Rite Of Examination (Preparatory, Part 1)

It was said unto me by a son of the wyvern in the day just passed, as he looked upon the fallen arches of my foot and mourned the fracture of my distal phalange, that I had omitted the most basic rite of the examination cycle. (For they who have not seen, or who have not heard of the rites of examination, there are four parts of the rite – Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.)

And so, here and now do I present to you, my brothers and sisters in the College, the first part of the Preparatory Rite which all students should consider before the start of each examination day.

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Part I – The Awakening

Arise, O child of dust, and wake into the cool and grey penumbra of the passing of Night! It is the morning, but you know it not, and it is the beginning of Creation, but you feel it not.

Upon your bed of sorrow and of the toil of evening past, lift up your limbs singly and in slowness of mind, that you might receive assurance of your wholeness and the continuing existence of your material self.

Learn as if anew that you have arms, a left and a right, and each arm has distally a hand, cramped though they might be with the agony of the writer and the tension of the age. Upon each hand, find fingers, which for most of those who live are five in number, of which one is a thumb, stumpy but not to be despised.

Clench your fists, all fingers five and crowning the four others with your thumb. Thus you might defy the urgings of Dream and Sleep. Newly unsleeping, unclench and clench again, till your blood roars with vehement chastisements in the muscles of your arms.

If you have laid weights of metal or of stone beside your bed, lift one in each hand, while lying supine. Let these not exceed five masses of the French Revolutionary standard. Perform the ritual of lifting five times each, and five times five again.

Strangely, you will then discover your legs, sturdy appendages for the movement of the body, and their supporting feet. (One scruples at that most oxymoronic term, the 'metric foot', which young Trivandrum should emplace upon his web-log.) Raise your legs above your head, aiding the heart as it sends the sanguine ichor towards the seat of your mentality and away from the mentality of your seat.

Lower them, and with the momentum of this movement, plant your feet upon the ground beside your bed. In a while, you will be ready to stand up. But not yet, for otherwise, the sudden elevation of your head might cause a dizzying of the intellect, as has occurred with fatal result in many who are older and wiser.

Thus ends the first part.