The Forge

We streamed apprehensively down the corridor towards the Intramural sports room, a nervous mass of gaudy gray t-shirts and black athletic shorts, the latter of which we often complained about publicly but were secretly exceptionally comfortable in. We stepped into the cavernous hall, borrowing little comfort from its sparsity, and quietly gathered into small clusters of faces familiar to us. Someone told us to sit in the center of the room, near a line of bare tables absent of chairs. Some dreamed of proving their athletic prowess in the moments to follow; most dreamed of being anywhere else.

Then the coaches arrived in their various shapes and sizes, equally intimidating. Our numbers were next divided on an alphabetical basis: surnames beginning with 'A' thru 'L' would depart for the upper portion of the building, the rest would be tortured where they currently resided. Thus we rose to our feet and followed an Intimidator toward the door, already perceiving the white wool encapsulating us as the shepherd led us to be slaughtered. Up the stairs we climbed, some panting already by the crest.

We sheep were paired off on false benches, some staying and others being led around the corner to another butcher's abode. Then it was time for Noah to explain the process: "Half of you will be performing the step test, while the others stand idly by," she said. "Find your pulse now, gentlemen, for you may not be able to do so later." Or so it was implied, as we fumbled about our wrists and throats in a desperate attempt to find the life nectar as it coursed through us. We met with varied degrees of success and then it was time to cast lots for the killing.

The attention of those of us fortunate enough to go first was then directed toward the supposed benches we'd recently occupied. They deserve to be called 'false benches' because of their deceptively docile nature. In actuality these foot-high benches were the steps we would be traipsing on and off of until either our lungs or legs erupted. A voice boomed at us from unseen speakers:

"This test will begin in five seconds..." After the promised interval had transpired an obnoxious beep echoed through the room and legs pumped; we first positioned ourselves on top of the bench and then retrieved our starting positions. This continued for the following five minutes, by which point sitting down was not only advised but mandated by our condition. A friend divined my blood to have pulsed 47 times in a fifteen-second period, a number duly reported to the instructor whose sole response was "poor" in the form of a disapproving check mark on a scorecard.

The process repeated itself, this time with the second half of the flock receiving the unsettling treatment. The friend's number was not 8 digits lower than mine, and he managed to receive "fair" from the same instructor. From this we ascertained that anything above 40 was probably poor. It was mildly reassuring that, were death to transpire between this test and next, one could expect to pass with flying colors (as a pulse of 0 is certainly below that mark).

The menagerie from around the corner had returned to swap places with us, and so we filed down the hallway to find a room with obscure pads and foam cubes scattered about the floor. Here we would perform, to our greatest ability, the dreaded activity of pushing ourselves off the floor only to return to it presently. After a keen demonstration from the coach in that room it was time for half of us to attempt a recreation of his example. This i executed thrice before collapsing, a value worthy only of a second "poor." The friend exceeded me tenfold, yet much to his dismay received an identical ranking. Here a score below 40 was no longer enviable, it seems.

Tired and startled we descended to the cavern, finding our other half in much the same shape as we (albeit from a different battery of injustices). Clearly we all have much to look forward to as, on the second day of our testing, they shall suffer our day's fate and we shall suffer their's. We trickled dejectedly up the corridor away from the Intramural sports room, a dismayed mass of gaudy gray t-shirts and black athletic shorts, the latter of which we often complained about publicly but were secretly exceptionally comfortable in.