Moving Finger - Issue 3 - Brunel University

grooves from the sound system saturated the body and plied it into a dance as an
ironsmith hammers pieces of metal from shape to shape. People clung together like pond
algae, different hues blending into an intimate pattern. Yes, it was carnival,
strangleholding west London. There was no refuge, nor was any required.
Elijah Mariam
THE LAST FIVE MINUTES OF AN EXAM
(a)
The end. I’m sitting third row from the left, five along. We’re arranged like newborn
babies in a hospital, unhappy and confused in this alien environment. Some of us, quietly
content, enjoying and savouring the freedom of completion, but others perspiring fears of
failure. I myself have drifted into slumberland, dreaming of a better place, a better time,
and my pen is checking through my sheets of scrawled writing, while the mind detaches
itself from the body. It feels, like my writing, erratic and distorted. I can see you and
you’re happy, so you must have done well or so you think. Your smile looks like the halfmoon
on that night. I know I don’t feel the same as I fold up my fears like paper
aeroplanes, hoping they would fly away together and leave me content again, but the
heaviness of my pen pulls me closer to the table as my eyes paradoxically float up
towards the clock. Like small spherical spaceships, they hover round the big hand, which
is about to take one step more.
Daniel Baker
(b)
The invigilators’ muffled chatter breaks my concentration. I switch my gaze to the clock,
wishing the remaining five minutes were really fifteen, but in so doing the ticking
resonates like tinnitus. Among the odd exhalations (perhaps of despair) pens swish,
scrawl, and etch fervently across the exam scripts like shoes overzealously brushed. The
exam question revolves incessantly in my mind, anticipating the end as a plane circles
airspace prior to landing. Nervous swallowing makes my mouth arid and stale. After
more excitable movements of the invigilators and glances at the clock, my handwriting
gradually deteriorates as the inevitable close nears. Suddenly, we are thunderously
instructed to put our pens down, which comes as a relief to my con-strained hand, bearing
the embossed mark of my tired pen. The sound of scripts ruffling like birds’ feathers and
the echoing escapees’ footsteps mark liberty from the exam room.
Anosua Mitra
(c)
‘You have five minutes.’
The words pierce my ears; my body goes rigid. Ideas that have been flowing
systematically through my head become distorted as fear seeps through. For the last two
hours I’ve been wishing it to be over, but now the end’s arrived I want more time. My
hand scribbles maniacally. Think, think. Don’t give way to panic. Things I haven’t yet
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