(It's 3 a.m. When the lights come up, KRIS and KYM are discovered in their dorm, engrossed in writing essays that are due at 10:00 a.m. They are exhausted, frazzled---all the great stuff you remember from your own university days. KRIS' dorm grubbies include an old Army surplus shirt, while KYM's include a kimona.)



KRIS:
Your bum the chair no longer can feel.
This situation doesn't seem real.
Gloom surrounds you...
Gloom surrounds you...

KYM:
The hour hand is moving too fast.
Procrastinating's finished at last.
"Start now," they told you
Last month, they told you...

KRIS:
Our grades will change when tomorrow comes.

KYM:
Tonight, our hearts pound like distant drums.

KRIS:
And we'll be suff'fring all right,
Writing all night...

BOTH:
A term...paper on "Angry Francophones".

KRIS:
I'm crazy now.

KYM:
I'm lonely now.

BOTH:
I cry, as the ordeal
Drags on and on...
Writing on "Angry Francophones".
I tell myself
To hold on tight
And write
'Cos it's the last night
'Til it's due.

KRIS:
Of research stuff there's really a dearth;
And what there is no longer has worth.
I can't take it!

KYM:
I'm going, too!

KRIS:
And I believe that it's gonna be
A great big failure, along with me.

BOTH:
Each time, we do this, and then
We say it again:

"No more...talking for hours on the phone.
Our laziness
Got us in this mess
Again."
We tell ourselves
To carry on...
Writing on "Angry Francophones".
I tell myself
To hold on tight
And write
'Cos it's the last night
'Til it's due.

KYM:
Seems like all I ever do

KRIS:
Is scheme to 'splain why I'm not through.

BOTH:
I'm aware
We may be
Doomed to fail again.

We're doomed...

So pray with me;
Turn out the light;
No chance,
'Cos it's the last night
'Til it's due.



(As the music soars, and the lights dim, they finally give way to tears and exhaustion.)