There is a small, rounded pebble painted sky-blue by the hand of a young girl before she speckled it pink and yellow with flowers. The pebble has been carefully placed, as though it was as fragile as an egg, upon a tuft of green grass that is growing in the thin layer of loose, leafy-black dirt which has accumulated through the years inside the scaly crook of an oak tree’s branches. The tree (just as the girl had) also holds the pebble as though it was fragile; and the tuft of grass, and the accumulated soil, cradling them all tightly under it’s canopy as the far-away sky roils, and rumbles. With swaying hands and stiff fingers the tree creaks and moans, warning away the storm, though it could us the water the storm would bring, as could the golden sea of grass rolling like waves around it.

But there is no chancing it now, as a connection was made between living things, and the tree would retain this precarious hold on it’s charge forever if it must until the girl returns… until the girl returns… until the girl returns…

Not being in high school anymore is a really weird feeling. I cry so much these days, and when I’m not crying, I feel like crying.

Senior year recap: I was named valedictorian and I’m going to Stanford. I placed second in the league in my last race ever, and decided to quit track after the winter season. I had senior days, senior concerts, senior banquets, the whole shebang. I had people sign my yearbook; so many wrote that I’m going to do great things in life, and to have a good one if our paths don’t cross again. It was all a very sweet, slightly bitter, last ride around the academic calendar.

Senior year recap: I had a crippling crush on a boy who doesn’t like me back and is moving away right after graduation so I’ll probably never see him again. I drank way too much coffee and didn’t sleep enough and lost a lot of work ethic and didn’t eat right. I cried. A lot.

I also am in the process of revamping my wardrobe. I dyed my hair. I watched a ton of movies and made friends through movie reviews. I worked long hours at Rite Aid. I went out more. I did things I shouldn’t have on Senior Skip Day. It hasn’t really sunk in that it’s over. I feel like I’m going back to school next week. But I’m not.

I’m trying to live in the now, but it all feels fleeting when the future is looming so darkly up ahead. I hope that in college I’m more confident, more willing to pursue creative ideas. I hope I grow and shed my stuck mindset and I hope I completely forget about things like stupid high school crushes and prom dates. That’s not to say I want to forget how they made me feel though. Pain is necessary for evolution. Loss is necessary for gains.

The night is dark, the sky is empty, and I will die tomorrow morning.

The birds stopped singing long ago, and an unbreakable silence has replaced the sounds of the day. It could be a peaceful night, it could be pleasant, but instead the emptiness presses down upon my chest until I can't breathe and I'm stuck suffocating, stuck waiting. Everyone is waiting for death, but I think it's different when you know you're going to die, when you know your time on Earth is up and soon you'll be dead, cold, gone, away. It's an awful feeling, waiting for death, and I almost wish I could get it over with. I almost with I didn't need to wait. Almost.

Tomorrow, I am going to die. I forget why, I forget what for, all I know is that my expiration date is set for tomorrow. Perhaps I'm lucky—not everyone knows when they'll pass on, and I've always been a planner.

I've never died before, and I doubt I'll ever do it again. Once I'm gone, I'm gone, and that thought consumes me. I'll be gone, I won't ever experience the sorrows and heartaches of life. I won't need to worry about relationship concerns, financial issues, whether or not people like me—I won't need to be so anxious all the time, I won't feel that crushing sense of inferiority and my eagerness to please will fade away into oblivion. In a way, I'm escaping the miseries and maladies of life, and I almost feel sorry for everyone who must go on, who must endure. Almost.

The desire to live is a characteristic so deeply engrained within living beings, something conserved throughout the long line of evolution. Once life began, it brought with it a strong will to continue, to persist. I feel that drive, that desire, and I know I want to exist. Existence is the only state I've ever known, and trying to comprehend the idea of not existing is a pointless exercise in existential misery. If I think too much about it, I'll throw up.

I think I'll miss the people in my life, but my memory is not what it once was, and I cannot recall the names or faces of anyone. I can see blurry silhouettes in my mind, I can imagine a warm smile or the sound of laughter, but my memories are too worn out and I am no expert in photo reparation. I've heard that hindsight is 20/20, but my past is a blurred-out mess, an empty slate for me to fill with my own projections, with nostalgia.

The night continues, and I know my death is set for dawn. I'll never see another day, I'll never see another sunrise. It's terrifying, you know? I know that my end is inescapable and I know I'll be gone and dead and it's all happening so suddenly and I just wish I had more time, I just wish I had more time to live and exist and enjoy the world and experience everything life has to offer—it feels so short, my life has been so short and now I'm getting so close to that knife that'll snip me off, that'll sever me from this world, that'll send me off into oblivion.

My lungs ache from rapid breathing, but I'm breathing, I'm breathing right now and soon I will not be. I'm seeing right now and soon I will not be. My heart is beating right now and soon it will stop, soon the blood will stop flowing and my brain will stop functioning. Once my brain goes silent, I will be gone. I will exist in the memories of other people, my name will persist as I fade away.

Dawn is nearing, I can feel it, I can sense it. The tangled knot of emotions in my stomach is writhing and seething, and I feel nauseous.

I am about to embark on an adventure I'll never return from, I'm about to depart to oblivion. If I think about it like that, if I think about death as just another journey, then maybe it'll be okay. If death is a journey, then dying is a necessary first step. I am a careful person, I am an organized person—I like to be prepared, and so I really ought to strive to die.

Death is a journey and I am a sailor, an explorer, a traveler. That seems right, I think. Death is an adventure, right? Death is an adventure and I need to die first, I need to die and I'll die soon, dawn draws near, dawn approaches, dawn and death and done—I'll be done, I'll be done with life and off to a new future.

I almost feel bad for the people left on Earth. They'll get their chance to venture onward someday, but my plane is departing shortly and I am standing at the gate. It's like an airport, like an airplane—the execution is like boarding an airplane, if that makes sense, if that seems right. I don't know what seems right, nothing seems right, so maybe I ought to veer left? Left was never my favorite direction, but maybe I should explore it, maybe the left path is the smart choice, the wise choice. Left, leftover—I'll never eat leftover pizza again, I'll never feel like a leftover, like a last choice.

Ah, well, I suppose the end is here. There's a feeling of impending finality, and the drive for life that festers inside me is wilting but screaming, the will to live is behaving like a cornered animal, snarling inside me, but we both know that any struggle is pointless. We both know that it'll be over for us soon.

At least we'll die together, I suppose—me and my will to live. That drive kept me going for so long, kept me ambitious and successful, kept me sane. It did the best it could, really, and I don't blame it at all for this situation. I'm not sure why I'm dying, I'm not sure what I'm dying for, but it can't be all that bad, it can't be—I'd never hurt anyone aside from myself, I'd never harm anyone aside from myself. Maybe I was unjustly imprisoned, but it's too late for changes, it's far too late.

My memories are hazy and death is growing close, so close, and I just wish these seconds would stretch into minutes, hours, days, years—like taffy, I wish I could stretch time like taffy so I could enjoy my life. But I can't, I can't, and I know I'll die so soon, the time stretches and stretches and it feels like I'm walking in marshmallow fluff, in spiderwebs, in a bowl of jello.

Death is growing near and I've been wondering how I'll die—will it be by gun, or injection, or electrocution, or beheading, or stabbing, or choking, or tearing me apart piece by piece as my consciousness is flung from existence? I don't know, but I'll know soon, I'll know soon enough.

I wish I had just a little more time. I wish I had a little more time but death is a journey and dying is the necessary first step. Dying is the first step and I am prepared, but not really—no one is ever prepared to die, I'd say, I'd say that no one is ever really truly ready to die.

Dawn is near and I see death now.

They stand in front of me—when they got in, I do not know, I cannot recall—and one holds a gun in their hand. The gun is small, but it looks efficient, it looks like it'll do the job. It looks like it'll pierce my skull and shred my brain and paint the wall red with blood. It looks like it'll send me away quickly, easily, messily.

No one says anything as the gun is pressed against my temple. I do not make eye contact with these people, these people are gray and unimportant, these people are just helping me complete the necessary first step on my adventure. I could thank them, but I won't, the will to live would forbid that, the will to live begs me to scream and cry and fight back. I won't, I won't. There's no purpose, really.

I hear a click—the safety is off. I feel the cold metal circle pressing into my head, pressing against me, and this is a new experience for me, I've never died before, I've never been shot in the head before—hell, I've never even been shot before. This is a new experience and this is a necessary first step for my adventure.

I think I'm ready to go. I think I'm as ready as I can be, I think I'm as ready as is possible.

I close my eyes, and—

The seas rumbled and roared and heaved, tossing black slabs of icy water into the wind. White tipped waves spitting foam and mist plunged snarling into depths roiling with currents strong enough to rip boats from hull to stern. Drums, thundering, pounding, unfurled into purple and black bellied clouds hanging low and heavy in the sky. Every so often, with a crack like a whip, fork-tongued lighting came lashing down in blinding streaks of silver and white. On that distant horizon, more rumbling thunderclouds bringing sheets and sheets of heavy rain. The winds, having rallied, came hurtling down in a deafening cacophony of screeches and shrieks and screams. The sea, black bodied and thunderous, rose to meet it, roaring a challenge with its gaping maw parted wide.

I’ve seen a butterfly burn in fire.

When I was a small child, Mamma and I went to the woods all the time. My main objective would always be to catch as many butterflies as I could. Later, I displayed their dead bodies on my study; looked at them in admiration as I caressed the little textures and wondrous colors of nature, coming into life in the wings of the peculiar insect.

To some extent, I was jealous of them, for they had wings to fly away while I didn’t.

Mamma had a library, where she sat all day trying to decipher every word of the science books that she bought from the bookstore every month. No one noticed me sitting in my study, ever. They didn’t hear the cackling of the flames or the scent of smoke in the air as the wings burnt in all their glory; the colors slowly fading as I dozed off to the magnificent scent of the smoke.

If I could not have their wings, nor would they.

I might sound selfish. I sound selfish to a lot of people. Many have turned themselves away, labelling me as crazy. But what would even be life without my crazy? What is life without the intoxicating flavor of burning flesh, the scent which fills the room when the spark goes on in flames?

Have you ever experienced the drug of death? You may call me crazy- even my own people do. I don’t really care what they think of me, but there is one diamond in my life who’d turn away if by any chance, my darkness was brought to the light. And this time, I would care. So, I always had to act like I was okay. Like I was just a normal human being- hurried, confused. But I’d gotten what I ever could’ve had.

The taste of desire.

I never excelled in academics, nor was I interested in anything else. You know how it goes in Indian households; a girl is just only a burden on her family. The only people she’d known since the time she opened her eyes to the first light of the world are the people who are determined to cast her away. They have to be married off as early as possible, and what their dream was never holds any significance in others’ lives.

Mama’s other daughter, Nimmi, was married off young. I had to watch on, as her world came crumbling down. I could see the fire burn, but for once, I did not relish it. I could’ve saved her life. Maybe, if I tried – well, not that I cared to, anyway.

I never gave her the chance to ruin my life though. She was like an eagle, constantly in the lookout for the slightest implication of smoke. But I was the vulture, and I hid them well. Every piece of flesh or trail of blood was covered up; shrouded as if it never even existed.

But she knew, and I knew that she knew, although she had no means to prove it. The pages of the calendar were turning, and I knew that the closer I remained to her, the stronger was the possibility of my life turning out like my sister’s. For even though she had no proof, she had contacts. She had the power. She had everything that I feared the most.

The plan was set. And it was executed. I eloped with him just one night before her birthday. I can still hear the clatter of the jewels as I rampaged them on my bedroom floor. Then suddenly, something struck me, and I was led into my Mamma’s bedroom by a force quite unknown to me. I looked at her sleeping face, mumbling my name as she breathed out soft silent snores. I couldn’t let her win. I jumped out of the balcony in my wedding lehenga, devoid of any jewelry. The crimson lehenga held onto every fragment of my emotions as I ran. I ran out of her den. I ran out of my conscience.

That was possibly the best birthday gift I’d ever given her since I was born.

But life, even if you have achieved whatever you’ve ever wanted, can get pretty boring sometimes. I never wanted a job. I just needed some pleasure my in life, like the pleasure I used to have. But there was nothing here. Nothing except, sitting around at home doing absolutely nothing. My routine might seem relaxing from afar, but then, the field always seems greener on the other side.

I’d never felt lonely before. But now I was, and it was quite strange. It was not the first time that I was living on my own with a house full of objects both inanimate, and dead. Yet, the seclusion was killing me. The honking of the vehicles, the sound of the marketplace, the gawking of the street hawkers used to dig into my heart like a dagger and I would burn like the butterflies in my own fire, trying in vain to contain myself from seeing their blood on my skin.

Mamma never loved me, so I always had the habit of creating my pleasures since childhood. It had been a long time since a butterfly had entered my trap. Nostalgia hit me like a truck, as the scent from so long ago that I’d almost forgotten how to relish the joy, hit my senses.

So, I created my pleasure again.

The grass sways gently in the breeze,

The trees, in sets of threes, are the only shade around.

Across the field of grass.

Between two clusters of oak trees,

Sits a swinging bench.

Sits a lonely bench.

It has no one to accompany it.

It has no person to swing on it.

All it has is little gusts of wind,

and piles of leaves.

Thick the wood,

dense canopy.

Long shadows

dance. Cool breeze

swirls the leaves

that were cast.

Bird song thrills,

crickets join,

bullfrogs base

keep the pace.

Harmony.

It’s been just over two weeks since two Texas teachers were murdered in their classrooms. Before families could even bury their dead, our Texas leaders began a predictable and pathetic call heard all too often after these tragedies in Texas: we should arm teachers.

The Texas terrorist who came to kill these educators and their students intimidated an entire police department who stood outside the hallway. This was a well-trained police force (trained on active shooter drills as recently as March of this year), heavily armed, and heavily funded (40% of the city’s budget). But even they hesitated to face the threat of a high-powered AR-15 and the homicidal maniac who possessed it.

Besides the obvious dystopian reality that arming teachers would create, there are several logical reasons why this is an inappropriate and immoral response to this uniquely American problem.

#1 Arming teachers defies our training

A few year ago, the Houston Police Department sent a representative from the Special Operations Special Response Group to talk to me and my fellow Houston ISD teachers about how to handle an active shooter situation.

Training for these tragedies has changed a lot in my 16 years of teaching. Where we were once encouraged to merely hide, the officer explained that if it’s safe to run and exit the building, we should. He showed us different ways to lock or barricade doors. He walked us through how to distract or overwhelm a shooter if they make it into our classrooms.

But one particular instruction stood out to me that day.

“If you’re able to take down the shooter,” the officer explained, “if you can tackle him or disarm him in some way, I need you to kick his weapon far away from you. Do not pick up the firearm and point it at him. Do not touch the gun at all.”

I’m playing the scene in my head when he clarified his point: “When we enter the building, if you are holding that gun, we will shoot you. We will shoot anyone holding a weapon.”

And it makes sense, right? These response teams do not have time to discern who is a “good guy” with a gun or a “bad guy” trying to kill everyone. Their job is to stop the massacre as quickly and efficiently as possible. Arming teachers in an active shooter situation puts our lives at risk. Full stop.

#2 Overwhelmed teachers don’t have time to train for war

The Texas legislature butchered school budgets during the 2011 session, and most districts have never recovered. At that time, I worked for Humble ISD where high school teachers only taught 5 out of 7 class periods. Two conference periods afforded us time to plan and prepare for classes, grade stacks of essays, and contact families about their student. Our district, like many others, cut one of those conference periods in order to balance tighter budgets.

Not only did this mean that teachers lost 5 hours of planning and grading time, but we gained 5 hours of work. Many of us went from teaching 150 to juggling 180+students. So, let’s practice some math. If an English teacher has a 180 student load, a stack of essays — if we give each essay 10 minutes for reading and leaving feedback — is 30 hours of grading outside of class time. I don’t know an English teacher who doesn’t take these hours home (because if we only use our conference periods to grade, that means students don’t get their essays back for 6 weeks).

Between caring for ourselves, our families, and grading just one stack of essays, when are educators like me supposed to find the time to become expert marksmen? Any responsible gun owner understands the time, dedication, and practice required to develop and maintain the skill of shooting a firearm.

In a war-like situation it’s even more complicated. My husband explains that when he joined the military, it took 2 weeks of 8 hours a day of training just to be allowed to begin to use the weapons the military issues soldiers. This doesn’t include the proficiency training required for someone who would be expected to shoot a firearm down a crowded hallway in a stressful situation at a shooter who could be wearing tactical, bullet proof gear like the killer in Buffalo.

Expecting overworked, overburdened, and underpaid educators to have the training required of our armed forces is not only unfair, it’s unrealistic.

#3 An AR-15 is no match for a handgun

Or are our Texas leaders seriously considering arming educators with assault and military-grade rifles?

My husband watched the video of the shooting at TOPS supermarket in Buffalo. I have no desire to witness the massacre, but his retelling of the events made it clear that even the highly trained former police officer, Aaron Salter, didn’t stand a chance against the firepower this young man brought that day.

Within seconds of exiting his vehicle, he murdered three people and wounded one one just outside the store. Despite Officer Salter’s shots, the killer’s body armor protected him, and he killed the security guard. The terrorist went on to murder six more shoppers and wound many more.

“They didn’t stand a chance,” my husband explained. “It’s not like the movies. They didn’t have a moment to react. When those bullets hit you, you just drop.”

So if Texas legislators really want teachers to act as law enforcement or soldiers to protect our students, will we all be issued AR-15s? Because that’s what Texas leaders’ rhetoric suggests. If they truly want us to be at the ready at any moment to play war, we would need the same firepower as these terrorists, right?

And it can’t be just a few of us. We would all have to store AR-15s in our already packed cabinets, right? We can’t wait for the few trained educators who think they can play Rambo to get to us. We would all need to be prepared for war at all times, right?

The shooter in Uvalde — though he did find a door to access — could have shot his way into that school at any place and at any moment. A locked door was not going to stop a terrorist like him. He was in a classroom within seconds.

Reject the dystopia and embrace the data

Arguments to “harden schools” are beyond immoral; they’re ignorant. So-called “soft-targets” are a myth. Schools aren’t “gun-free zones.” We have trained, armed officers. Courthouses aren’t “gun-free zones.” They have armed bailiffs. These spaces are already protected by trained personnel, so to argue that they’re targeted because they’re unprepared is inaccurate.

If a “soft-target” is any place targeted by these terrorists, then churches and supermarkets and concerts and hair salons and garlic festivals and newspaper offices and night clubs and virtually any aspect of public life in America is a “soft target.”

What does hardening schools even mean? We already have single entrances for visitors and anonymous reporting systems and doors that lock from the inside. Since the shooting of Columbine, schools haven’t been twiddling their thumbs. From administrators to architects, teams charged with securing our schools have used all available funds and ingenuity to try to save lives. Keeping kids safe is, after all, our most basic and sacred duty.

But how much more can we “harden?” Do we install a TSA check-in line at every school? Do we have tanks parked in the front ready to out-weapon the AR-15s causing so much chaos? Do we need marines sitting on a stool at the corner of every classroom?

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Militarizing our schools and corrupting our current culture of education truly sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. The rest of the world certainly looks at us like an parody of a Wild West film. And the dystopian data does reveal that we’re an anomaly.

If our Texas leaders refuse to take action, if they continue to blame doors or suggest anonymous reporting systems that Texas schools have already been using for years — if these lawmakers dare argue that “laws don’t work” — then it is up to Texans to take action in November. We know exactly what the Governor Abbotts and Lt. Governor Dan Patricks will do because they’re doing it now like they’ve done it before: more committees and roundtables driven by circular, empty talk.

We must be the ones to take action and vote them out.

Vote for a return to a responsible gun ownership instead. Vote to protect Texas teachers instead. Vote to protect little Texas hearts walking outside of our bodies instead. Reject the rhetoric, and vote for the Texas our children truly deserve.

I am alone.

It never crossed my mind that it could come to this. I have had nightmares all my life, but not one touched the reality of my life today.

It happened slowly at first.

Everyone stayed inside so much, no one really noticed when friends and neighbors stopped coming out of their homes; when the city streets overflowing with garbage and rodents stayed empty of people. With the recent, ongoing plague, everyone assumed when they stopped seeing someone on Zoom or at their window, stopped hearing from them, that the worst had happened. That death had arrived sooner than expected. No one realized the slow, insidious, relentless tendrils of Death were reaching out across the globe, choking all life in its path.

Overwhelmed hospitals and clinics closed their doors, one by one, as medical staff gave up or perished. The sick and the dying, died at home.

It took a while before I realized the problem was greater than I had imagined. Garbage collection ceased. Happily living in a small town, I composted what I could, burned some and stored cans and such things in the garage. Within weeks of each other, gas and electric were shut off for reasons unknown. No one, not even an automated voice, answered my calls. Constant busy signal. Water continued to run, and for that, I was grateful.

And then, death arrived at my door: I lost my entire family within a month and by the time my beautiful daughter closed her eyes for the last time, there was no one to call to remove the body, no cemetery or crematorium, no morgue or funeral home had anyone still working. My calls went unanswered. I reached out to neighbors to help, but no one answered the door. I dug a grave as best I could, and buried her in our back garden.

Not soon after, news programs stopped running; only constant streaming of old programming became available. Radio stations went dark or played the same playlists over and over. No one but me was posting on social media.

For a little over a week, my calls for food delivery have gone unanswered. Websites have had constant error messages and have stopped accepting orders.

For the first time in a year, I left my home today. I was hungry.

I walked the empty streets in awe of the utter and complete silence save the sound of birds chirping.

I arrived at a market whose doors were open: Food on shelves was sparse; what little produce and meat remained was spoiled and smelled; the aisles, empty. No cashiers. No manager making the occasional announcement. No one. My footsteps echoed loudly. My heart raced and I began to sweat.

I found a few cans of tuna fish, some baked beans and a jar of peanut butter. I serviced myself and tried to pay with my credit card. It gave an error message. I had no cash. Feeling guilty, I took my purchases and left.

I walked quickly, ran really, my heart pounding. How was this possible?

How is this possible?

Am I the only person left? And if I am not, how will I find others? And if I find others, who is to say I would not be safer alone, in my home?

Night will fall soon and I don’t know if I will sleep. I was always afraid of the dark and the nightmares that peppered my dreams. Of the shadows that hid monsters. Of death awaiting.

Now I am just afraid, because...

I am alone.

It's a horrible feeling. Being in the woods on a cloudy night, nothing around you but the looming trees and thick, unrelenting darkness. When every cracking twig or rustle of foliage makes your heart skip a beat. Makes you question if, in fact, you really are alone. Or if it's just your thoughts playing nasty tricks. But the worst feeling of all is knowing. When you come to the realization that the noises in the forest behind you aren't just little bunnies at play, or that the rustle of leaves above you isn't the wind. Because in the middle of the night the forest creatures are tucked away safe in their dens...hiding. Because there is no breeze tonight to make the leaves quiver like that. The worst feeling of all is knowing why every creature steals away to their holes well before sundown, and that you should have too. Because at night, it hunts. Sliding through the darkness. You can't see it. You can't run away. You can only feel it, hovering over your shoulder in the blackness, then a soft brush of ice cold air on your arm as it slips away when you cast a glance over your shoulder. It loves to play games in the dark. And none have ever won against it.