It feels like death is all around me. Choking me with its skeletal hands. Except I'm not the one dying. Everyone else is.
I know it never goes away. I know death never rests, never leaves, follows you around, stalking you, haunting your dreams, reading your mind. Death is imminent, inevitable and yet, now, it surrounds me. Reminding me that death is a dear friend, a neighbor a few doors away. Showing me that it can take my life away from me in mere seconds, or drain me of my life over years, slowly, painfully.
And yet it's not the dying that scares me the most. It's what I'm leaving behind. My parents, my sister, my friends, my grandparents. I couldn't live without any of them, what will they do without me? People move on, go on with their lives. What else can you do? But I can't imagine having to hold your baby, even if he or she is 17, dead and bloody in your lap, hugging them one last time, hoping they'll awake and hug you back. Your tears fall onto their cold forehead and you wish that they were at home or with you. Then cursing yourself for letting them out of your sight. They were yours and you were theirs and now they're gone. I couldn't stand to see my parents like that, holding me, telling people that my future was so bright. If only, if only I hadn't been there that night, I might have been here today.
Yes, death has infiltrated my mind.
But how can it not when in the past week my great uncle has died, my grandmother's favorite artist died and Jesus died and rose again. Death had already settled in my brain but today death has consumed my mind.
I woke up today happy. Happy that I had no fever, my sore throat was gone and the cough, the ear fluid that dulled the sound on my left side and my back pain was minor compared to what I'd been feeling the past two days. I looked at the clock again, "Ten minutes!" I scrambled to get to the bus on time and I knew I was better.
I settled into my seat for 1a, ready to run errands and grade papers for the teacher I office aide for. I got started. Fifteen minutes in, the intercom comes on all scratchy and then the sound of a heartbeat lub dubs. A beeping begins and then it flatlines, echoing death throughout the school. A policeman walks through the door, "___ ______ is now dead." (Unfortunately, I dont remember her name. Come to think about it, I dont know any of their names in that class) A girl I've never heard talk before turns around and grabs her backpack, which coincidentally is the same as mine. A camera follows a policewoman and a Grim reaper with the words "Shattered Life" on his weapon, in and the policeman takes her backpack as she follows the reaper to the front of the room. The policewoman reads a biography about the girl and takes her out of the class, leaving all of us speechless. Except for my teacher, who talks about the consequences of drinking and driving for another fifteen minutes, when the next lub dub and flatline echoes around the whole school. Another dead.
In 1b, it happens again. Then again while everyone is in the hall getting to their next class.
In second period they order for the juniors and seniors to proceed to the cafeteria parking lot. I try to find anyone I know, and I find a girl in my musical theatre class who's always been friendly and I stand by her.
The scene is multiple car crashes. Some kids are in the car, bloody and gruesome, while others hold onto a white cross, their faces painted white, like ghosts. Police arrive along with two ambulances and a fire truck. They pull kids out of the cars and the dead are counted. Six. They are laid out for everyone to see. Cameras are documenting everything.
I'm so far back, I can't see a thing. When a person moves just so, I see a girl, a gash across her cheek sitting in the drivers seat and a boy in the passenger. Neither are moving. Then my sight is concealed behind a head. Then to my right I hear a policeman yell in a girls face, "WHO DID YOU KILL?"
"My brother," she says loud enough so I can hear.
"WHO DID YOU KILL?" he repeats, getting closer.
"MY BROTHER!" she shouts back, "Garrett." she says softer. He continues to give her a sobriety test.
She fails. "You are charged with intoxication manslaughter," the policeman says and her hands are clasped behind her by a pair of silver handcuffs and she is accompanied by other police to the car.
I start coughing and I can't stop. Something tickles my throat and it won't go away. Cough after cough and soon it feels like I'm retching. And it doesn't stop. I want to stop but I can't. Then I'm crying from coughing so hard and for so long. Then finally it ends.
Then I hear a guy in my English class yell, "Grab her legs" and they carry a girl who had fainted out of the crowd. Her eyes open but dazed.
The communication the ambulance sends is projected out to us and a helicopter lands. Three are in critical condition. One is taken in the helicopter and two are taken in ambulances, another goes to jail (actually I was Facebook friends with him for a while there). Then they allow us to walk through the scene. On the way there, I see another girl has fainted.
One is smashed, one totally obliterated and one is flipped. The girl taken out of my first period class was sitting with a white face and a cross. I don't get to inspect the scene as I'd like because you have to walk fairly fast and I'm already behind. I see another ghost girl who is the girl, Lisa, from my algebra two class who I supplied calculators for out of my laziness. Others lay with their bloody make up on the ground. The makeup was impeccable. It was just as gruesome as it would really be. Bones stuck out and it looked as if their skin had literally been torn open. Then I see a guy sprawled out on the ground like the others with glass through his forehead. The student body president - who was also in my English class, Garett. Apparently his parents came onto the scene and held him and cried like I'd described above. I didn't see it and even though it's not real, it breaks my heart.
I go back to class and I'm the first one in the room. I sit and summarize what I'd seen to my dad through text, because I had to talk to someone. The flatline goes off every fifteen minutes - another dead and then another.
In Spanish, Will was really quiet, really reserved. "Work in pairs!" my teacher calls out.
"Come up here," he says halfheartedly pointing to the desk next to him.
I move and open the book to the correct page. "Are you okay?" he doesn't answer.
We continue on with the exercise.
"Did you go to the Shattered Life thing?" he asks afterwards.
"Yeah."
"I mean it's so pertinent (can't remember the actual word he said) to my life. I mean I do that sort of thing every weekend. I mean, if I died my parents would have nothing to live for."
"The only thing I thought about was that your life can be gone in a blink of an eye," of course, I thought of other stuff but this was the most bothersome. It happens so fast. I don't know if this will convince him to make better choices or not. It's up to only him. It was a quiet day.
In musical theatre, we did improv sketches and it was pretty fun. Then I watched The Cell Block Tango performed by a Gay Mens Chorus with a sign language translator to the side. Made us all smile.
A total of fifty students were pronounced "dead" and it echoed flatlines every fifteen minutes throughout the whole day.
Death is all around. Suffocating me with its skeletal hands. Except I'm not the one dying. It's everyone else.
