Ben Zelnick

Toward the end of class, my bubbly math teacher, Mrs. Stewart, distributed a word problem—some convoluted scenario about a farmer counting sheep. She whirled spiritedly around the room, drawing green smiley faces on completed worksheets. The numbers swam on my page as numbers from a nearby rehearsal of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown seeped under the door. The lunch bell rang, and I stared at the blank worksheet as my classmates’ voices faded down the hallway. Mrs. Stewart immediately recognized my muddled expression, walked to the whiteboard, and drew three sheep-shaped splotches. She shook her head, giggling at the unimpressive illustrations.

In the auditorium, Snoopy began singing “The Red Baron.”

“So, James,” Mrs. Stewart said, connecting the lamb, ewe, and ram with arrows, “if each ewe gives birth to two sheep every year, and if the lifespan of a sheep is only—”

Down the hallway, there was a muffled pop. Bewildered, Mrs. Stewart and I locked eyes. Her pink marker tumbled to the floor. Four more bangs. Screams. A middle schooler ducked into the classroom. “The Red Baron” stopped abruptly, and the disembodied voice of the receptionist reverberated from the PA speakers: “Lockdown, active shooter.” He hesitated. “This is not a drill.”

Disbelief and then terror filled Mrs. Stewart’s eyes as she fumbled with the door lock. My body hurtled across the room and crumpled into a corner. Miles away, Mrs. Stewart unfurled heavy black curtains over the windows, extinguished the lights, and barricaded the door.

The middle schooler, a skinny boy in a Call of Duty t-shirt and enormous glasses, froze mid-stride. Mrs. Stewart called him to the corner as she opened the emergency attendance app on her phone and squinted at the name on the boy’s identification card. She checked off both of our names and scrolled down to a list of her three children, all of whom attended our school. Two of the names were marked with green checkmarks, but the third name—Judy Stewart, a radiant girl who played Charlie Brown in the show—had a red triangle next to it.

Mrs. Stewart gasped and clutched her chest. “Judy’s in rehearsal,” she whispered. She stood up and opened the door slightly. A vile white light spilled into the room. “Stay where you are.” The Call of Duty boy looked at her, wide-eyed. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “James will take care of you.” The door clicked shut, and we were alone in the unquiet darkness.

Sirens wailed outside. I heard a piercing gunshot followed by a crushing thud. An electrifying chill raced down my spine. Sweat—or maybe tears—trickled down my face. Grasping blindly for a makeshift shield, I found a heavy volume of Foundations of American Democracy and held it to my chest. As my heart pounded against the book, I crept, shivering, into the hallway. I grabbed one of Mrs. Stewart’s arms, pulled her back into the room, and pressed my sweatshirt sleeve frantically against the wound on the back of her neck.

By the time I realized that the door was still open, it was too late. There was another deafening gunshot. Pain sliced through my side, and then there was blackness.

When I woke up, it was dark outside. Despite the cold light of the ICU, I felt darkness everywhere. On the television, a stoic news anchor droned about yet another school shooting. A crude infographic enumerated the “dead” with twelve ovals and the “injured” with twenty. I realized that I was one of these ovals. An image of an immense morgue, filled with rows upon rows of faceless shapes on white gurneys, flashed through my mind. The anchor mumbled a line that had become second-nature: “At WXN, our hearts go out to the victims and their families.” The screen faded to a Cheerios commercial.

The coverage ended at 10:30 PM. Across the country, Americans reassured themselves that the shooting had happened far from their bubble of safety. As I lay under a thin hospital blanket, they drifted off to sleep in plush beds. In D.C., politicians stayed up drafting and debating bills. A motion extending Congress’s “genuine condolences” was approved unanimously, but over the next few weeks, the gun control bills were all struck down.

The police pursue the gunman, the gunman pursues the students, the students pursue the politicians, and the politicians busy themselves in pursuit of justice. But in the end, there is no change, for America herself has resigned—weary, exhausted—from the duty to protect her children. Ultimately, there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.

—Ben Zelnick