Tell me about yourself

A student dissociates during an important oral exam entrance.

How do I quit without being seen as weak?

Everything is too loud. Too close.
My heart pounds. My eyes sting. Something loosens in my chest. I feel dizzy.
I’m standing at the podium, facing a panel of examiners.
Behind me, the audience watches in silence.

“What does the author reveal about power structures?” Examiner One’s voice cuts through the room.
I know the answer before they finish asking. Words leave my mouth — automatic, practiced. Emptier each time.
Ricœur. Locke. Judith Butler. I’ve rehearsed these names, dropped them like passwords.
I speak, but a distance grows between my voice and myself.

“Can you situate the subject within the text’s phenomenological framework?” asks Examiner Two.
Why does she have to ask it that way? She could have just said: What does it feel like for the subject to go through this?
But where’s the grandeur in that, I guess.
This isn’t just any oral entrance exam. Not just any school. This is the elite.
Everything about the ritual is designed to remind me of it.

Behind me, the audience holds its breath. They’re not here for the argument. They’re here for the spectacle.
Intellectual voyeurism. Predatory spectatorship.
Vultures in velvet seats, waiting for the collapse to consume what’s left and feed the stories they'll tell later.
I’ll either be a future success — or a cautionary tale.

I am restless.
The clock on the back wall ticks louder with each second. In ten minutes, I’ll officially turn twenty-five.
If the bravest thing I do today is walk out of here, does it matter if they all call it failure?
This is absurd. I can’t leave. Not now. Not mid-exam.

I cling to the symbols around me, hoping they’ll make me care again.
Dark mahogany walls, polished to a mirror shine. Heavy burgundy curtains swallowing any hint of the outside world.
Banners bearing the school’s name, stitched in century-old gold thread. Names carved in marble — reminders of minds who came before.
People cross continents for this. Knowledge matters. Merit is real. That’s the promise.
But none of it holds.
The banners look tired. The marble, smudged.
Whatever it once meant to me, it doesn’t now.
I could say anything and it wouldn’t matter.
I’m not even here anymore.

My eyes land on the door.
How do you say 'I can’t do this anymore' without it sounding like academic suicide?

So much for drama.
I signed up for this — the play, the circus.
No one’s holding me hostage but me. My only shackles are good manners and qu’en dira-t-on1.

The door is right there. I could walk out. No explanation. À la Meursault.
Indifferent to expectations. Indifferent to the vultures. Die a fool.
Who’s going to stop me?
No one, except my own inability to say no.
My fear of discomfort.
My fear of disappointing.
My fear of seeming weak. Or childish.
Maybe I am.
If I leave now, then I sacrificed my childhood for nothing.

I take a deep breath and look at the clock.
“Tell me about yourself, Mademoiselle,” Examiner One’s voice jolts me back to the room.
The question breaks the ritual. Too open, too human.
He taps his pen like a metronome.
“In reference to...?” I ask. Consciousness? Identity? Phenomenology? There has to be more to it.
Something concrete. Something I can dismantle.
He just watches — calm, expectant.
My mind blanks.

“I… Well. I… I am—”
Jesus Christ. I am what?
Pull it together.
He's not really asking.
They want the performance.
Scan the room. A name. A memory. Build something.

Nothing comes.

Examiner Two’s serious demeanor catches me off guard.
His full-body sulk is supposed to remind me who's in charge.
But he looks like he has more pressing concerns than my identity.
Like digestive ones.
My lips twitch. I bite the inside of my cheek.
I look away, but the absurdity multiplies.
Damn it, Brain. Grow up already.

Examiner Three smiles—the kind that says, ‘Take your time, we’re sure it’ll be brilliant.’
Is she even allowed to smile at me?
I smile back. I'm about to disappoint her – hard.

A vulture behind me coughs. The dizziness thickens.
A flicker in Examiner Two’s eyes. Confusion? Pity?
Someone knock me out.
I’d rather black out than sit through this.

Come on, Brain. One last trick.
Quote someone. Anyone.
Say what they want. Just get it over with.

A wave of fatigue crashes down.
Not from sleepless nights or long study hours—but from wearing a mask too long.
I can’t do this anymore — or I’m going to be sick.

A memory comes back to my mind. The first time I brought home a good grade. A 19/20. My mother glanced at the paper and nodded.
My smile stalled. She looked up, met my eyes, and asked: “How did others perform?” I froze. I hadn’t thought to ask. I hadn’t known I was being compared.That day, I started keeping track. She handed back the paper: «Next time, get 20.»
I thought she was right. Stupid for celebrating anything less than perfect.
So I shoved that joy away—tucked it into a drawer marked later, where all happiness waits until it’s earned, until it’s deserved.
That joy is still buried there.

I start to shape an answer — “William Wordsworth said, ‘The Child is father of the Man,’ and to tell you who—”
A wave of nausea cuts through. I cough.
My body does what my mouth won’t: it quits.
I’m still holding it together.
But why? Why am I protecting them from my collapse?
Sickness is polite enough to get me out.
I don’t even have to perform it — just stop resisting.
Let the tears rise. Let the nausea hit. Let them worry. Not for me, of course — for their mahogany.

I don’t flinch. I don’t explain. I just stop.
Everyone gets their show.
I didn’t even have time to fully get into character before I was out the door.
The subject is handed back.
Another student takes my place.
Nothing halts. Nothing cracks.
Order resumes.

Footnotes
1  "What will people say?" - french expression