Fourteen of us sit,
circled around our professor on a small hill in the quad—the epicenter of Northern
Illinois University. We are here to free-write, and none of us know how to
begin. Just think for a minute Dr.
Bird tells us. Take your time.
I stare at the top floor of Reavis
Hall, at the third window from the left, and run my pen up and down the notepad
until a blotted version of the window’s frame oozes through the page. I keep dragging
the pen across the paper, leaving behind thick black trails of ink.
Funny how dark the window looks from
here, yet I can clearly imagine the interior of the building. The safe and
quiet secrecy of it. The yellowing tile, chipped chalkboards and small desks.
The oak door we locked on Valentine’s Day when a trembling woman, on her own
Paul Revere ride, warned us of a gunman unloading shotgun rounds into a crowd
of our peers.
The March sun presses its warmth against
our skin, stronger than usual, like it knows we need comfort. I retrace the
window until it darkens, changes. An imperfect square.
I remember the messenger’s words, how
they shivered out of her mouth but burned through us. Lock your doors. You need to lock your doors. There is a shooter on
campus. No details of where, of what type of danger we were in. She shook
us awake like a nightmare and vanished.
I remember gasps. Haunting gasps.
The lights shut off, the entire class pressed into a corner, professor
included, linking arms and crying.
I remember minutes of stillness, an
empty hall through the door. We crept to the window and peered out of it, the
shades not fully opened, and saw the roundabout filled with ambulances lined up
like a procession. Waiting.
Dr. Bird breaks the
silence again. I find it’s always best to
write outside. It allows the mind to see clearer. Keep thinking. Keep trying.
From my spot on the hill I can see
through an overhang that connects Reavis Hall to DuSable. On the other side is
the back of Cole Hall, the four steel doors where the shooter reportedly
entered with his guitar case full of ammo, pistol and shotgun.
My cousin John called first. Are you alright? Shit’s crazy. Good. Good. Be safe. I love you man. He
was watching on TV—I told him where I was. The square brick building next to
Cole Hall. Third window from the left. Told him to tell family I was okay.
Shortly after we hung up the networks clogged. Our phones stopped working.
Then came the stretchers. One by one
from Cole Hall to the roundabout, white sheets splattered with blood. Then the
boom of our cries.
Who is it? Can you see? Can you
tell? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh God Oh my God.
A soft voice
interrupts. I wrote a poem. I’m not much
of a poet, but I wrote one, and I think I’ll share it, and then you’re free to
go.
Dr. Bird’s poem starts with the
knock on the door. The woman breaking the news. Colleague. A bloodless face
doing duty. Brave.
Then one student hugging another,
wiping away tears and whispering peace
Then the image of two students by
the door, an act of protection, comforting the class.
When the stretchers stopped coming,
two hours later, the woman returned to our door.
The
shooter is dead. Campus is safe. You may leave.
As the last of the ambulances sped
away, hundreds of students filed from buildings and onto this hill. Most
hugged, comforted, tried calling parents. A few investigated the trail of
blood, still warm, that zig-zagged from Cole Hall to the roundabout. A stain as
proof of death. Nobody knew what to do next, nobody left.
Dr. Bird chokes through the final
line of her poem. She looks up to the third window from the left, the windows around
it, then back to the grass. Students swirl around us on the sidewalks and move
in and out of the doors of Reavis Hall. The patter of their shoes and noise of
their chatter are more apparent against the silent memory of death. I watch
them from my seat on the hill, no words on my notepad. Just a window, its thick
and unshakeable frame surrounded by bricks, linking together, forward.
