got_quiet

It must have been around 5 PM. I was in the living room, sitting on the big wrap-around couch. My eyes were glued to channel 176. Toonami. I wanted to watch Mobile Suit Gundam, but they were playing Dragon Ball instead for some reason. Goku and Krillin were fighting each other over a stone or something. Then my dad came home. He walked into the living room, grabbed the remote, and flipped the channel. “Hey, I was watching that,” I said. But he didn’t say a word. He just sat down next to me and placed a big hand on my leg. Then we both just stared into the glow, watching the world burn.

That morning, it must have been around 9 AM, the whole lower half of my face was glittering like a rainbow, and there was a sour, metallic taste in my mouth. I was sitting Indian style in the hallway outside of class, my back to the wall. Two nurses and a teacher were towering over me. I could see a mash of students’ faces through the classroom-door window, they were all clamoring for a peek. The taller of the two nurses held out a clear, thin tube and said, “You drank this?” I nodded. “Why?” she said. I shrugged. Then my 5th-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, chimed in, “Did one of the kids make you do it?” I shook my head. “Do you feel OK? Does your stomach hurt?” I shook my head again. Then they started talking like I wasn’t there. “You can’t just take his word for it, he’s a kid,” the shorter nurse said. “Maybe it’s slow-acting?” said Ms. Brooks. “What brand is it?” There was a pause. The taller nurse observed the tube closely. “Sakura Gelly Roll, Rainbow Stardust Glitter.” The shorter nurse nodded at this. “They’re all the rage, my daughter has a case full of them.” Ms. Brooks added, “Does it say anything else, safe for children?” There was another pause. “Nothing.” I was just sitting there, smacking my lips a little bit, trying to make the nasty taste go away, watching them go back and forth, like I was a ghost or something. “I don’t think it’s toxic,” the taller nurse said. “We can’t just assume,” Ms. Brooks responded. “Fine, I’ll call poison control.” I felt my stomach twist at the word “poison.” The shorter nurse hurried down the hall. Ms. Brooks shifted her attention toward me, “Honey, are you sure one of the kids didn’t make you do it?” Her tone was fake-sweet, manipulative almost. I shook my head again. “Then why’d you do it, honey?” I shrugged. “Well, I’m going to have to call your parents, let them know, but I’d like to be able to tell them what happened.” I looked down at my criss-cross-applesauce legs and thought hard for a few seconds, then I looked up and said, “I dunno, was trying to be funny.” She blinked. “And I wanted to know what it tastes like,” I added. She blinked again. I could tell the nurse was holding in a laugh. After a few blinking seconds, Ms. Brooks asked, “Well, did it taste good?” And no, no it did not. It did not taste good at all. It was one of the worst tastes I had ever tasted. So I shook my head at her question, smacked my lips, made a face. “Nope. Tastes real bad.” And that’s when Ms. Brooks and the nurse burst into laughter. Then Ms. Brooks held out her hand and said, “C’mon honey, let’s go get you some water, wash that taste out.” I took her hand. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” she added. I nodded and stood up, then I followed Ms. Brooks down the hall, a little worried about the poison.

But we didn’t make it very far before Ms. Brooks was stopped by the computer lab teacher, Mr. Wainwright. He leaned in real close and said something under his breath, at which point something changed, like some sort of heavy gloom had drifted into the hallway. Ms. Brooks looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before. I could not parse it. Was this about the poison? I was still smacking my lips and rubbing my mouth, getting rainbow ink all over my sleeve. I thought maybe I was about to get in big trouble for drinking the gel pen, or that maybe they heard back from poison control, found out that Sakura Gelly Roll was actually poisonous. I started squirming, worrying about death.

Then Ms. Brooks lightly grabbed me by the wrist and led me into the computer lab. There were about twenty iMacs in there, the translucent ones that are all rounded and colorful, and there were kids sitting behind each one, but they weren't focusing on their computer screens, no, they were focusing on something else, the small television up in the high corner of the classroom. There was something happening on the TV. Something was on fire, billowing smoke. I couldn't quite make it out. I looked at Ms. Brooks with a confused look on my face. I wanted to ask her what we were doing here, why we weren't getting anything to drink. I also wanted to ask her if I was going to die from the poison. But when I looked up at her, she was covering her mouth and tears were streaming down her face, so I asked her a different question. I asked, “What’s wrong, Ms. Brooks?”

“The world, honey,” she said. “The world’s wrong.”

I didn’t understand what she meant.

By 10 AM, we were all in the gymnasium, waiting for our parents to pick us up. The teachers were there too, congregated into little groups, murmuring while they kept an eye on us. It was weird because none of us were making any trouble like we usually do. That heavy gloom was in the air, affecting us all. We were all spread out in the gym, sitting around in our little circles, nervously fidgeting and wondering what the heck was going on. It was as if someone had released a sedative through the air vents or something. And the poison control people never came. I guess they forgot. I kind of forgot too. I had stopped worrying about death and was now worried about something else entirely, something I could not quite put my finger on. I was just sitting there in a little circle with all the other nerdy kids. They all had bad haircuts and slightly protruding bellies, and some were wearing Pokemon shirts. And none of them seemed to care that my face was a glittery rainbow, they were all too busy talking in weird, hushed tones.

So I just sat there, not saying a word, listening to the back and forth.

I wonder if anybody died. All I saw was smoke and fire and stuff. How long do we have to stay here? I heard it was aliens. Aliens aren't real, idiot. I need to go pee. Maybe it was Godzilla. Are they gonna let us play dodgeball? Godzilla lives in Japan. He could have come here. No, he couldn’t. Yeah, he could. Nuh-uh. Yeah-huh. I really have to pee. Why are the teachers acting so weird? I don’t know. It's kind of scary. Are they gonna bring us lunch? I saw Ms. Johnson praying in the hall. Why would Godzilla even come here? Maybe he got bored. Ms. Brooks was crying. Big monsters don't just get bored, that's dumb. At least we get out of school early. Anyone got any snacks? My mom’s here, see you tomorrow. My dad works till seven. Are they gonna let us take the bus? My sister is gonna pick me up, she drives a Mustang. My dad drives a BMW. So what? If they let us play dodgeball, I hope they play Cotton Eye Joe. I hate that song. My big brother and I listen to Metallica. I'm gonna go find the bathroom. I'm really hungry. My neighbor has a pet monkey who can do tricks. What's that got to do with anything? I wonder what the teachers are talking about over there. Maybe the school’s closing down for good. Yeah, I wish. Austin said it was a meteor. That’s stupid, they can deflect meteors, I saw it in a movie. You're all stupid, I heard the teachers talking, they said it was terrorists.

My ears perked up. “What's a terrorist?” I said.

The kids just looked at me with big, blinky eyes, saying nothing. They didn't know either.

The teachers eventually brought food for us to eat. They also brought out the balls and said we could play dodgeball, but no one actually played. None of our hearts were really in it. I eventually took out my cow-print notebook and started drawing. I was big into Gundam and had been watching it religiously on Toonami every day after school. I was working on a full-page spread of little Gundams battling each other in a massive city. There were little robots on the buildings, lasers streaking through the cloud-bubble skies, beam sabers clashing over the roads, stomped cars in the streets, explosions all over the place, little stick-figure people with jagged speech bubbles reading, “RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.” I was about halfway done with the drawing when my dad showed up. It must have been around 4 PM. I was one of the last kids to leave.

The car ride was weird. My dad wasn’t listening to the hard-rock station like he normally does. He was listening to some news broadcast. A woman was talking in a very sad tone. "The blaze has only intensified over the last several minutes. At this hour, there is still no word on the status of the search-and-rescue teams who entered Building 7 earlier this afternoon. Our prayers go out to those brave first responders and their families. Reporting live, we will bring you updates the moment we have them.” The woman paused for a while, then she said, “Dear God, bless America." My dad only shook his head and turned the radio off, only the hum of the engine and the bump of the road remained. My dad wasn't saying a word. He didn’t even ask about my rainbow face. So, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence, I started asking him questions.

“How'd you know to pick me up?”

“They called me, kiddo.”

“Oh, what took you so long?”

“I was showing a house on the other side of the city.”

“Is it a big house?”

“It’s big enough.”

“Why are they closing the school?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Austin said it was a meteor.”

“Austin said that?”

“And someone else said it was aliens.”

My dad only shook his head, then he said, “Maybe that would’ve been better.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“Better than the truth.”

I didn’t understand what he meant.

When we pulled into the downstairs garage, it must have been around 4:30 PM. My dad said he had a few errands to run, so he dropped me off and told me to make myself some lunch. When I entered the basement through the garage, the house felt different, but my dog, Freddy, was waiting for me at the top of the stairs like he always did, wagging his tail like mad, happy to see me as usual, like it was just another normal day for him. So I got on all fours and climbed up the stairs real quick like a wild animal, like I usually do, and I pounced on him at the top. We wrestled a little bit, but my heart wasn't really in it, so I stopped short and just lay on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. Freddy started licking my face for almost a whole minute, like there was something tasty on there, and I just let him do it because why not.

Next thing I did was, I went to the bathroom, and after taking a leak, I looked at myself in the mirror. I noticed the rainbow was gone and realized why Freddy had been licking me for so long. Then I went into the kitchen and made some Easy Mac. The instructions say to leave the water in after microwaving the pasta, but I always poured it out and added milk instead. It tasted better that way. I sat in silence in the kitchen, eating my mac and cheese. It tasted good, but I didn’t eat it all. There was something weird going on with my stomach, and it wasn’t the gel pen, it was something else, something I didn’t understand. When I was done, I put the bowl on the floor and let Freddy eat the rest. He really liked that. Then I looked at the kitchen clock and realized Gundam was about to come on, so I rushed out of the kitchen.

It must have been around 5 PM. I was in the living room, sitting on the big wrap-around couch. My eyes were glued to channel 176. Toonami. I wanted to watch Mobile Suit Gundam, but they were playing Dragon Ball instead for some reason. Goku and Krillin were fighting each other over a stone or something. Then my dad came home. He walked into the living room, grabbed the remote, and flipped the channel. “Hey, I was watching that,” I said. But he didn’t say a word. He just sat down next to me and placed a big hand on my leg. Then we both just stared into the glow, watching the world burn.

A slideshow of catastrophe flashed across my eyes. Images of people screaming and buildings burning and towers falling played on repeat, over and over again. It looked like a scene from Mobile Suit Gundam, but real life. A woman stood in front of it all, speaking directly to the camera. She kept saying things like “unthinkable horror” and “World Trade Center” and “national tragedy and “ground zero” and “Boeing 767” and “no survivors” and “day of mourning” and “terrorist attack.”

At that last one, my ears perked up, so I turned to my dad.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“What’s a terrorist?”

He thought about this for a moment.

“Is it like a bad guy?” I said.

“Something like that.”

“What’d they do?”

“They hurt a lot of people, son.”

“Why’d they do that?”

He thought about this for a moment, too.

“Did we do something bad to them?” I added.

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me.”

He paused for a moment, then he said, “They hate us.”

“Why would they hate us, what did we do to them?”

“It’s not that simple, son.”

I didn’t understand what he meant.

We didn’t say anything for a while after that. We just sat there, watching the world burn. But eventually, getting bored, I turned to my dad and said, "Guess what?”

“What?”

“I drank a gel pen today.”

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What? Why would you do that?”

“I dunno. I wanted to see what it tastes like.”

He blinked. “Well, did it taste good?”

“No, it taste real bad.”

And at that, he smiled, then he let me watch Toonami for the rest of the night.