All-Nighter

By EleCivil

Home * EleCivil * Back

  1. Darkness fell, the sun had set,
  2. When suddenly a panic hit.
  3. A paper due early next day,
  4. A paper worth three-fourths a grade.
  5. Ten pages on Dyslexia.
  6. APA formatted? Yeah.
  7. Bolting up to grab my shoes,
  8. I cursed the course instructor, whose
  9. Syllabus was quite unclear:
  10. The dates were from another year.
  11.  
  12. ‘Twas two a.m., I still had time
  13. Drove quickly to the five-and-dime
  14. To buy some liquid inspiration
  15. Of the caffeine-filled persuasion
  16. But cruelest world, oh fate assured,
  17. Just a buck, this kid is poor.
  18. Then her voice, like angel's choir
  19. Graced my ears and soothed my ire
  20. “We sell Red Bulls on the cheap
  21. To those who show college ID.”
  22.  
  23. I kneeled down and praised the lord
  24. Of college-town convenience stores
  25. And within minutes, head ablaze
  26. Was racing back to type away
  27. Wrote and quoted, fingers lurched
  28. Hours spent in throes of research
  29. Morning came with roommates, holding
  30. Plastic cups of Corn Flakes, scolding
  31. “Dude, it's early, you don't look dead,
  32. Don't you know that meth is bad?”
  33.  
  34. “Hah!” I laughed, my mind still keen,
  35. “No meth here, just sweet Taurine!
  36. What it is, I couldn't say,
  37. But that's what's kept me up all day.”
  38. I was done, my paper finished
  39. But my pride, it soon diminished
  40. I looked down, my printer broken,
  41. No more ink, the fates had spoken
  42. Transferring to a flash drive
  43. I grabbed my stuff and ran outside.
  44.  
  45. The sunlight came like a boot to the eyes
  46. But I was late, I hadn't time
  47. A forty minute drive to school
  48. And add to that, no parking, too.
  49. Printed off in record time -
  50. No one's in the lab by nine -
  51. Stumbled into class, prepared…
  52. Greeting only empty chairs.
  53. Checked the calendar, dismayed –
  54.  
  55. "Instructor's out of town today,
  56. Next week classes will resume."
  57. Tilted head back, cursed the room.
  58. So much trouble, so much fuss,
  59. Thanks a lot, old syllabus.