A first time . . .

By SayWhatNow? · Oct 27, 2009 ·
  1. Something. I had felt that feeling so many time before. Something was going to happen. It would be big, life-changing maybe, but it was only something. Something that I couldn’t grasp. It was something that I could never grasp, that is, until it was dropped on me. Dropped like a heavy, heavy stone. Most of the time the anticipation was hardly worth it. Something big happened, that was quite true, and I had seen it coming at least four minutes earlier. I remember only one time when I had sensed something life-changing, and that was when our cat died. Even that could hardly be qualified as a major factor in my development, though.
    Oh, but this . . . this was different. They called us into the gym one day and the air-the very dust particles on the floor-everything in sight-it was somber. Heads were high, but they were lower than the ground at the same time. All of the children who had been kept out of the know were affected by it too, but I could tell that they didn’t expect anything; just called themselves crazy and kept on keeping on. There were few who had been informed, so they knew it and were equally as sullen as our educational overseers. Or perhaps they had the same sense I had. Either way, they saw it coming too.
    Silence rippled through and it was time for the news to be delivered.
    “As some of you may know…” Cut the crap and tell us. “…We have some bad news.” Come now, don’t put it off. “Exxidy Exx has passed away today.” That was the bombshell. In my wildest dreams that always came with The Feeling, I always imagined someone say that someone had died, but for it to actually happen was a bolt of lightning. All those false guesses only decked out the voltage too. The silence was there before, but that new silence was ear-splitting. It is was such a shock to the system; all I could say was “I . . . Didn’t see that coming.”
    The day went on normally . . . for twenty minutes that is. At the proceeding lunch, I heard a word that stopped me stone cold. Suicide. As it happens, he blew his head off with a shotgun. It was nasty for all involved. I cannot think of any further commentary, so I leave the rest to you.

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