James slid out of bed reluctantly, as he did every school day. Even though it was Friday and most kids at his school would be happy it was Friday, James was not. Even though it was Friday, it didn’t mean that the humiliation and bullying the other kids at his high school gave him would stop. So James got out of bed, consoled only by the fact that he and his best friend, Mark, would be able to hang out and listen to Marilyn Manson and play Magic Cards without prejudice for two days, after one more day of hell.
James got dressed after his shower in plain, but well kept clothes, which was all his single mother could afford. He looked respectable, in his blue jeans and t-shirt, with his black hair combed. His grey eyes and sharp features didn’t make him pretty and his build was of a medium height and lean. Because he didn’t wear the right clothes or look like a model for undershorts, he had no friends to speak of, except Mark and wasn’t popular, sout he and Mark stuck together isolated from the rest of the school community. He felt that society, not the people at school, dictated that he was a loser. Mark too, was small and they both liked Magic Cards, but Mark had shown James the joys of music, especially Marilyn Manson. Music didn’t discriminate against you; it didn’t make fun of you or shove you in a locker. Music simply was there. It was an escape from life and it was a friend.
James heard the front door open and knew it was Mark, from the sound of Mark’s second-hand store Doc Martin’s on the linoleum. James shoved his Manson tape in the tape player, which he kept in his pocket, and went to see Mark. After grabbing his lunch and breakfast Twinkie his mother had left out for him, before she went to the diner where she was a waitress. James and Mark exchanged morning greetings and walked out the door of the small suburban townhouse together. They timed their walk to school so that they arrived in their first class, which was Math, right when the bell went so that they would avoid harmful contact with other students. To them classrooms and the library were safe, as there were always teachers there. The halls could be dangerous, but the washrooms were like minefields.
The class ended and they went to the cafeteria to eat and then run off to the library. On their way to the cafeteria they got the usual. Cruel jokes and laughs, nasty comments, and various projectiles and the odd attempt at tripping them. The rest of the day went by without anything spectacular happening; they just breezed through school and left right when the bell went for the day and the weekend. As they were leaving for home a couple of kids from the football team were talking in front of the bathroom door. As James and Mark went around them and past them, James felt two big hands grab hold of his backpack straps and shirt and lift him up. He looked to his side to see Mark hoisted up as well. The football players threw them into the bathroom and followed them in. The 4 big football players passed a bottle around and got ready to have some fun with the ‘losers’. Mark was always vocal about their abuse and always took the front of it. When they emerged ten minutes later, allowing five minutes for their assailants to get away, they were bruised and sore. Mark was also wet from having his head dunked in the toilet.
They went to Marks house to hang out together, until James had to leave for supper. They sat in the living room and watched music videos on MTV, until James left to make dinner for his mom, who would be tired from a long hard day at the diner.
“Everyone.” The words reverberated through the room. Mark said, “We’ll show everyone not to mess with people. We’ll fuck them up all the people that have messed with us. They will a fucking pay.”
The heavy beat and shrill vocals of the music played in the background and the cards sat on the table untouched for what seemed to be hours. James simply couldn’t think of anything we could do to teach the idiots at school a lesson, that they were discontent with their lives. They felt worthless and small. Both James and Mark had considered killing themselves, before they had met each other and their friendship had kept them alive, even though the clouds of depression that loomed over them got bigger and darker. But Mark had a plan and James knew it would work right away, and he agreed with Mark completely. They would show them. Everyone.
Three months later James and Mark walked to school dressed in their new uniform. James wore a black trench coat as did Mark. They had been wearing them for months now and people had become accustomed to, although they thought two kids wearing trench coats on a beautiful summer day was odd, but today they weren’t for fashion. Today their trench coats had purpose. They both had headphones around their necks, with the same tape playing in sync. The summer had just begun and everyone, especially the seniors, were happy the school year was ending so they could have the summer to party. They arrived at the entrance to school and stood in the double doors and looked at the naive students in the school. The sun shone behind them silhouetting them in the door, as the door closed the silhouette died away and they emerged in black.
They walked through the door in harmony with each other. Thump, the left boot hit the tiled floor, thump, the right foot hit the floor. They didn’t care it was their last day. Lunch was just about to begin. They had ten minutes to set the pipe bombs, which they had made parts of in electronics class, around the school. After all the bombs were set they went to the cafeteria and waited. We counted down the minutes and seconds. Tick, tick, tick… The bell rang then 30 seconds later a cacophony of explosions went off. All the bombs were placed in central areas like the entrances and exits and the office, they weren’t to kill, or even maim, the bombs were to keep people inside the school and the police out. They reached into their trench coats and slowly withdrew Tec-9 semi automatic handguns as people began filing into the cafeteria. They sold all their Magic Cards and spent their savings on the small armoury they had. They thanked the second Amendment, and hoped the guns didn’t jam.
James and Mark went around the school shooting people. Bang-Bang-Bang. They shot those who made fun of them, and hurt them. No one cheated the to angels of death in trench coats. Bang, Bang-Bang. We even shot those who stood by and watched, but did nothing. Bang, Bang-Bang-Bang. We walked threw the halls of the school searching for the four football players, who had made their life horrible. The football players were found in the locker room, next to the gym. They were sitting there laughing and joking with each other. They had no idea of the massacre in the rest of the school, because the showers had been on, creating a blanket of white noise. James and Mark both stopped outside the door to the locker room, and filled their magazines. They walked into the locker room the smell of sweat and adrenaline hit them and they raised their guns and watched the fear on their victims faces. Bang, bang, bang. Thump, thump, thump, as the bodies fell to the hard tile. They had agreed to leave the biggest, toughest and the leader of the group for last. The bodies didn’t move, but the blood continued to drain from them creating an even bigger pool of blood on the floor. The echoes of the guns reverberated through the tiled room. They told the captain of the football team to get in the middle of the room on his knees. After a second to assess his situation, which wasn’t good and he knew it, he complied. He knelt in the middle of the room on the hard no-slip tile in a pool of his friend’s blood. They stood in front of him with their guns held against his forehead. They watched the tears well up in his eyes, and the beads of perspiration run down his face. His eyes were blue and filled with fear. Tears ran down his cheeks as his life ended, when two bullets entered his head. As the bullets exited through the read of his skull, brains and bones splattered against the wall, painting it red.
They stained the waxed floors of the school with what was to be the future generation’s blood, the crimson message of death all around. Mark and James stood in the main foyer in front of the office, on top of the blue seal emblazoned with the eagle. They looked at the flag of their nation, the red, white and blue that failed to protect them and those they murdered, and those who saw the carnage and would never forget.
James glanced at Mark, and they nodded to each other. The words, “Let’s do this.” came from their lips and they knew what to do.
Simultaneously two fingers slowly tightened around the steel. BangBang. A sudden flash of light lit up the foyer and the light died. The firing pins struck forward sending the brass projectiles forward, as the air behind the slugs expanded, forcing the slug out of the muzzle and into the flesh of two young boys. The bullets traveled through their heads at over five hundred feet per seconded, as the two brass casings arced through the air, and clattered on the cold stone floor, on top of the eagle. Their bodies became limp, now devoid of life, as the bullets blew their brains out onto the flags. The nation was covered in their blood, as were the hands of the students who mistreated the two bodies that fell to the floor with one thump and everyone who stood by. There were no innocent bystanders that day; everyone got what they deserved, except for two. They fell together as their guns clattered on the hard floor, as the echo of the gunshots dissipated, into the halls. The echoes are still heard today.
***
This was written in 2004 for an English class in high school. It is the first writing assignment that I remembered where I used violence to shock the reader. I gave it to a classmate to read, and she couldn't finish it she found it so disturbing.
I wrote this to try to give some meaning to why teens were shooting people in their schools, something that I felt like I wanted to do at one point in my life(years before, like in grade 7).
This is not to glorify, justify or endorse shooting people in school. This is a slap in the face to the people that blame, MTV, rock music, drugs, and video games for school violence.
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