study for English exam on the toilet
I was in my makeshift study room: the toilet. With my heels firmly on, because if I sit down without them I feel like I'm losing standing, I opened my English notebook. The goal was clear: to learn the irregular verbs while, with dignity, trying to build something that didn't want to come out.
Go went gone, I repeated, pressing with the same effort as when trying to pronounce "through" without stuttering. Nothing, neither the verb nor the other, flowed.
I laughed to myself at the thought that maybe my exam depended on that moment: if I managed to get what was inside out, I would surely pass. But every time I tried to concentrate on the grammar, the effort reminded me how stubborn the body can be.
Build build build, I read aloud. "Trying to build something" was the literal translation of my drama. But it seemed that neither in English nor in Spanish I was going to succeed.
My heels clattered against the floor every time I gave a small push. In my head, it was already a concert: tock, tock, tock, as if marking the rhythm of a student march.
In the end, victory emerged, and I said: Study, study, study! But this wasn't Mission Impossible. And between the laughter and frustration, I knew I'd learned my lesson; at least I was learning some pretty creative vocabulary.
