Angels In The Wreckage

There was nothing, and then, there was everything.
The children sat in sleepy silence, eyeing their teacher with glass
eyeballs. The words came like long, monotone syllables that meant
nothing, like they do on Charlie Brown when an adult tries to speak.
Unintelligible words? sounds? echoing off the walls and doors and
shaded windows?
Then, the bomb.
It was loud, and it hurt the children's ears. It was still morning, and
their senses were not accustomed to sudden sensory stimulation. The
shattering bang , and then rolling smoke, and screams that soared in
like the ocean's waves. Small, then medium, then colossal. A stampeding
sound came from upstairs, and all of the children stirred in their
seats. "Everyone, get under your desks!" cried the old-fashioned
teacher. She did not know that in such circumstances, it is not wise to
follow Smoky the Bear's advice. It is a natural reaction to run? and
nature knows everything.
An outpour of children, some still innocent, but most raped by the
monstrous media, running, thinking of nothing but mother and father and
brother and sister and where are they, and are they okay?
Some say it looked like paint being spilled out of the school doors.
Children-hundreds of children, running through the schoolyard and the
parking lot, who remember their Bible lessons and don't look back for
even a second at the conflagrating school building they always loved to
hate.
In five minutes-or maybe it was an hour, or five seconds, but who can
really tell? parents in their glossy suburban cars poured into the
parking lot, barking out the window, "Where is Billy Newton?" "Have you
seen Jamie Smith?" and "My babies, my babies, are they okay?"
Who ever decided that adding more noise to the chaos would get anyone
anywhere? The rhetorical question the police officers hear rolling
through the marquee of their minds. Hold it right there, ma'am, you
can't go in their. It's burning to the ground. We'll find little Eddie,
don't you worry. I think the officer's toes were crossed.
Kids found their parents, and parents found their kids, and there were
happy and tearful reunions, rapturous homecomings, declarations of
withdrawing from school and damnings of the public education system.
Never again will this happen to my baby.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The bodies of babies floated around
the ruined school building for years afterward. A skin cell of the
little dead girl can be seen in the air at a certain time of day, as
the sunlight streams through the broken window. A femur bone lies under
a desk in Mrs. Johnson's second grade classroom? the poor na?ve child
didn't know any better but to listen to that old coot.
It's abandoned, now, but the kids are back in school. Most of them,
that is. Some were damaged to severely to ever go back to school, or
even have a job, or marry or have children. Some still hear the bomb
going off every morning as their alarm clock rings. None of them are
innocent now. And they'll never forget.
The angels in the wreckage still cry.