I woke up on my bed the next morning with a nauseating taste in my mouth and a bad migraine. Bastian was next to me, shaking me frantically. “Rags! You gotta get out of bed now!” he repeated over and over.
“Lemme sleep s’more…” I babbled with my eyelids still shut.
“It’s twelve o’clock! The scholar is already here!”
“What?!” I screamed as I immediately sat up straight. “It can’t be! They say they’d come in two days!”
“Yes. That was two days ago.”
“...Crap.”
Getting up so fast wasn’t the brightest idea either — I felt as if a one-ton weight had been suddenly dropped on my brain. “Ugh. My head is killing me.”
“Way ahead of you. I brought you some aspirins. Now get ready, quick!”, he said as he left the shed so I could change and tidy myself up a bit.
I then got out of bed and put on my nice clothes, which are basically just regular clothes, minus the moth holes. I brushed my hair as fast as I could and downed the aspirin with half a bottle of mouthwash to try and hide the stench of booze on my breath, then went to meet the scholar before she lost her patience. Like Bastian said, she was waiting in the backyard. She was an extremely tall, pale woman with long brown hair and a blue… no, seriously, this person must’ve been at least two meters tall. Her sole height made her frightening enough without bearing in mind the fact that she came from the most reputable academy in the region. In addition to that, she was smoking a cigarette and was carrying a notebook and a purse with an hourglass inside.
“Greetings,” she said upon seeing me. She had a surprisingly soothing voice and a calmed attitude, considering I almost stood her up on account of being hungover. “You must be Rags. I am Ms. Ingrid Squire, from Hackett Academy.”
“What’s up?” I replied, like a complete idiot.
She raised an eyebrow in a clear sign of bewilderment.
“I mean…!” I said, in an attempt to fix it. “Good day, Miss! It’s an honor to have you here.”
“The honor is mine. I’m excited to see what you’ve planned for today’s demonstration. I hope you had time to prepare.”
“Of course! If you could excuse me for just a moment, I’ll go grab my materials.”
The aspirin didn’t do much to alleviate my headache. On top of that, the sunlight hurt my eyes really bad, and the dizziness hadn’t fully gone away. Not that any of that would stop me. And neither would the indications of one dumb doctor. I went back to the shed and took a block of stone I had lying around for future projects, along with my chisel and mallet. Bastian saw me carrying the stone outside and hastily came to dissuade me.
“Rags, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
“What does it look like?” I said. “I’m gonna make a stone sculpture.”
“Let me stop you right there. You can’t do that, and you know —”
“Bastian, you don’t understand,” I cut him off. “This could finally be my big break. I’ve got to knock this out of the park. I need to. It's not only about getting into that school. You think I like living rent-free in your shed? Leeching off of you for the past two years? I don’t. I’m tired of being a burden to everybody.”
“Is that how you see yourself? Hang on, are you saying Mr. Otis thought of you as a burden? ‘Cause that’s not true. You were a daughter to him.”
“I don’t really have time to discuss that right now, B.”
“I told you a million times, Rags, I love having you around. And I really appreciate you helping out at the shop. You are not a burden.”
“Well, I disagree. I need to get my life in order. If this is what it takes to accomplish that, so be it. I highly doubt one more sculpture can kill me anyway.”
I then took the carving stone to the backyard and placed it in front of Ms. Squire. “Stone carving, eh?” she said. “Classic. You have three hours to sculpt your piece. Are you nervous?”
“A little bit,” I answered.
“Don’t be. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. We’ll start when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
She then flipped her hourglass and put it on the ground. “Go.”
I took a deep breath, did a little stretching, and began sculpting. The first thirty minutes or so went quite smoothly, if I do say so myself. I was in my comfort zone, and enjoying every second of it. Once I loosened up a bit, I felt unstoppable. Wouldn’t last long, though. As time went by, I started to experience a tickling sensation in my throat. It’s as if I could feel each individual spec of dust passing through my windpipe. It wasn’t too bothersome, but it did make me cough a bit. Whatever, it’s just a minor inconvenience. Mind over matter. We’ve got this.
At around the two hour mark, the coughing got worse. So bad, in fact, that Ms. Squire was becoming concerned.
“Are you alright, darling?”, she asked.
“I’m fine.”
Focus, Rags! You can’t let a stupid deadly illness get the better of you. Ugh, why does the sun have to be so bright today? It’s the middle of autumn, for goodness’ sake. It’s been raining non-stop the whole month. Is it too much to ask for a few clouds?
As if that wasn’t enough, my migraine got back, and with some dizziness to boot. Every time I coughed, it made me wobble like I was walking on a rope. Things were starting to go south at a moment’s notice. I was about to trip over my own feet, so I placed my arms on the sculpture to regain balance, but miscalculated my strength, causing me to push it instead — in doing so, I quickly realized I’d accidentally knocked it over. I tried grabbing it before it toppled down, but it weighed way too much. It all happened so painfully slow that it’s as if I could see it in slow motion, yet I was unable to do anything to stop it. And then, I heard the crash. I closed my eyes and covered my ears, but couldn’t escape from the sad reality that my statue was now reduced to a bunch of shards of stone scattered on the ground.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “You show promise, but judging from what I’ve seen today, I’m afraid you’re not ready to be accepted into our academy.”
“No, wait!” I shouted. “I’m better than this, I swear!”
“You only get one chance, and this was it. Plus, there’s no way you can sculpt a second piece before the time expires”, she said as she checked on the hourglass. “You must understand, we receive hundreds of applications every year and we need to be extremely selective. I’m truly sorry”.
“Don’t go… Please…”
She left, of course. And I couldn’t even be mad about it. No injustice was committed. No foul play whatsoever. I blew it. All by myself.
Later on, I woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. I tried going back to sleep, but all I could think of was my humiliating display of incompetence from earlier that day. Even in my dreams, I kept reliving the moment over and over. I couldn’t rest like this. I had to do something about it. I reached my toolbox and took the chisel and the mallet. There was a second, smaller block of stone I saved up, which I was using as a make-shift nightstand up until then. It was covered in a blanket — I removed it, as well as the books and all the other stuff over it, and kneeled down in front of the stone, grazing it gently with my hand.
Miss Squire said I wasn’t ready to be admitted into Hackett Academy ‘yet’, but I knew she was just being polite. That’s not how it works. Once a reject, you’ll always be a reject in their eyes. So, that ship had long sailed. But that’s not why I got out of bed past midnight. I did it because I needed to prove myself that I still had it in me. The talent. The fire. That everything’s just the same as it’s always been. I placed the edge of the chisel on the surface of the stone and raised the mallet. If I can’t sculpt, then what’s the point of any of this? So, I’ll sculpt. Even if it comes at the expense of my life.
In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I threw the chisel on the floor in a fit of rage and jumped on the bed, burying my head in the pillow to muffle the tears. I hated myself for even considering doing something so horrible, and I hated myself for chickening out. Either way, it was safe to say my days as a sculptor were through.
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