A lone writer sits at a bare metal desk in the cover of night, writing by moonlight. His small, broken pencil moves quickly over the scrap of paper; its small scratches seem to be amplified by the silence of the building.
I will never forget the ratta-tat-tat that echoed through the hallways of my high school on November 9, 2002. That sound has been ringing in my ears ever since, buzzing in my head like a bee trapped in the innermost part of my mind.
If the ratta-tat-tat was an irate bee, then the bone chilling screams crawling from the lips of the wounded was an outbreak of the Black Death plaguing me from within. One scream after another rang out with a strange sort of rigid order: the clack of the magazine, the click of the trigger, the ratta-tat-tat of the barrel, the screams of its victims, then it repeated in a seemingly never ending cycle.
One child after another fell, littering the floor. Every now and again a teacher's facedown corpse interrupted the flood of students' limp bodies. Those who were generally seen as a source of protection were cut down as easily as those they protected.
In all their backs were holes travelling in a linear path across their spines- the kind of lines drawn in math class with an arrow on the end to signify stretching on forever. A deep crimson oozed from the wounds, pooling under the victims, spreading over the floor, under doors, into classes of scared survivors, shaking and crying in fear. The smell of gunpowder, blood and death rose behind the shooter and leaked into classrooms, coated furniture, walls, possessions and people.
The shooter, Jeremy Bauer, walked slowly over the hills of classmates, a look of emotional neutrality adorning his features. He turned corners calmly, bringing his weapon to bear each time, though by now there was no one in the hallway. Everyone had fled either outside or to a classroom to huddle close and hope he didn't choose their door as his prize.
His eyes scanned each door thoughtfully, remembering his own experiences in each room, and with the people within. He grimaced at the bad memories. Each time that grimace surfaced, I knew who his next targets were.
I hate him. His cold, uncaring face makes me ill, and his ravenous craving for vengeance, for justice, brings me to tears. Why did he do it? I ask myself that question every day, yet I cannot ever come up with an answer that could even begin to justify what he did.
The worst part is how in control he was, and still is. He controls everything even from the small white room at Weary Acres, the last real sanatorium left in he country. Because of him, policies, attitudes, states of mind, even lives, no, especially lives, changed.
When he is done with his sick justice, he exits. He falls to his knees at the school entrance and there remains until the police arrive.
It began freshman year, I suppose. He didn't have high expectations for high school, but he simply wasn't prepared for what was to come. Not a day went by that some deep, cutting comment didn't shatter his world, didn't impale him. His parents gradually lost interest in the issues he carried home on his shoulders; he wouldn't open up despite their initial concerns. The taunts of classmates echoed in his thoughts whenever he let his mind wander; so he plunged into schoolwork, forgetting them all, never giving his mind an idle moment.
It worked for a while. His grades soared, even if his teachers worried about his lack of friends. One teacher actually approached him about it and he promptly requested a transfer from her class into an even more difficult course; those teachers would be too busy to care.
Even so, his tactics were doomed to fail eventually. Shortly into sophomore year he made a scene of himself unintentionally, drawing the school's attention right back to him; he'd mistakenly handed in a spare sheet of paper he'd used to create a formula for love instead of his homework.
He was very into the chemical aspect of attraction and had begun preliminary speculations on defining love chemically and even going so far as to design a theoretical serum that could simulate the effects of love in people.
In any case, the student aid was given the papers to grade and wasted no time in copying and spreading his formula papers around the school. Everyone saw it as pathetic, thinking he was attempting to create a "love potion" to make someone fall in love with him, despite his true intentions: allowing himself to feel love.
With this new embarrassment, all the old teases came back. They surfaced like the skeletons of great prehistoric beasts to haunt him. He dived into his work again, but no matter how deep he swam, those words, those sharks, followed. I knew they were going to catch him and tear him to pieces. I knew what he was going to do.
Unfortunately for the students of Westwood High, his father was a gun enthusiast. There was a room in his basement full of exotic and rare weaponry. The day he was finally caught by those sharks and they sank their teeth in him, he had a well-supplied vault to choose from; he brought the Uzi, his very favorite, to school November 9, 2002 to finally slaughter the predators.
I'm telling you all this so that you may understand why I have to do what I am going to do. How can I live with these horrible memories any longer? If you still can't understand, then I hope you never do, for no one deserves that kind of torture.
The lone writer folds the paper lightly and stands from the desk. He moves into the center of the room and makes sure the strip of fabric from his mattress is secured in a neat noose, just big enough for his head. He moves the chair as carefully as he can, but his hand falters and it strikes the floor, letting out a loud, noticeable noise. He quickly places it under the noose and climbs on top, slipping his head through. He hears footsteps in the hall and kicks the chair out from under him.
The thin fabric constricts his neck as the footsteps reach his room. they push against the solid metal of the door, but he's cleverly braced his overturned bed against it in such an angle that it would take a great amount of force to break in.
The last thing he hears is the faint calling of the nurses, "Jeremy! Open this door!"
I will never forget the ratta-tat-tat that echoed through the hallways of my high school on November 9, 2002. That sound has been ringing in my ears ever since, buzzing in my head like a bee trapped in the innermost part of my mind.
If the ratta-tat-tat was an irate bee, then the bone chilling screams crawling from the lips of the wounded was an outbreak of the Black Death plaguing me from within. One scream after another rang out with a strange sort of rigid order: the clack of the magazine, the click of the trigger, the ratta-tat-tat of the barrel, the screams of its victims, then it repeated in a seemingly never ending cycle.
One child after another fell, littering the floor. Every now and again a teacher's facedown corpse interrupted the flood of students' limp bodies. Those who were generally seen as a source of protection were cut down as easily as those they protected.
In all their backs were holes travelling in a linear path across their spines- the kind of lines drawn in math class with an arrow on the end to signify stretching on forever. A deep crimson oozed from the wounds, pooling under the victims, spreading over the floor, under doors, into classes of scared survivors, shaking and crying in fear. The smell of gunpowder, blood and death rose behind the shooter and leaked into classrooms, coated furniture, walls, possessions and people.
The shooter, Jeremy Bauer, walked slowly over the hills of classmates, a look of emotional neutrality adorning his features. He turned corners calmly, bringing his weapon to bear each time, though by now there was no one in the hallway. Everyone had fled either outside or to a classroom to huddle close and hope he didn't choose their door as his prize.
His eyes scanned each door thoughtfully, remembering his own experiences in each room, and with the people within. He grimaced at the bad memories. Each time that grimace surfaced, I knew who his next targets were.
I hate him. His cold, uncaring face makes me ill, and his ravenous craving for vengeance, for justice, brings me to tears. Why did he do it? I ask myself that question every day, yet I cannot ever come up with an answer that could even begin to justify what he did.
The worst part is how in control he was, and still is. He controls everything even from the small white room at Weary Acres, the last real sanatorium left in he country. Because of him, policies, attitudes, states of mind, even lives, no, especially lives, changed.
When he is done with his sick justice, he exits. He falls to his knees at the school entrance and there remains until the police arrive.
It began freshman year, I suppose. He didn't have high expectations for high school, but he simply wasn't prepared for what was to come. Not a day went by that some deep, cutting comment didn't shatter his world, didn't impale him. His parents gradually lost interest in the issues he carried home on his shoulders; he wouldn't open up despite their initial concerns. The taunts of classmates echoed in his thoughts whenever he let his mind wander; so he plunged into schoolwork, forgetting them all, never giving his mind an idle moment.
It worked for a while. His grades soared, even if his teachers worried about his lack of friends. One teacher actually approached him about it and he promptly requested a transfer from her class into an even more difficult course; those teachers would be too busy to care.
Even so, his tactics were doomed to fail eventually. Shortly into sophomore year he made a scene of himself unintentionally, drawing the school's attention right back to him; he'd mistakenly handed in a spare sheet of paper he'd used to create a formula for love instead of his homework.
He was very into the chemical aspect of attraction and had begun preliminary speculations on defining love chemically and even going so far as to design a theoretical serum that could simulate the effects of love in people.
In any case, the student aid was given the papers to grade and wasted no time in copying and spreading his formula papers around the school. Everyone saw it as pathetic, thinking he was attempting to create a "love potion" to make someone fall in love with him, despite his true intentions: allowing himself to feel love.
With this new embarrassment, all the old teases came back. They surfaced like the skeletons of great prehistoric beasts to haunt him. He dived into his work again, but no matter how deep he swam, those words, those sharks, followed. I knew they were going to catch him and tear him to pieces. I knew what he was going to do.
Unfortunately for the students of Westwood High, his father was a gun enthusiast. There was a room in his basement full of exotic and rare weaponry. The day he was finally caught by those sharks and they sank their teeth in him, he had a well-supplied vault to choose from; he brought the Uzi, his very favorite, to school November 9, 2002 to finally slaughter the predators.
I'm telling you all this so that you may understand why I have to do what I am going to do. How can I live with these horrible memories any longer? If you still can't understand, then I hope you never do, for no one deserves that kind of torture.
The lone writer folds the paper lightly and stands from the desk. He moves into the center of the room and makes sure the strip of fabric from his mattress is secured in a neat noose, just big enough for his head. He moves the chair as carefully as he can, but his hand falters and it strikes the floor, letting out a loud, noticeable noise. He quickly places it under the noose and climbs on top, slipping his head through. He hears footsteps in the hall and kicks the chair out from under him.
The thin fabric constricts his neck as the footsteps reach his room. they push against the solid metal of the door, but he's cleverly braced his overturned bed against it in such an angle that it would take a great amount of force to break in.
The last thing he hears is the faint calling of the nurses, "Jeremy! Open this door!"
