Wrong target

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Martin Dubé

Saturday, February 24, 2018 05:00

UPDATE
Saturday, February 24, 2018 05:00

Look at this article

* Dystopia following is inspired by the recent statements of us president Donald Trump regarding his desire to arm the teachers.

Saint-Jérôme, Québec, September 1, 2032

This morning, it’s back. A 33rd for me. I still have the passion, the sacred fire. But nothing : I have not been able to close the eye of the night. Nightmares where I am late, where I am looking for a local that does not exist. My sweet kiss me, wishes me a nice day. She hands me my coat. Tells me that rain is forecast and that the wind is quite strong. I love his kindness. Actually, when I put the foot on the gallery, September I fit in the body, I lashed the face. She was right. As always.

The journey to school, I know it by heart. I could go there with eyes closed, but this would not be prudent. This morning, however, the colors, the atmosphere are different.

The leaves of the trees have already started to change hue. As if their fate was shortened this year.

The few pedestrians that I cross I set a longer time than usual. My car has she lost a hub cap? Strangely, I notice details that I had never seen during my morning commutes, a routine a thousand times executed. Hey, this house has it always had this fireplace? And this cedar hedge? I had never noticed. A strange peace settles in me, as if I was in total harmony with the world that surrounds me. Despite the normal stresses of a new school year.

The school has been renovated in the last year. Very pretty. Crossing the street, I begin to examine its new coatings, new windows. I like. Entering, I welcome the passage Mireille, our dedicated concierge service, that brings a shine to our floors and gleaming our daily lives. A chic girl who to me always brings a small present on my birthday. I wish him a good day and I go to the locker room. Mechanical gestures : I press my thumb on the fingerprint reader and I put my right eye on the scanner retinal. Successful Identification. I open my locker and I put on my coat. At the bottom of the locker, under magnetic key, a box made of hardened steel. It contains the gun that my government has kindly offered last year. A new weapon each school year. A big-budget. I hate it. I hate to carry this weapon. Yes, I’m used to it. The students too. But it is a habit that I never would have liked to develop.
There are a dozen years, while the debate was raging, I was thinking I would get out of it. I’ll be retired when the teachers are armed will be commonplace. But I was naive. 7 years ago, after a selection a bit arbitrary, I was “chosen” with other colleagues to attend a training course on the port and the handling of a firearm. Training continues in all its glory. Before this day I had never touched a weapon. And since that day, I’ve never used.
And I thank the sky every night.
This morning, in the gripping mechanically to insert it in my holster that I glue to the body, I find it more heavy than usual. This morning, I have the taste to leave it in its box. But the inspections are more frequent since some time. And fines related to non-compliance with the code of the gun are too damaging to the dawn of my retirement. So I sigh and grabs her with a real disgust.
I was going in my classroom, I realize again that I will never do it. These sad bars of steel in front of the windows, it disfigures a blue sky in a beautiful way! I open the lights and take a look at my lists. All of the first names that to me are strangers. But this is only a question of time before they come to life before my eyes.
The first course is going well. I always use the same story, the same monologue. It is honed to a quarter turn and the magic operates.
Leaving the staff room to get to my second course, walking in the corridor, I see something different. Yes, it is full, the students are nervous, they are happy to meet after this summer’s heatwave. But there’s another thing. Banalities attract my attention.
The laughter of a young girl with green eyes.
The backpack fluorescent green of this great whip with long hair.
The cry of a young boy.

Shrill. Piercing. You split the soul in two.

The corridor is crowded. The students stop talking about a coup. Despite this silence is unlikely, I don’t hear the cries of panic that seem to come from far away. From another dimension. In a synchronized movement, but also chaotic, a mass of students explodes everywhere. I is little difference between the forms in front of me, the neon lights intermittent doesn’t help and I remember that I need to take an appointment for an eye exam. More yells coming around me. It hustles me, it pushes me into the lockers. In the distance, I see Mireille seems to be a sign to the students to run as fast as possible.
The heart me loose when I hear the shots above the cries of terror from students in a panic.
Gunfire repeats at regular intervals. A metronome that spreads death and desolation.
I tremble, I am looking for my gun on me. A thousand times I put it in its case. A thousand times I have repeated this gesture. And there, I found more. I plate it so hard that I fall to the reverses. To his knees in the corridor, without my glasses, I managed to reach my weapon. I removed the guts of safety and tries to distinguish the one who cause this carnage among the crowd in panic. Students fall near me. Is this a mistake? Have they been achieved?
I recovered, get up and tries to see the monster that I have to shoot down. I can see that. Yes, he is holding a weapon. I the aims, presses the trigger. It falls. It does not move. I approach.
It is the boy in the bag fluo.
In his hands, a flask of water.
Black.
A young girl yells at her side, looks at me, troubled. I would like to reassure her, but I can’t. While I lean to his side to find that he is quite dead, I feel a heat on the right side.
A pain so searing that I twist by rolling up in a ball in the corridor, poorly lit. Shots ring out again.
I fixed my weapon on the ground.
And I have a heavy heart.

This is the last image I see before they die.

And I think…the leaves of The trees have already started to change hue.

As if their fate was shortened this year.