the last schoolhouse fire to claim a child
was in 1958. a statistic often cited
by SWAT members and school administrators
swaying before a cafeteria of teachers,
selling us on why we’ll be shot
with water or rubber or paint.
the district’s safety team is convinced
we mitigate danger through teaching
what to do in case of an emergency.
they tell us they’ve run the numbers. solved the equation. perfected the analogy for preparedness— fire drill is to active shooter drill, as Our Lady of the Angels is to Columbine. how hide, fight, or flee replaces stop, drop, and roll.
they forget the unflinching equality of physics, the biology of a blaze. heat does not discriminate by hair color. by eye or nose shape. by melanin or chromosome count. flames never fire orange tracers or drag grey bodies like a shaking shield.
after the simulations and controlled stampede, the review of pre-recorded announcements and evacuation procedures; after suffering the new crisis management software on our personal phones, and the insipid questions of the usual suspects,
we wonder if we’ll be ready when smoke and unnatural gases begin to crawl from an army surplus canister; when students start their low serpentine scramble through hallways, tumble like prayer down crowded stairwells, or fly screaming from red-stained glass; when they comfort-cover like voles away from doors barricaded with bookcases, bracing against the backdraft of black-clad bullets; when we lunge to throw books, staplers, and desks to disrupt—a firebreak of ODDA loops; when we become blankets covering their bodies from smoldering slugs.
Issue