directions
you have sixty minutes to complete this test. not a minute more, not a minute less. follow the damn rules, for once.
answer every question to the best of your ability. if the question is too difficult or even unanswerable, raise your hand and someone will come.
(will someone really help? you can never know.)
if you need a drink of water, exit the room and enter the first door on your left. try not to drown, the water fountain leaks.
question 1
which of the following is not like the others?
a) i peer out of the window of my car, road rules be damned. we’re hitting seventy, maybe eighty, and it almost feels like the wind is trying to blow me out of the car and away, away, away. maybe i want it to.
b) the grass feels warm and supple beneath my bare legs, and i pluck out a dandelion. the earth sighs, but i do not hear. as i draw breath, the wind does my job for me, and the wisps have floated away. i never got to make a wish.
c) i’m at the very top of the rollercoaster, and i’m staring down at the fall before me. the wind tips us over, and i’m light as a feather and i’m falling, and i’m not falling anymore, i’m flying, and my wings skim the top of the lake and i fall again.
d) i’m looking at you again, and the wind seems to have found a home in your eyes. a light wind could blow me away, and maybe it does; maybe i’m as fragile as a blank sheet of paper in the wind and just as empty, maybe the sound of the wind against my fingertips is home.
e) the wind is my home, the wind is where i am safe, the wind is all i can hear and my world is disappearing with the wind and my heart is shattering and the pieces are floating away in the wind and there’s something thumping against my chest and it’s the wind; the wind is all i know.
question 2
order the following events in chronological order:
- there is nothing here to find.
- not all wars are cold.
- i can see empires beyond the horizon line.
- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- the only part of me not buried in ash is you.
- the guillotine falls again and again and again.
- there is smoke in the air and smoke inside me.
- i sign myself away with a stroke of a quill.
- our monuments have all crumbled.
- we notch our arrows and let fly our bullets.
- rise up, rise up, rise up.
- how did this happen?
question 3
identify which of the following statements are true and which are false:
i. when i bite the my lips i taste blood
ii. when i bite yours i taste ichor
iii. did you fall from the sky to meet me?
iv. or did i rise from the earth to find you?
v. yes, i can see it now, i can see it all
vi. maybe that’s why everything you touch turns to gold
vii. and everything i touch shatters
question 4
is there a right answer for anything? or is it just the stars whispering nonsense in your ears, trying to watch you explode like they themselves did so many billions of years ago? is it just the rain hitting the paper? or is it the ink from your standardized 0.7 pilot gel pen spilling out in quicksilver rivulets all around you?
(use mla citations, and use the space below - all 93 billion light-years of space provided must be utilized.)
you have completed the test. congratulations.
this was the easy part. step outside the door to your right, and face the world again. that’s the hard part.
- the final // s.g
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i don’t know how i dreamed it up and i guess
it almost sounds funny
but i was terrified out of my mind because
they were all going to sleep: him with his future and her
with her open arms and everyone else, each some kind of
universe contained inside a too-tight skin, with nebulae for eyes.
maybe the worst part is i started out with my suitcase,
setting up for a long long night, for nothing and nothing and nothing.
we talked about getting woken up
(but there were sleepers there, lying in the walls,
still as death. they’d been there for thousands of years. this
would be it. nothing else. nothing left.)
we came from the past and there was nothing here for us.
the house was all dark green and tight and full of rooms and beds
set into the walls. i packed up my stuff and got ready to close my eyes.
everyone else was around me and i brushed out my hair
and the walls were covered in the kind of gothic designs i hate.
the bodies around me laid there, maybe breathing maybe not.
and i was running out it made me sick and terrified and i was shaking
i went to a party and i was looking for people i knew, people
to break the silence, break the ending. i wanted sunlight
but i couldn’t see the sky everything was gray and dim and quiet.
there were people, yes, and we ran back i wanted to stop you
i had to stop you i had to stop her i couldn’t lose anyone i couldn’t lose-
i went back into the house and the halls were so narrow so green,
edged in victorian mansion gilt and i was i couldn’t see right
you were all already asleep. everyone was already asleep except one man,
someone. i couldn’t see anyone, but you were already asleep.
gone.
and the man told me it was going to happen to me i would blink out
forever and fall asleep, fall asleep, get tired and tired and tired until
i drifted away. what’s so bad about that--there’s nothing left. nothing-
(there’s everything left)
and he told me i had to draw an x over the front of my tank top and turn it around
and write something some words about stopping it words i’ve forgotten except
i can’t forget i can’t forget it’s all going to end i can’t forget i’m running
from the house i’m running back to rifle through my suitcase and my family
is gone you’re gone they’re all gone i’m looking for a marker i don’t
have a marker i’m going to forget what he said i’m going to
f
o r
g e
t
when i
wake up it’s all dark and quiet and cloudy.
my family is
asleep.
i go out
to the living room
i turn on all the lights.
in the kitchen, in the living room.
there are no lights under any of the doors. i am all alone.
i go back to my room and open my window
wide, so wide.
i am very cold.
i read for an hour. and no one else is up.
nightmare house//ast.
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