Everything from the whooshing of air being breathed out of our temperamental air-conditioning unit to the slightest flicker in our slowly dimming light bulb is enough of a subtle distraction to cause us to stare a million miles into the surface of our blank computer screens. We have a paper due tomorrow and just about a million other things to attend to after that. But our curser just continues to rhythmically blink on our blank electronic paper. It's ever so taunting, like a small alarming reminder that the farther we stare into that screen thinking about everything except the one thing we should be focused on, the more minutes it's sucking out of our digital clock, and the closer it forces us to a predetermined deadline.

This paper is a third of our grade, but that's merely an afterthought hiding under the mess on the floor of our brains where our file cabinet drawers have just burst open unleashing knowledge from years past, memories from forgotten moments, and facts from random readings. Our focus is like a distracted child running around the mess in our heads, picking up random memories and quickly putting them down once something different catches our eye.

Our minds are running through soccer tournaments and endless hours on the volleyball court. They're watching as we hit a hundred backhands to find the right amount of spin to send the ball turning just barely over the top of the net. They're hearing the crack of a softball connecting with a bat that's sending it to the outfield, a second base hit.

Something else catches our focus as we remember games from long road trips to Florida. The way the air smelled after we stepped out of the minivan with stiff, cramped legs and filled our lungs with a breeze of salty air.

We move to family dinners, sitting around the table laughing until we cried. And the moments of past relationships and heartaches that left us with heads hanging low and dried tears tightening the skin on our faces. We think of our families and what they might be doing while we're wasting time rummaging around our own minds looking for nothing in particular. We wonder about the well-being of our friends that live hundreds of miles away. We dig through a wealth of emotions that leave us a little unsettled and no more concentrated on our task at hand than before our focus went on a scatterbrained rampage.

No matter how far we stare into our computer screens, we aren't going to find the answers we might be looking for -- blink one, two -- our predetermined deadline is even closer than when we started, and we're left wondering with no insight and no inspiration. Our blank election canvas isn't going to fill itself. But before we know it, our focus is caught up on yet another memory.