The horizon is the word “finals” in constantly growing letters. It will be finals soon. You have just finished finals. They are always coming until they are gone; when they are gone, they are coming. They are coming.
The library website never stops asking you to verify your credentials. Are you who you say you are? Are you who you were five minutes ago? Ten tabs ago? Are you who you told the database you were? How can you be sure? You press Enter.
You can’t get comfortable. The mattress seems oddly lumpy. Finally you lift it up to look. Every punctuation mark you ever left out of a citation is teeming along the bedframe. They’re waiting.
The Elders warned you about that class. You didn’t listen. As your brain oozes through your eardrums to drip methodologies across the chair, you wonder what you thought they were trying to say.
There is only one used copy of the textbook available. To get it, the anonymous seller explains, you must fight three of your cohort in mortal combat to determine who has the highest Time to Money ratio. The winner will fashion a FedEx OneRate package from pure gold and the signing page of their loans. Weeks later, you get the package back. Inside is a stapled copy of a journal review of the book.
JSTOR keeps asking. You keep saying yes. The Terms & Conditions. Yes, yes. Yes. Do you know what you’ve agreed to? Do you know what JSTOR will want from you, one day?
Sometimes late at night, staring into the glowing screen, you find yourself singing strange songs to yourself in your mind. You don’t know where they’ve come from.
If you tell no one about “JSTOR, I love you, but you’re bringing me down,” it won’t matter. JSTOR knows already.
There is always another synonym. You can always find a synonym. Don’t let a word see itself too nearby. The doubles will fight, like those fish, and rip the paragraph to pieces. When the paragraph is gone, they’ll turn on the nearest meat. Find a synonym.
“I only slept four hours last night,” you tell your colleagues with proud weariness. “Dude,” one says, “I fell asleep on my desk.” A person whose name you can’t remember announces “I haven’t slept all year” and glides away, beaming. You can’t see their feet move. You decide not to think about it.
Someone asks you if you know any sources relevant to their topics. You tell them you’ll keep an eye out. Under your breastbone, something toothy and baleful snarls.
The clocks have changed. They are all countdowns.
You see them sometimes, during midterms. Quiet young people with huge, smudged eyes. They walk into the stacks, between those electronic shelves. Sometimes you hear a soft whirr and a click. They don’t come out. Avoid the Lower Level, you tell the new girl.
“I was only trying to have a conversation,” your mother tells you reproachfully. Against your will, your jaw unhinges. A serpent, unheimlich and problematic, oozes from your mouth. You gag frantically, trying to shut it back in, but already it is too late. Her eyes glaze over. She is gone.
Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough sources? Do you have enough soucres? Do you hav e enoguh sources? Doy ou have ensodvcs sourec? Do you–
You have invented a term. You examine it happily, then shiver as the ghost of an older, simpler word brushes across your shoulders. You say it out loud to yourself again. You are uncertain of your suffixes. The shade of accessible language whispers in your ear. It is repeating your own words about an author you hate.
