When Integers Attack

The dreaded SAT starts promptly at 8:30 am in the morning. Too damn early if you ask me. Getting a good score is the only way of getting a scholarship into a decent college (unless you get a B-list actress to pay someone to take the test for you). Ninety of us are packed in like herrings, nine neat rows, entering demographic information in case universities want to contact us directly. Lots of codes and crap to enter: student ID, school, room number, blood type, next of kin, my car’s VIN.

After ten minutes of the inquisition (which nobody ever expects), I finally get the green flag to get this party started. The first section, reading, is a cool summer breeze for me. Aseptic political speeches, historical documents, biographical cameos, PhD dissertations about suspension bridges; you know, stuff we’ll need to know in real life. Blah, blah-author’s intent; yada yada-tone; whatever-effective evidence. The same things we’ve seen in English class for the last ten years. After I swim briskly through that kiddie pool of questions, I sit back in my chair, waiting for the automatic countdown timer to finish so I can proceed.

The screen changes to the math section. Something is off, though. Very wrong. The numbers seem to be…moving. Slowly at first, almost imperceptible, but definitely moving. The first number to jump off the screen is a 5. It jumps onto my face and starts to hook its bottom curve into my face. I swat at it as if it were a fruit fly. I slap it, and the 5 falls onto the table like a dead mosquito. I’m seated by myself in the last row, so no one notices.

Then a 3 flies out and lands in my hair. Its three barbs feel like a sandspur. As I’m batting at my hair, all the other 3’s from the page join in, and I’m scratching them off like bloodthirsty ticks. They skitter onto the desk where I brush them off into my folded scratch paper with the dead 5. I blink several times to make sure I’m still awake. I drop the paper, and then I hear moans of pain from the floor.

The 8’s with their conjoined circles roll off the screen and try to enter my nostrils and crawl into my ears. I shake my head sharply, dislodging these odious numbers. One 8 says, “Don’t resist. We’re gonna do what we want. Resistance is futile.”

“W.T.A.F.” I whisper back. It’s the SAT, and we’re literally sworn to silence. “What’s going on?” I push all the 8’s onto the empty chair next to me. They look like tiny infinity loops

On the screen in front of me, the 7’s and 1’s are marching like little ants across the keyboard, stabbing my hands with their sharp staple-like points. A 7 speaks, “This is what your life is now.” I violently wipe them off, noticing the pin pricks of blood they leave behind. Numbers want to kill me.

An algebra equation appears. This time a letter, an x, approaches me. “You may not know our value right now, but we’re an enigma of sorts. Almost anonymous.” It hooks onto my arm as I watch in horror. Five more x’s latch on, feeding off my skin. Using my #2 pencil, I scrape them off and toss them behind me.

What is happening? Did someone put ketamine in my coffee? A string of math symbols, ∑ ƒ # % + = ∆ and -, ooze off the screen and leap onto my arm, embossing themselves into what looks like a grotesque tattoo or bizarre birthmark. Disgusting test boogers, they are. I ask, “Why is this happening to me?”

“Yes,” the y’s replied in unison. “this is happening to you.” The y’s proceed to burrow into my arm, their corresponding graph lines covering them like a fish net. “We never get to have fun,” they tell me. “And z wants to join in now.”

π escapes and circles my head. “Oh, this is all wrong. Your head is not round enough.” I shake π off my head. Then > emerges to tell me, “I’m greater than you.” I flick that symbol away with my fingers. The ) (’s are trying to infest my eyebrows, but I beat them with my TI-84. I hope that doesn’t wake the calculator up. I feel a bruise start to form on my face.

Why is this not happening to anyone else? Why don’t the proctors notice I’m being attacked by math? The words in the reading section didn’t molest me at all. I look down at my newly formed tattoo on my upper arm. To be fair, it does look kinda cool. Symmetrical and mysterious.

On the screen, a 9 is unwinding and growing alarmingly larger. It slithers toward me, aiming for my neck, tightening its coil, strangling me. The 6 does the same; like a melted crayon, its pliant shape is choking me. The √ is attempting to pull my nails off. They’re all trying to end me, and I’m helpless to stop. The torture seems endless.

The countdown timer reaches zero and the next section comes up. The math nightmare is now over, and I continue to the next screen and complete my exam. My score comes in; if it weren’t for the reading and grammar sections, I’d probably have a negative score. Good enough, perhaps, for community college, but no free ride.

And it is at this moment I realize my hatred for math is mutual. I firmly decide to major in English, where numbers are under strict orders and forced to behave in an outline, a page number, or a chapter heading. To this day, I still cannot figure out a 25% off sale price or calculate a decent tip.