Gallows
It was nearly 1am and Kevin was still at his desk. In the morning he’d sit an exam so big it could determine the rest of his life. But he was nowhere near ready. There were formulae he hadn’t yet memorised and concepts he barely grasped. Feeling frantic,he lay on his bed – for just a moment – to try and calm himself. He was still thinking of binomial distributions when he fell asleep. That he awoke to a picture-postcard morning was lost on him when,after a mad rush,he walked to school as if to the gallows. Word by Paul Connolly. Illustration by Jim Pavlidis.