Trekking to the Abyss

 Trekking to "The Abyss"

Marty Rempel

Several Grade 9 students huddle in the hallway, frantically reviewing their notes and drilling each other with social studies questions. Tensions are high. "No, you moron, that’s so wrong!" hisses one student to another. "An example of a command economy is the former Soviet Union." The air is electric. It’s exam week at Westwood Community High School in Fort McMurray.

The great trek begins as some 250 students gather their things and their thoughts, reluctantly, for the inevitable migration toward the long ramp that descends to the gym in the lower level of the school, affectionately called "The Abyss."

Inside the massive gym, I methodically distribute exam packages, computer cards and foolscap in preparation for the multiple exams about to begin. As students enter through the twin set of double doors, they scramble to locate their classes, rows and seats. Announcements are read, instructions given, the anxiety level is palpable, rising and falling like a tide. On cue, the students begin their exams.

With bingo hall rituality, good luck charms appear on desks, perhaps set out by the superstitious and less prepared. Latecomers arrive, and the gym reverts to a steady rhythm of concentrated writing punctuated by suppressed coughs and squeak of shoes on the rubberized floor. Around the gym walls hang banners advertising past victories and athletic heroes long gone. The back wall is piled high with backpacks of every description and the ever-present ball caps.

I begin my rounds up and down the long rows, scanning the horizon of the gym as if on clandestine assignment looking for spies during the Cold War. As the testing progresses, I smell sweat generated by nervousness, and gradually a restless spirit of stretching bodies, yawns and a final flurry of panic-induced speed writing sets in as the exams near their completion.

After the last straggler leaves the gym, all is quiet again. I gather the thick piles of exam papers and pack them into my old brown and well-worn briefcase. I think of all the students I have taught over so many years. As I reach my salt-splattered van in the parking lot, I exhale loudly. I feel the ache in my arm from my heavy load of papers that I will mark this evening and the next, and as a small, wry smile comes over my face, I can’t help but wonder how many exams I’ve marked over the past 25 years.