Christopher looked ahead at all of the children walking into the school with their thick coats and hats. There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of babies who were born to hundreds of parents. Every one of them the hero of their own life. All of those voices and secrets and thoughts. Christopher took a deep breath and put his head down. He tried to concentrate on David Olson, but the voices itched their way through his mind. He felt like he was standing in a batting cage while a machine gun shot baseballs at him. Most of the chatter was innocent. Rod Freeman was worried about his test. Beth Thomas wondered what was for lunch. But occasionally, there would be a violent thought. A memory. A daydream. Some kids wondered where Brady Collins was. Why Jenny Hertzog was absent. Where Special Ed and the M&M’s were. Christopher saw Ms. Lasko walking up the hall. She was scratching her arm. She looked very sick.
Ms. Lasko didn’t…sleep last night.
Ms. Lasko got…naked with the bartender because she can’t get drunk.
“Ms. Lasko, are you okay?”
“Sure, Christopher. Just feel a little under the weather is all,” she said, but her voice sounded like it was drowning in syrup. Too low and too slow.
“Maybe you should go home,” Christopher said.
“No. It’s worse there,” she said.
Ms. Lasko patted the top of his head and moved on as the hallways became flooded (Floods! Floods!) with students. Father Tom said that God was angry, and He flooded the world. Christopher saw the kids all swimming upstream, their voices blending together into a white noise like ocean waves. He wondered if that’s how God created the sound of the oceans. He just took billions of voices and carried them out to sea. The energy moving through still water. The energy moving through otherwise dead flesh. All of these people connected.
Like the mailbox people.
Christopher fought the voices as best he could, but his brain couldn’t stop them anymore. So, he did the only thing left to him. He submitted. He let his mind go, and the voices took him like a surfer on a wave. Hundreds of voices carrying him out to sea. Moving him through the school hallways like the blood in their veins. In science class, Mr. Henderson said that our bodies are 70 percent salt water. Like the oceans. We are all connected.
Like the mailbox people.
Christopher followed the voices, racing down the hallway to the library, moving past the lockers standing side by side like little coffins. The library was empty of students in the morning. There was only Mrs. Henderson. The moment Christopher saw her, he became concerned. Mrs. Henderson was standing on top of her desk, adjusting a white panel in the ceiling. Her skin was pale and shiny with a thin layer of sweat. Christopher knew she was terribly sick. Just like Ms. Lasko.
Mrs. Henderson…waited in the kitchen all night.
Mr. Henderson…didn’t come home until breakfast.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Henderson?” he asked.
For a moment, she did not speak. She just looked down at Christopher and scratched her arm. The skin was red and raw. Like it was missing a dozen layers. She got down off her desk. Woozy.
“Yes, Christopher. I’m fine. Thank you for asking,” she said.
Her voice sounded wrong. It was slow and distant. She was in a daze.
“Mrs. Henderson, are you sure you’re okay? You look sick,” he said.
Christopher reached out and touched her hand.
In an instant she stopped scratching her arm. Mrs. Henderson looked down at his little face. For a moment, she forgot her husband didn’t love her anymore. She still had red hair. They got married at the fire hall. They helped each other through college. Back then, she couldn’t imagine all of the kids she would teach. Over the last fifty years, class after class moving through time like energy through ocean waves. She had helped thousands of kids become better people. Each of those kids took a little red out of her hair until it turned grey. They held those strands of hair like the strings of the Balloon Derby balloons every year. Mrs. Henderson just couldn’t stop thinking about how it all started with that first year. That first class. And that first student. She smiled when she thought of that little boy. Asking for another book. And another. And another. There was always hope with a sweet little boy