| Skipping Stones |
| A young woman remembers her experience in the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High. It's so strange that something, someone, you would never even notice can effect everything and everyone around it in an instant. Like pebbles thrown into a pond... Normally you just kick them to the side, without even thinking about it, just as something to do, but when you push them over the edge... The ripples take a long time to stop. My friend Karen and I used to go out to this pond in the woods behind my house. We'd skip stones and just talk for hours. It was so peaceful, like the rest of the world didn't exist. That's where we went when we just needed to get away from something. We were there for each other, always ready with a shoulder to cry on or a smile to give. There for each other just like that place was there for us. Someone, somewhere to turn to when nothing else was working out. Permanent. Until a pebble got pushed over the edge... and the ripples changed all of us forever. It was a Tuesday in April. I was in third period chemistry when I heard it. It sounded like popcorn, except it was coming from too far away to be that soft of a sound. Fireworks maybe. We wanted to find out what it was but Miss Grayson wouldn't let us leave the room. Then we heard the principal's voice over the P.A. system. My heart stopped. There was this immediate buzz in the room, this total sense of panic and fear. Miss Grayson opened the window since the classroom was on the first story, and we were all climbing out. Then people were running as fast as they could, as far as they could. Already people were crying... My mind rushed to all my friends, all the people I cared about who might still be in that building... Who might never leave that building. And then my mind got to Karen, and it stayed there. Karen was a library aid that class period. She was probably just hanging around, talking or doing homework or stocking shelves, when they came in. And when it was over... Karen was dead. Shot to death, by a pebble pushed too far over the edge. She never knew what was going to happen. She never got to say goodbye. Neither did I. And now she's gone. Forever. Never again to walk with me for an ice cream down the streets of a small town in Colorado. Never again to skip stones on a tiny pond in the woods. Never again to be my shoulder to cry on, tell me she would always be there for me and that everything was going to be okay. So now I have to think... Did I do it? Did I push them over the edge? Was I one of the people who kicked them aside without even knowing it? Did my carelessness, my insensitivity, kill my best friend? Before they were stopped... Were they looking for me? I still skip stones. But never again will I skip people. |