Life will go on...it must...

I will find out on Friday who I belong to—I will learn the name(s) of my parent(s). Until last night, the sheer excitement of that statement was the focus of my whole world. The Solstice and its accompanying Kemetic festival occupied the highest priority for me and I felt honored and blessed to have my RPD done on such a wonderfully bright day that has meant so much to me in the past and that deepens in meaning each year.

But then came last night.

You know, at this point? I would honestly not be surprised to find a Name associated with death in my lineup. 

It’s a common practice for me, especially when I have things to accomplish later in the evening, to lie down for a bit when I first get home. Yesterday was no exception. It’s usually just for an hour or so but I was tired from excitement and a busy day at school so I didn’t set an alarm. It turns out I didn’t need to.

Somewhere on the other side, just barely into dreams, my sleeping mind encountered something disconcerting. I don’t remember the events, though there were fleeting images. What I remember most was the intense feeling of stress and fear and a claustrophobically small, yet empty, darkness. I was half-aware of being asleep when I heard what I knew, even from the illogical dream realm, to be the radiator in my room.

Pop. Pop.

It is normally a comforting sound. A sound of coming heat, of cozy winter nights in a safe place shielded from wind and snow. A sound that rarely stirs me from rest.

Pop. Pop.

But something was off about it. It was too tinny and loud and sharp. It felt frightening and invasive. I seemed to move uncomfortably in myself and my soul suddenly felt like it wanted to fly away. I vaguely realized I was in the same state I was in any time I felt pulled into the unseen. It is that sensation I feel when doing trance work: a pulling away of my awareness from my body, a temporary separation. But it was a specific variety of sensation that always scares me out of any trance that might be oncoming, an energy laced with a heated humming buzz that I know all too well: the same feeling I feel whenever the dead touch me.

I wake with a start.

Pop. Pop.

The sound of the radiator is normal again but there is a slight emptiness in the room and an eeriness to the sudden silence. I thought first of a Star Wars reference. A disturbance in the force. That was what it was like. But smaller. As if a single voice had cried out and then gone silent. I brushed the thought away as silly. I looked outside—there was nothing going on out on the street. Just quiet ice on a winter night. The daylight was long since gone and I glanced at the clock. 5:30. I went back to sleep.

At the time, I had no way to know, but on the other side of town, moments before, one of my students had found himself in a desperate struggle for his life, standing at the wrong end of a rifle barrel, in a friend’s house. The trigger was pulled. My student fell to the floor of the foyer as a bullet lodged in his chest. His struggle was lost. His chance at life cut short at 16 years. The boy on the other end of the gun, also a young student, also a life lost— though metaphorically. It was a senseless crime in a small town that will be reeling from it for years.

The first reports came later that night, confirming the time of death—5:28—and the name of the student. I lit a candle. The same candle I lit for the children of Sandy Hook. I am weary of lighting candles for dead children. I cry for him and pray.

 “It is not fair,” I tell him, “for the world to be deprived of your infectious smile, your bright eyes and good humor…”

We could have used that smile at school today, because there were few smiles to be had. The whispered rumors kept track of the unfolding drama. First, “accident” and “hunting”. Then, slowly, “two of them”.  Then “argument” and “they planned it”. Twenty-four hours later, the news reports confirmed that the affidavit indicated a witness and that the court documents filed after the arrest of the shooter read murder in the first degree.

This doesn’t happen here. I know that sounds almost naive in the wake of Sandy Hook because Newton was a similar small town with no violence in its past. But this town…this town is less than a fourth the size of Newton. Violence here is a distant memory of prairie settlers, sheriffs, and conflicts between whites and natives. Violence here is a fist fight in the parking lot or the occasional slashed tire. Violence here was a veritable scandal surrounding an air soft bb gun that got a kid charged with a felony once. Violence here is a thing too entirely foreign to comprehend.

I wanted to go to the Dua tonight. I really did. But I wasn’t sure I could make joyous music. It’s quiet and cold outside. The sun is obscured in low clouds and roiling fog and pending snow storms. The grey world weeps for the boy with the bright eyes. Tomorrow, life will go on, as it must. I will go on with my RPD this week and I will find the strength for joy. But tonight, there is no joy in my heart.

 Just the memory of a smile I will dearly miss.