The lurid cobwebs

Dr Fahim Chand | Monday September 1, 2025 06:00

The cobwebs dissolved into nothingness. Relief washed over me, yet panic lingered, refusing exile. Slowly, the cogs in my mind resumed their grinding, and I realised: these cobwebs were no more than my exhausted brain struggling to wake up.

Fifteen exams behind me, one more ahead. Two weeks of three-hour sleep nights had hollowed me out, body and mind alike. As dawn stretched across the sky, panic loosened its grip, the ordeal was nearly done. I peeled myself from bed, shuffling to the bathroom, the light switch banishing the last of night’s grip.

My eyes betrayed me; red-rimmed, sunken, declaring my secrets even in solitude. My hair splayed wildly, a testament to fatigue. I turned the shower dial and let the steam engulf me; for a moment, it was paradise. Dressed in the soft uniform of exam week, I drifted into the kitchen.

Funny how exams create their own fashion sense, comfort masquerading as defiance. I boiled water for tea. Hardly a triumphant masala chai, just a lone Tetley bag about to dive into its oversized ceramic swimming pool. Cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon belonged to some future, more civilised morning. For now, efficiency reigned.

My toast popped free, and I plastered it with peanut butter, leaving no bare corners. Culinary negligence was not an option. Food was my faithful accomplice, every bite a tiny poke to my dopamine receptors. As I rinsed my plate, my roommate Dave shuffled into the kitchen, freshly showered and breakfast-free, as always. His refusal to eat struck me as mildly barbaric. Equally baffling to him was my ability to chew anything before 10a.m. We agreed to disagree.

We climbed into his car and traced the well-worn route to dental school. Even with an exam looming, calm came naturally, conversation flowing as if the day held nothing more pressing than deciding which Def Leppard track belonged on Dave’s playlist. Outside the exam hall, our classmates clustered, buzzing with everything but exam talk.

Preparation was done; no point in pretending otherwise. When the doors finally opened, we poured in. I took my usual spot beside Dave and our friend Dan Ceccacci. At the signal, we flipped the papers.

Three silent hours in the world of Fixed Prosthodontics had begun. It was terrain we knew by heart.

Even through the haze of exhaustion, our dental instincts were honed to a surgical edge. Thoughts flowed onto the paper in a steady rhythm, time dissolving into irrelevance.

Soon, it felt as if I alone roamed the kingdom of Prosthodontics. Dave and Dan blurred into the background as I pressed forward, a lone warrior determined to conquer this molar-shaped battlefield. Victory was mine for the taking.

Then a voice sliced through the silence: ten minutes left. I had already finished, my work neatly reviewed, my pulse finally steady. Relief seeped in, this two-week ordeal of exams had ended.

“Pens down,” came the final decree. I closed my booklet, exchanged quick grins with Dave and Dan, and caught the same look on every face around us: relief blooming like the sunlight outside.

We drifted out of the exam hall, shared a few postmortem exam jokes with classmates, and then scattered, already thinking ahead. Tonight, all forty of us would reunite at The Ramp, where speakers would thunder, bodies would sway, and academic stress would combust on the dance floor.

For a few hours, we’d be nothing but students with nothing to prove, nothing to memorise, nothing to fear, just simply alive. A rare and glorious place to be.

But first came a sacred ritual: sleep. Back at home, I washed my face, traded exam armor for pajamas, and collapsed into bed. Within ten seconds, maybe fewer, I was gone, tumbling into dreamland.

And if, by some cruel twist, sleep hadn’t come so easily? What then? Studies suggest that keeping a consistent sleep schedule is like giving your brain a nightly boarding pass to Dreamland.

By going to bed and waking up at the same time, even on weekends, you train your body’s circadian rhythm to behave like a punctual train, arriving right on time. No more tossing, no more negotiating with the ceiling.

Just a steady ticket into sleep’s waiting arms, proof that sometimes discipline is the greatest luxury. Exam week no longer fuels my sleep; the hectic pace of real life does that just fine. Perhaps I’ll muse on this over masala chai, though chances are, the steam will be the last thing I notice before slipping into dreams.