I flicked on the light to my apartment. No bugs. No old man. Windows open.

There, in the sink, a mess of dishes piled up against the rim. They were piled before I bolted out the door for Labor Day weekend, and now, after Labor Day, they remain, sink high but covered in a thin film resembling pond scum.

I edged to the sink and peered into it. Where’s the bottom? Somewhere between the plates, cups and bowls and beneath a layer of cloudy, stagnant water there was a drain.

I shuffled through the dishes. The action expelled pungent air. I backpedaled. Ugh. Old man’s breath.

The smell was part of the fight, and the fight hadn’t gotten the best of me yet. I staggered back over, plunged my hand into the water and fished around.

Something beneath the murky water punctured my finger, and a chill rippled across my body.

Blood. This is gangrene. This is the end.

I applied antibiotic product and a bandage and dispelled images of chattering teeth against wooden blocks and mustached men with saws.

Whatever lay below was finished.

The garbage disposal whirred, followed by the sound of shattered ceramic and then silence, followed by trickling water.

It was over. The disposal was broken. The dishes were unclean. The smell dispersed. I bled. It was over.

I sat in a blue-cushioned armchair and sank low, feeling only hunger. There was no food prepared in the refrigerator. I wasn’t that hungry.

I remembered I had lasagna that my mother made during the weekend.

I microwaved the lasagna and sank back into the armchair.

As students, we often play a balancing act, walking a tightrope over the chasm of bad grades. The wind: assigned readings, homework, work hours, responsibilities, roommates and parties.

After long school days, we want comforts and not work. We want to see our friends, what’s on TV or what the latest news on Facebook is, not the task of deciphering the merits of 19th century Russian existentialism or whether the freshman who wrote the blogpost you have to reply to for an IAH class fell asleep on the keyboard, rolled over and drooled just hard enough on the enter key.

And if you listen closely you can hear the wind blowing harder.

Our actions are usually based in reason: I can do the assignment tomorrow morning before class. If I stay quiet, the professor won’t know I haven’t read the material. I have all weekend to finish that project. The test isn’t for another week.

The outcomes are always the same: I overslept. He called on me. It’s Sunday night. It’s test day already?

As students, our sole mission isn’t learning, it’s applying ourselves to learning and applying what we’ve learned. And we should always learn from our mistakes.

When we procrastinate, we concede to our comforts. We sway on that tightrope, momentarily eased, momentarily panicked, momentarily eased, momentarily panicked.

Unless gutted from our lives, it’s a routine without end, and the only way we’ll conquer it is by reaching somewhere between the plates, cups and bowls and beneath that layer of cloudy, stagnant water.

Michael Kransz is opinion editor at State News. Reach him at mkransz@statenews.com.