This short story is an *IA Writing Competition (creative work category) entry.
I TYPE "EXTENSION REQUEST" into my email search bar. “41 results” it informs me. Here goes nothing.
Assessment: Politics Essay
Due Date: 31 March 2022, 5:00 PM
Current Date: 31 March 2022, 3:49 PM
It was the first time. I still remember the stress, the vague buzzing in the back of my head, the worried voice I was doing my best to silence. The undercurrent of tension that tightens as every second ticks by spent wasting time. You never realise how fast hours pass until you can count them on one hand. The rush of adrenaline, the risk. Will it work, or will it not? I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie.
As Rudyard Kipling once wrote:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And was that not what I was doing?
The surge of relief, the release of breath you didn’t even know you were holding as you realise – it worked. But what Rudyard doesn’t tell you is that once you start taking the risk, you can’t stop. You will always know that you CAN, however subconsciously. However hard you try, you won’t forget.
It’s like drugs – once you’re addicted, there’s no going back. It changes your perspective – your perspective of time, of due dates, of deadlines. I wouldn’t let them control me. Instead, it was I who controlled them. I was reclaiming the power. At least that’s what I told myself. In reality,
I had discovered my newest drug, and I was addicted.
TEMPLATE FOR AN EXTREMELY APOLOGETIC EMAIL FOR AN EXTENSION REQUEST EXACTLY TWO HOURS BEFORE ASSIGNMENT IS DUE:
POTENTIAL TUTOR RESPONSE:
Fuck.
I’m texting my mum, I’m thinking hard. This is frantic, panic stations. Every neuron I have is firing. How am I going to pull this off? Mum, dad, what am I going to do?
My dad introduced me to Rudyard Kipling and his poem 'If', but he has doubts. He doubts my entire Arts degree.
But that’s ok, I still have Rudyard.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
I trust myself. To hand in an assignment on time? Of course not. Extensions are my escape hatch, my getaway submarine. If the captain is meant to go down with the ship, I am no captain.
My mum emails me the plane tickets. Right documents, wrong name and date. But that’s ok, I can fix this. From memory, I think I literally do the photoshop job on Snapchat.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Please compare Figure 1. with Figure 2. Note, the name change from Toby to Lara and date change of fourteen days. Please ignore the blurry letters and low resolution.
Magic? Perhaps.
It would’ve been quicker to just do the assignment at this point.
I’m handing in assignments on time from now on.
Poor, naive, little me.
I am a junkie, exploiting my tutors’ understanding and kindness, dependent upon the newfound freedom provided by adulthood and higher education. I see a deadline, and automatically add ten extra days. I answer to no one.
I find the boundaries, and then I push them a little further. A one-thousand-word essay can be written in an hour if you truly don’t give a fuck. Word counts are descriptive, not prescriptive. Plagiarism is a state of mind.
Assessment: Philosophy Essay 2
Due Date: 1 May 2022, 12:00 PM
Current Date: 26 April 2022, 4:59 PM
Remember to recycle, it’s good for the environment!
Maybe, on a subconscious level, I believe that true creative and academic freedom exists outside the rules and requirements of everyday university assignments. To do my best work, I cannot be confined to such parameters.
I emailed this essay to my brother. His response:
No Toby, it is cute. I’m adorable.
Assessment: Ancient World Studies Research Essay
Due Date: 10 October 2022, 12:00 PM
Current Date: 17 October 2022, 11:17 PM
From here, the details get a bit blurry. I do believe I tried to send him a photo of a positive covid test, but accidentally attached a picture of a tampon. It happens to the best of us. Unfortunately, tampon image could not be found at this time. James was understanding, if confused. Extension was granted.
Unfortunately, later in the week James and I collided on the university campus, a place someone with COVID certainly should not be. At the time I was writing the essay that was supposed to be handed in eight days prior. Ahh, the irony. James was understanding, if confused. Essay was submitted.
What happens when the world is always giving, so it no longer becomes a gift, but a given?
Not once, not one single time, were any of my extension requests rejected. It was a slow spiral into madness as I gradually lost all respect for deadline integrity. But at what cost? I was sinking so many ships that it had become an environmental hazard. I was running out of getaway submarines. My willpower was crumbling.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
No one was going to make me hand in my assignments on time, except myself. It’s a paradox — they forced a due date on me, so I rejected it. But through allowing this rejection, they weren’t enforcing the due date. Hence, was I really rebelling against anything at all?
***
I ignore my problems until they go away. Dear Creative Non-Fiction Essay, you were never a problem. Nothing has changed, except maybe I’ve realised that you can’t rebel against a class you chose to take.
Dear Ms Tutor, I know I will never be able to ask for an extension in this class after this exposé, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’m sending off my emergency submarine with no one inside.
Dear Reader, dear Rudyard, this isn’t about you.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Ridiculous patriarchal bullshit anyway.
A wave crashes over the side, sending water flying and the boat rocking. The sea is turbulent, foaming peaks over a dark green depth. Lightning illuminates the sails flapping in the wind as sailors struggle to maintain course. A murky black shape is outlined on the horizon. Land ahoy, but first we must battle the storm.
I am the captain of this ship, and it will not go down.
Lara Skerratt is a Melbourne-based writer who loves to make people laugh and is currently completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Melbourne.
* Full IA Writing Competition details HERE.
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