Exam Hall Anxiety

Sunlight hums in through the window.
It’s soft, sullen streams reaching across the floor and paralysing secretive dust in it’s path. I need to write.
But I can’t tear my eyes away from the rays, the the carefree, sleepy rays, untouched by the heavy atmosphere straining above it.
A single cough breaks the silence. Then the crackle of a water bottle, the rustle of paper. I can still hear the silence - it’s lurking in the perimeter of the room.
My hand is shaking, and my lip is throbbing as I chew it harder and harder for every second that flickers by.
I’ve written four words. Eleven characters, four words, one line. Write what’s on my mind? That’s it. Eleven characters, four words, one line. And then blank.
My head is filled with cotton wool, and the cloud above me is raining down, droplets seeping further and further through until they reach my pale lips. Will I scream when there’s enough rainwater in my mouth to release? Will I drown?
I’ve written eleven characters in one thousand five hunted and sixty seconds. Sixty one. Sixty two. I could count all day, count job applications I lose with every second longer I stare into space, count marks I’m losing or people I’m disappointing. I could count out how many pills didn’t help the acid in my chest, the tight knot and the voice in my ear. I could count out all the Propranolol and the anti-depressants, the Pro Plus it’s taken to get me this far, and the placebo pills, the eight it took to convince the doctors that I was for real. If I counted the marks in my essays, would it make up for all the caffeine crashes and the placebo spoilers, the ups and downs and the pain in my head? If they slapped a shiny certificate in my hand, would I slap on a pair of rose-tinted glasses that veil the gut-wrenching mind-numbing paralysing anxiety I drag around every single day?
The sunlight hums through the window. A cough breaks the wall of silence. And I sit in my seat, my hand shaking as I watch the clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Turns out that time doesn’t slow down for anybody.