Jack’s eyes were sore. His hand was cramping. An adequate response to his exam question, “What does life mean to you?” had been eluding him for some time. Numerous rewrites had created a modest pile of crumpled pages at his feet, a creativity graveyard in its own right. Too few ideas, too little time. His wandering mind couldn’t help but admire the faultless crossing of the pink margin and blue lines on his page. Every line had its place, and none deviated. It was a simple pattern, but beautiful amidst the turmoil of Jack’s existence. Simplicity had also been eluding him lately. He wished that his life could be as straightforward as those lines because, at the very least, he’d be able to finish his exam.

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    Two…three…four. Reggie counted the ceiling fans that maintained a bearable climate in the large exam hall. He shifted his eyes. Eighteen…nineteen…twenty; the number of students who still had their heads buried in their exams. A soft patter on the floor ahead drew Reggie’s attention, but only briefly. Yet another crumpled sheet of foolscap had fallen to the floor with the others. Reggie supposed that he was struggling on the exam’s final and most important question, “What does life mean to you?” and he couldn’t help but laugh to himself.

    He had discovered his answer to that question three years earlier, on a snow-capped peak a thousand of feet above everything. Up there, the sun shone with its purest rays, and the true majesty of the world sprawled out before him. To the west, streams of glacial water, blood of the Earth, weaved down the mountainside and into a green valley. To the east, a carpet of milky cloud bridged the expanse between this mountain ridge and the next. What a sight it was; optimistic fingers reaching for the sky, silhouetted by the life-giving light of the sun as it waned. The sun would return, Reggie knew, and this scene would play out again, and again, and the fingers would reach up, never losing hope that they would one day grab on to something better. Adventure tickled Reggie’s toes and rose to his cheeks, and he knew then why he was alive. He would climb those mountains too, and any others he saw along the way; he would spelunk the battiest caves, and come out alive. He would travel to Rome, and wander the city without a map; he would stare into the depth of a clear night sky, and trace constellations with his finger. He would hop madly through the mist of a jungle waterfall, and revel in thrill of it; he would drive fast on the open highway, taking in every sight along the way. And he would always keep one hand empty, ready to reach up and grab for something better.

    All in good time, though. There were…(58, 59, 00, 01)…forty-four minutes of exam time remaining.
    
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    The dusty white clock that hung over the exam hall doorway clicked as the hour changed. Allegra glanced back at it over her shoulder, and then back down at the stack of papers before her. She’d filled three pages with carefully calculated bullshit about the pre-eminence of family and friends in her life, and an additional page on the role of altruism in achieving true happiness. Make that four pages of calculated bullshit.

    Those things were all very nice values to have, as Allegra had been told her whole life, but they were not the meaning of her life. In truth, Allegra lived for her passions. Donning pads that still bore the stains of earned victory; stepping onto a sunlit soccer field and scanning faces in the stands; always hoping against the impossibility of seeing her love among them. Her love for the game pulled her out of bed every morning, but it was her love for Mac that kept her going through the day.

    Allegra’s younger brother had once told her that her ‘relationship’ with Mac would make a great movie, because it was exactly the sort of thing that people would watch, and say, “Yeah, like that would ever happen in real-life.” Her mother had told her it was just a fling, a crush that she’d forget before too long. Her friends from the mens’ soccer team laughed and taunted and teased her about her ‘lover’ who lived on the other side of the country, and tried to woo her back to her ex. Allegra knew what she knew, and she was sure that Mac was the true love every girl dreams of finding. She also knew that she would be with him again someday. It could be years, but she would wait, and they’d communicate via e-mail until then. Their chance meeting in Mexico, and the week of resort fun that followed, had been pure magic, but it wasn’t enough. Allegra wanted a lifetime.

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    In a back corner of the exam hall, where the air was heaviest, a Clydesdale made of pen strokes was nearing completion. Although it decorated the back page of Emily’s exam paper quite nicely, she felt that it couldn’t capture the sculpted muscles of Kade’s shoulders, or the playful energy in his eyes. And play they did, every day at the barn. Kade was more than just a friend; he was the friend.

    He was dependable. He made jokes, and Emily liked to think he laughed at hers too. When tears were the order of the day, Kade was always there to listen. Emily didn’t need a man in her life; she had all the companionship and love in the world waiting for her in a stable twenty minutes away.  

    More than anything, Kade reminded her that life is fickle and unjust. Two summers earlier, Emily had volunteered her time at a ranch. Under her care, a mare birthed a wobbly, fuzzy, little ray of sunshine who didn’t live long enough to receive a name.

    In the first hours of its life it became colicky. The vet was unreachable. For two days they did what they could, which wasn’t very much and ultimately not enough. On the third day, new courage stirred in its heart; it spent the day frolicking as only youth knows how, but Emily recalled the pain in its gaze even as its body exuded jubilance for life. That night, the inevitable tragedy came to pass. Emily cried. After that night, peering into Kade’s eyes brought the duality of innocent vitality and natural mortality.

Flaring blue marks on the ears finished the drawing as a bell announced the end of exam time.

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    Professor Lund, who presided over the collection of young minds, leaned back in his scuffed leather chair. He felt great satisfaction at having completed his last semester of educating before retirement. This room had been his forum for decades, but the paint faded more each day and the archaic wood trim would surely crumble to dust and blow away soon. He wouldn’t miss it. Yes, retirement would be a welcome change for Professor Lund.

    Many years earlier, the professor had been a student in this very room, writing this very same exam. It had been a long road, he remembered, from author of a brainchild to grader of many brainchildren, but his philosophy had always remained indelible. He could still remember the way his hands had trembled walking into the exam hall all those years ago. He remembered nearly fainting when confronted with a question so fiendish, so imposing, so utterly stupefying as “What does life mean to you?” And he also remembered the surge of clarity that held his hand steady as the words formed on his page: “Life is about sore feet.”