Procrastination

Or 'The Feverish Ramblings of a man Half-Drunk on Night Nurse

I have been unwell this past week. A fairly bland cold and then some blooming savage sinusitis to top it all off. I couldn’t face writing anything ‘proper’, my head wasn’t there. But I didn’t want to not write anything, so I began something I have intended to do for a few years now. I began the ‘Self-Authoring’ program. 

First, you pick a whole bunch of personality traits (fifty I think) that best describe you and/or your flaws. You proceed to whittle them down to seven, ranking them in order of magnitude. After you do that you receive your first writing assignment. 

My top ranked personality flaw: “I procrastinate too much.” 

The assignment: “Write a short story (2000 characters) that describes a time that your selected flaw led you astray” (Or words to that effect.)

And so I wrote this. It was massively too long by about +2400 characters, so I sent in an abridged version. 

But you guys get the whole damn thing.  

I hope you enjoy.

---

I knew the outcome already. 

It happened exactly as I thought it would. And yet I just sat there and let it happen. 

My first Archaeology exam. And my last. 

It was something to do with those Anglo-Saxon artefacts from Sutton Hoo. Something that, in later years, would become of great interest to me. But not then.

Fuck no. 

This was the year 2007. The MCU wasn’t even a thing yet, imagine that. 

I was sixteen. Fresh-faced. Starting college. Wearing skinny jeans and cardigans, as was the way.  I took Archaeology for one reason and one reason only. Because I HAD to take something. I’d already chosen three other dos subjects. Film, Media and Drama. And I was required to choose a fourth. 

Maybe music? Nah, too much like hard work. 

Art? Pfft, and have my artwork judged?? No thank you. 

Philosophy? What even is that, like Plato and shit? 

But archaeology. Huh. Interesting. Indiana Jones was an archaeologist. And hell, Time Team was pretty okay; it had that guy from Blackadder in it.  

“You’ve got yourself an archaeologist, Pam!” I said to my tutor, Pam. Who was also an archaeology tutor, thus highlighting that my overwhelming desire to be liked by whoever might be in front of me at any one moment was alive and well, even then. 

But alas, it was not to be. 

My heart wasn’t there. I drifted, I daydreamed and did anything but take a legitimate interest. I started resenting being there, as though I were a sort of prisoner in the lamest, least secure prison in the world. I used to skive and skip lectures. I was never on time. My assignments were always late, sloppy, short and unintelligent. 

And all of this was leading to a dreaded end-of-year exam. 

I knew it was coming. I had all the time in the world to revise. 

But I didn’t. 

I watched Buffy instead. Late, late into the evenings. Literally all night, sometimes. And I ‘d spend the whole time listlessly promising myself that I’d start revising soon. Probably. At some point. After series one, maybe. Or perhaps series two, or three, or four— ugh, Riley and that “Institute” bullshit— maybe five, or six— musical episode, nice— seven, then. The end. Huh. Solid. Don’t like that they killed Anya off so willy-nilly. But overall decent. I’d watch again. 8/10.

And then, quite by surprise: exam day. 

I woke up and I lay in bed. And I waited. And waited. And waited. 

I knew it would come. They wouldn’t just leave it. My bed was not the interplanar sanctuary I hoped it was. The world could still find me there.

Easily. With one phone call.

And… yeah. There it was. The phone rung. Dad answered, there was a muffled conversation and then he came upstairs, giving a concerned tap at my door. 

“Jon, you’re meant to be in an exam.” 

“Oh, what?” I marveled. “Good lord, so I am! What an unprecedented turn of events! All haste, father, we have no time to lose!” 

And we were off. I was there in seven minutes. 

My tutor, who was not fooled by my feigned bemusement, met me at the gates and escorted me to my own private little shame cell. Where I did the exam. 

Alone.

It was a painful experience. 

I got an E. 

Years later, when I began writing more, I developed a great love for archaeology. For history in general. 

I found my old textbooks in a move once, with all the essay questions determinedly highlighted by my young self. 

They were all incredibly easy questions.

They were asking practically nothing of me, nothing I didn’t learn by myself out of genuine interest anyway. The teeniest bit of application would have changed this story wildly. 

I could well be on my way to being Indiana Jones by now, had things gone differently. 

If you have liked what you’ve read, please consider sharing and subscribing or even buying my book, however you may wish to wait until February when the 2nd Edition is released!

I am a fantasy author, illustrator and aspiring poet. If you’d like to help support my projects, you can find my fantasy work here. Thanks for reading Greenjack's Journal! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.