his face. I follow his gaze, trying to figure out what the little voice in my head is telling me…

Damnit! I almost scream out loud, realising that currently the forces are equal in strength. I quickly make amends to this terrible mistake, my eyes flowing back over my page (oh, I did it again: “scroll”), and I change a few figure and descriptions here and there… Voila! The army of the “Knights of Glory” suddenly shrinks in size, leaving the remaining soldiers looking around themselves in fear and amazement. Suddenly the enemy – they really need a name, don’t they… Hmmm… I think I’ll go with “Knights of Pain”… Yes, that contrasts nicely with the “Knights of Glory”, very good. So as I was saying, suddenly the “Knights of Pain” are looking very formidable indeed.

Finally, my stage is set for a magnificent battle. I begin to devise my plans – how I shall move my pawns around the set, making strikes against the opposition and falling back to defend, heroic sacrifices, selfless actions… Yes, this will be a clash that will shake the foundations of the world… Or at least the desk of the person marking these papers…

*tick*

Huh, what was that?

*tick*

Again, there it is!

*tick* *tock*

That noise, it is familiar…

*tick* *tock* *tick* *tock*

Oh, god, the time!

Suddenly I am brought back to the examination hall. Students are beginning to stand up from their desks and take their completed booklets up to the front. Panicking, I dive back into my world of knights and glory, trying feverishly to finish my epic tale in time. But it is of no use! Even as I watch, from my scribe’s table, the armies lose their soldiers in massive desertions. How can I write an account of a mass ‘wimping out’? This is terrible!

Barely keeping my emotions in check, I half-heartedly scribble down a pathetic confrontation between poorly-described armies on a horribly-unbelievable battlefield. Finally, I scrawl those famous last words at the bottom of the page…

The End.