Suddenly, Last Winter
Suddenly, Last Winter
Recess
December 29, 2018
Classrooms
Some lights in the school are still on.
It has been more than a week since the children last sat in the classrooms and ran through the hallways, screaming their goodbyes to start Christmas vacation but the school did not go dark.
There are floodlights in the grass shining onto the Gothic style three-story building that has stood since 1917, and the lights cast shadows that bend and haunt.
There are lights over the doorways that stand between the school and the cold world outside.
There are lights in the hallways left on for security and custom.
And as someone drives past the school on a night when snow is falling four days after Christmas and more than a week after all were told to leave, they could swear they saw someone, a child, sitting alone in a darkened classroom on the second floor looking out onto the world.
No. That could never happen.
One child trapped in school for Christmas.
Ten thousand souls swimming through the empty hallways.
A trillion memories sleeping in the grass covered by snow, gripped by cold as two eyes gaze out the window, hungry and cold and forgotten.
No. That is not what has happened. --TK
Saturday, December 29, 2018