Take Your Marks

In a perfect world, there would be no testing. You would just be granted a pass on everything you do, with a high five and a Well Done, buddy! to send you on your way. Carl thinks this is the best solution. It would get him out of studying every afternoon for 4 hours while sweating bullets in a panic desperate to make sense of whatever the crazy hieroglyphics are. Like he's gonna use calculus after high school. Pffft. All he wants to do is swim and homework is seriously infringing on his time in the pool. Coach is riding him to get his head in the game. Doing drills, counting off the multi coloured arms on the time clock at the end of the deck. Red, yellow, blue, green. Go on the 15, go on the 30, rest on the red, go on the blue, what's 15 of the 30 divided by the high root of the base over the square of the slash gobbledy gook. Argh. He's supposed to be getting down to a :26 split on his 50 in the 200 free and he's losing time. Workouts in the gym are flagging and sleep, don't get started on sleep. All this pressure to perform. To be good. To be better. The best. Regionals, Nationals, Commonwealth, Olympics, then what, exactly? Struggling to keep up a 3.8 grade point average. Forget the 4.0, there's no hope in hell this semester. Since Christmas Carl can't get past next week let alone the rest of his  life mapped out in carefully orchestrated increments, meet by meet, race by race, podium by podium. There are days he struggles to get to the pool let alone practice for 2 hours. It used to be fun. Thrilling. Every single moment. Up on the blocks, waiting for the signal. Flying through the air, his body exploding like a compressed spring slicing through the water, piercing, a skinsuit bullet. He's missing the joy. Swimming is an excuse to avoid studying and studying is a deterrent to training. Lose lose. Carl can't concentrate on either and as a result he's going under. Nothing worse than drowning in disappointment and bringing everyone down with you. He just wants to swim. When did everything get so complicated...

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