The Return

(This is dedicated to those who died at Columbine and school shootings around the country.)

    I paused a momnent.  "C'mon!  Let's go!" yelled one of the men walking with me.  I resumed walking again.  The hall was dimly lit, and the end was only darkness.  Solemn faces offered blank stares from behind their grimy windows.  Our boots echoed hollowly through the empty hall.  My newly-cleaned orange jumpsuit made me fell somehow like a spectacle, a freak, but I guess for good reason.  A drip of moisture rolled down my face and fell to the floor.  I don't know whether it was sweat or a tear, but by then I didn't really.  I thought I had grown into a strange sense of security, the monotonous lull of forced routine.  But now it was all over.  The routine had been broken.  The fear had returned.  I had heard of the merciless killings at the end of the hall.  Once I passed through the door, my life would no longer be in my own hands.  But now it was too late.  We had arrived at the dor.  I took one last look around at the dirty faces in the windows, at the metallic, latticed floor, at life.  With a sigh I turned back to that cold, gray door looming like a giant, gaping mouth ready to swallow me.  Behind that door lay my darkest nightmares inspired by what I had seen and heard.  Something in my mind told me this was my last chance.  I turned to run, but the two men grabbed me and pushed me through the open door.  As I warily picked myself up off the dusty floor, I noticed an ironically cheerful banner in front of me announcing, "Welcome Back to School!"  The fear had returned.