We lie in waiting.
We are in the mud, at the very edge of the schoolyard. Buried in it, back pressed to it. There is blood on our cheek. Dried now? The children brought pain and left, and they did not linger.
We linger.
More than anything, our spine hurts. Our nose is swollen and perhaps broken; it feels like fire and ice. The entire body is acid-eaten, spine mangled most of all. We are sure that if we twisted around to look at it in a mirror we would see such delicate and careful bruising under the mud. Painting of the skin.
Most of the body aches in resentment, but the spine . . . it does not complain. It simply echoes in our cavernous mountain of an almost-corpse. It bleeds like a warning. You know better. Do not let this happen again. Yet how can we stop them? We have no power here. They leave and they come and they leave again, as they wish, always as they wish. We must pull ourself up from the mud; we must drag ourself into the brick building . . . dirty up the classroom again, mangle our belongings further.
We do not get up, though. We lie.
Several voices gather in our mind, braiding together; they tell us we must get up and that we are missing the lesson and that they are going to send someone after us and that we are going to get in trouble and that it is better if we just bite the bullet and go on in; then we will track less mud over the school . . . if we get sent to the Principal then we shall get grime over the stairs and the waiting room. . . . There is misery for us if we do not give in . . .
The horn of the bus sounds in the distance. It is far away. It is the afternoon, before the evening commute rush; the lunch rush has probably ended. The streets look empty and the clouds look heavy. It is going to rain.
We sit up.
The motion strains our legs and arms and muscles in our back but the spinal cord is quiet; the vertebrae are calm. We force our weight forward, and stand in our mud-soaked clothes, taking one step. Another. We pause, and stare at the classroom. A door opens; one of them comes out. Our ribs twinge in memory of her knuckles. She walks straight from the classroom to the washroom, along the path . . . exactly where she should. She does not look at us.
We stand there, frozen, as exactly three minutes pass — and then she leaves the washroom, without sparing us even a glance, and returns herself to the lesson. When she opens the door we see the others . . . they sit completely still.
We turn to the fence and walk over to it. Grasp onto part of it and pull ourself up, throwing our body over it. Fear buds in our stomach as we do so, but it is easily suppressed. We have seen people get onto the bus without money before. We have been so good. They will let us on. They must.
We cross the street and stand by the lamppost and the sign-pole. There is a little sheltered area that one might stand beneath if it rained, but it is not raining yet. The clouds are heavy is all. They will burst eventually . . . not yet.
The horn sounds again. Closer this time. We fiddle with our fingers as we wait, leaning back and forth from worn heels to worn toes. Glance at the school. It has changed . . . perhaps they finally realized that we are gone . . . we tap our foot, worried. The bus must come. We must get out.
Headlights shine through the fog.
We squint, searching. The beginning of it comes through, yet it is a different shape than we remember . . . it is not a bus, but a car. A truck, rusted red, looking even worse for wear than we do.
We sigh and cast our eyes away, for the bus must still be coming . . . yet the car pulls up in front of us, stopping in the bus lane. We expect it to park; it does not. The engine hums, and a man leans out of the open window.
“It’s gonna rain soon.”
We know.
“Get in.” He presses a button with the tip of his finger; the passenger side door opens. A wind is picking up. “We do not have much time.”
We contemplate him.
Our instincts are adamant that we must not get into this car, no matter what he says. We do not know him. But the rest of us is unsure. We glance toward the fog; the bus shows no more signs of existence. Nothing immediate. Toward the school . . . movement. Noise.
The clouds. Darker. Like the weight of the sky on our back.
“Get in or do not. You know it will not be worse than that.”
We lean onto our toes, and relent — walk around the car, pull ourself into the passenger seat. We are still for one minute as we buckle and before he carries us away — in that minute all we can see are bodies. Bodies pouring out of gates and through the cracks in the fences . . . skin and blood and sinew flooding toward us.
His foot slams down. We accelerate. The clouds open.
And it pours.
We are in the mud, at the very edge of the schoolyard. Buried in it, back pressed to it. There is blood on our cheek. Dried now? The children brought pain and left, and they did not linger.
We linger.
More than anything, our spine hurts. Our nose is swollen and perhaps broken; it feels like fire and ice. The entire body is acid-eaten, spine mangled most of all. We are sure that if we twisted around to look at it in a mirror we would see such delicate and careful bruising under the mud. Painting of the skin.
Most of the body aches in resentment, but the spine . . . it does not complain. It simply echoes in our cavernous mountain of an almost-corpse. It bleeds like a warning. You know better. Do not let this happen again. Yet how can we stop them? We have no power here. They leave and they come and they leave again, as they wish, always as they wish. We must pull ourself up from the mud; we must drag ourself into the brick building . . . dirty up the classroom again, mangle our belongings further.
We do not get up, though. We lie.
Several voices gather in our mind, braiding together; they tell us we must get up and that we are missing the lesson and that they are going to send someone after us and that we are going to get in trouble and that it is better if we just bite the bullet and go on in; then we will track less mud over the school . . . if we get sent to the Principal then we shall get grime over the stairs and the waiting room. . . . There is misery for us if we do not give in . . .
The horn of the bus sounds in the distance. It is far away. It is the afternoon, before the evening commute rush; the lunch rush has probably ended. The streets look empty and the clouds look heavy. It is going to rain.
We sit up.
The motion strains our legs and arms and muscles in our back but the spinal cord is quiet; the vertebrae are calm. We force our weight forward, and stand in our mud-soaked clothes, taking one step. Another. We pause, and stare at the classroom. A door opens; one of them comes out. Our ribs twinge in memory of her knuckles. She walks straight from the classroom to the washroom, along the path . . . exactly where she should. She does not look at us.
We stand there, frozen, as exactly three minutes pass — and then she leaves the washroom, without sparing us even a glance, and returns herself to the lesson. When she opens the door we see the others . . . they sit completely still.
We turn to the fence and walk over to it. Grasp onto part of it and pull ourself up, throwing our body over it. Fear buds in our stomach as we do so, but it is easily suppressed. We have seen people get onto the bus without money before. We have been so good. They will let us on. They must.
We cross the street and stand by the lamppost and the sign-pole. There is a little sheltered area that one might stand beneath if it rained, but it is not raining yet. The clouds are heavy is all. They will burst eventually . . . not yet.
The horn sounds again. Closer this time. We fiddle with our fingers as we wait, leaning back and forth from worn heels to worn toes. Glance at the school. It has changed . . . perhaps they finally realized that we are gone . . . we tap our foot, worried. The bus must come. We must get out.
Headlights shine through the fog.
We squint, searching. The beginning of it comes through, yet it is a different shape than we remember . . . it is not a bus, but a car. A truck, rusted red, looking even worse for wear than we do.
We sigh and cast our eyes away, for the bus must still be coming . . . yet the car pulls up in front of us, stopping in the bus lane. We expect it to park; it does not. The engine hums, and a man leans out of the open window.
“It’s gonna rain soon.”
We know.
“Get in.” He presses a button with the tip of his finger; the passenger side door opens. A wind is picking up. “We do not have much time.”
We contemplate him.
Our instincts are adamant that we must not get into this car, no matter what he says. We do not know him. But the rest of us is unsure. We glance toward the fog; the bus shows no more signs of existence. Nothing immediate. Toward the school . . . movement. Noise.
The clouds. Darker. Like the weight of the sky on our back.
“Get in or do not. You know it will not be worse than that.”
We lean onto our toes, and relent — walk around the car, pull ourself into the passenger seat. We are still for one minute as we buckle and before he carries us away — in that minute all we can see are bodies. Bodies pouring out of gates and through the cracks in the fences . . . skin and blood and sinew flooding toward us.
His foot slams down. We accelerate. The clouds open.
And it pours.