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As the bedlam of the morning rush recedes, the hours of wait start to dim, since she last held her child’s mangled body, reduced to a school shooting story that would begin when hers ended forever.
Trigger Warning: This deals with graphic violence, death, and school shootings, and may be triggering for survivors.
School shootings—terrifying to students, educators, parents, and communities—always reignite polarizing debates about gun rights and school safety. After everything has silenced- the newspaper headlines, the echo of the gunshots, the vigil, the wokeness, the interviews, the fake niceties, what stays is the undigestible and agonizing narrative of a family who lost their child to the anarchy of this world and the rage people harbor.
During the yearlong lockdown, school shootings dropped to historic levels. In fact, March of 2020 was the first March in 18 years with zero school shootings. Of the 10 total reported school shootings in 2020, five of them occurred in January, before the first mass quarantine.- New York Times
She is on her phone, chatting animatedly, giggling like her child chasing gazillion bubbles in the air and often exclaims- Really! Wow! I love that! I love you too! when someone passes her.
She spreads a gossamer-thin smile a ritual between familiar strangers on a dogwood trail and drops the keywords while picking up speed before her voice plummets to – Little one, are you there? Can you hear me?
The morning chill forces her to unzip her sheepskin jacket the blast of the crisp air blitzes through her flame Somehow it smells of a cadaver rotting beneath the black Oak on the boughs of which he would swing soaked in hope, a mélange of golden, honey, amber On some other day, the crape myrtle would sway submissively to his desire a melee of purple, mauve, violet He would spot an enormous orange tree overhanging the sidewalk Valencia, Navels, or Clementine, Decoding with an eye of a pomologist in the citric air, the lemon tree would peer from behind its limbs weary with clusters of small, round, and oval They would flit in and out, in cheery disposition, as if playing hide and seek the robin, the sparrow, the house finch, and the little rapscallion…
Now, back in her house on a red cedar swing with a small pergola his Pokémon’s, in rigor mortis, lie frozen and her head spins faster than water swirling down the drain.
She is closer to his school, a compilation of bones and flesh skulls big and small, as she chews her insides and tastes blood, Just then, someone passes her, and she takes control Raising her voice, she exclaims O Really! O Wow! O, I love that! I love you too, Bud!
She forces her gossamer smile and leans close to the bark of a northern oak where she waited while he hunted for the lost water bottle The crimson leaves riding on the autumn air like splinters they fall on her skin, burning, bruising, battering Until the school bell rings and she pivots to return To soak his clothes in the dirt, and scatter the Legos under the couch To spill milk over the ivory vinyl table cover and topple the last piece of porcelain vase with his football.
As the bedlam of the morning rush recedes 17520 hours of wait starts to dim since she last held his mangled body Reduced to a school shooting story that would begin when hers ended forever.
Clutching her phone, she presses it hard against her ears Groping for a connection, a dew, a drop, or dust, as words scatter like black mustard from a broken spice jar -R-e-a-l-l-y! W-o-w! I-L-o-v-e-t-h-a-t! I – m-i-s-s y-o-u-t-o-o Walking past, a welter of emotions torpedo through her cage In a thicket of loneliness, over a stone, she stumbles, gasps and groans at the phone and her life- dismantled, demolished, dead.
Image source: Glavo on pixabay
Header image source: DarioGaona from Getty Images Signature Free for Canva Pro
With EXISTENTIALISM on one hand and MINIMALISM on the other, my vagrant mind weaves stories every moment, just every moment. Coupled with this, I have an insanely bad habit of binge-reading and collecting books. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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