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Description
       Donnie awoke before his mom could enter his room and wake him.  His eyes stared blindly at the ceiling open and dreary.  He slowly drew his bed cover off of his waist and set it aside on the mattress.  He sat on his bed alone and crying.  He held his face with his cold-skin hands.  His eye pupil peaked through his blurry fingers at the digital clock on the small table next to his bed that read the time of “6:03.”
       Donnie sighed with agonizing internal emotions.  He rose to his feet and slowly ambled towards his closet door that had a KORN poster stapled to it.  Donnie turned the gold-painted knob and opened the creaky door.  It was just another one of those mornings that no high school or middle school student could take.  The weariness, the darkness despite the sunshine from outside, and the melancholy reminder of a prison totem poled with stale pillars of verbal anarchy and edifying monarchy.

       Ray groaned at the unsettling moan of his brother standing in his black-framed doorway.  “Ray, get up,” his brother tiredly croaked.  Ray hung his mouth open on his pillow sleeping in his red-patterned boxers.  He slowly, still with his eyes shut closed, staggered onto his feet, but fell back onto the bed.  Ray rubbed his face with his hand still drowsy from his five-hour sleep.  He finally built up the strength to stand and opened his dresser drawer.
       Ray tugged out from the cramped room of the drawer a baggy pair of Levi jeans.  He growled in anger at the drawer that held onto his jeans.  He slowly slid on the annoying pants slipping one leg in at a time.  He stuffed his sock-covered feet into his skater shoes and pulled his Toy Machine Skateboards T-shirt out from the dirty clothesbasket.
       Ray walked out into the living room still with his eyes open just a little bit so he can see where he’s going and to keep the light from polishing his eyes.  Ray muttered while he walked past his brother who sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  Ray opened the refrigerator door and reached in for a fresh bottle of instant chocolate milk that his mom got from the grocery store the other day.

       Sean sat at the living room couch wearing his morning school clothes.  His mom was packing her briefcase with the documented files.  Sean groaned wearily, “Please, mom . . .  I wanna stay home today . . .”
       “No, Sean, you’re going to school.”
       “But I gotta cold.  I might infect the others,” he begged.
       “That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” his mom quickly replied while she slipped away into her bedroom for her purse.
       Sean sat waiting for his mom to come back out to the living room.  He knew deep down that it was important that he should stay home.  Not because of the test he wasn’t prepared for, but for some other reason.  His mom came back out with her purse and he pleaded, “C’mon, mom . . .  I’m passing all my classes, we’ve only had one homework assignment all week, I’m not going to miss anything.  Please . . .”
       “No, you’re going to school.  I don’t want to see another C on your report card,” she snapped back at him.
       “Please.  I’ll do the dishes and I’ll clean up,” he bargained.
       “No, you can do that when you get home,” Sean’s mom cleverly spat back at him.  “C’mon, get your stuff, let’s go.”
       Sean groaned madly grabbing his backpack from off the floor and heading to the front door feeling like he couldn’t step outside.  That his sixth sense banged at his head berating at him to stay.
But Sean’s mom pushed his back out the door and to her car.  He miserably walked to the passenger door to get in the 2001 Echo.

       Donnie rode the dismal school bus along the rural roads frequently stopping to load the teenaged passengers.  Donnie’s face stared coldly out the dew-covered glass window feeling that same old heart pain that usually never appeared physically.
       Throughout the entire bus ride, Jimmy and Eric sat in the back of the yellow bus always talking about something with each other.
       “Oh yeah, the Yankees killed ‘em last night!” Eric loudly exclaimed to Jimmy.
       Jimmy agreed with his arrogant grin and nod.  “Yeah, I know.  Oh yeah, did you get the geometry homework done?” he asked the plump and lazy Eric.
       Eric thought in his head, “Uhh . . .  No, I guess not,” he finally replied.
       Jimmy madly stated, “Shit, ‘cause I didn’t do it.”
Eric watched with his eyes toward the front of the bus past the many heads of hair to see Donnie sitting quietly like many others just droning out the noise from the back.  “Hey, Donnie!” Eric cried out.
       Only Donnie turned his head to look at the obnoxious Eric who stared at him.  Donnie wasn’t sure why he did turn because he knew what exactly was coming.
       “Stop looking at me, Donnie!” Eric obnoxiously demanded in humorous authority.
       Donnie angrily turned his head forward while Eric and Jimmy idiotically laughed.  How do they always have energy to pick on me in the morning? Donnie thought.  Not even I have that kind of energy.  Those assholes . . .
       Eric and Jimmy, the two popular idiots of the school, sat in the back chuckling at Donnie’s humiliating anger.
       Donnie thought in his head, I got second period with them . . .  At second period . . .

       Ray skateboarded to the bus stop listening to his CD player.  The soft and easy-going song “Tomorrow Comes Today” by Gorillaz played into his ears.  He watched his feet while he turned his skateboard to the left and the right.  His light backpack hanged on his back and shoulders while he passed down the street.

       Ray walked across school campus towards his good old buddy Vernal.  Vernal sat lightly shaking his head to the rock beat of the song “Where is My Mind?” by The Pixies.  Ray’s Toymachine skateboard was strapped onto his backpack, which was designed to carry skateboards.  Ray tapped Vernal’s shoulder and sat down next to him.
       “Hey, man,” Ray said.
       Vernal pulled his earphones away to look at Ray.  “What’s up?” Vernal responded.
       Ray sat quietly next to Vernal waiting for their other buddies Scott and Nicky’s bus to arrive to the school.  Vernal raised his earphones back up to his ears and finished listening to his song.  Ray reached into his pocket and slipped out his wallet.  He looked at the picture of the beautiful and cute Andrea.
       Andrea was a lovely blonde with the greatest smile.  Her blue eyes stared from the picture and at Ray’s irises.  He wanted to smile but didn’t want to in front of Vernal.  To show that he had the “hots” for a “chick,” a vocabulary he picked up “hanging out” with Vernal and the guys.
       Vernal looked to see the picture of Andrea in Ray’s wallet and looked from the picture to Ray, and back to the picture.  “Man, she’s a cutie,” Vernal stated over the finishing music of The Pixies.
       “Yeah, she is,” Ray agreed.  He closed his wallet and slid it back into his pocket waiting for the first period bell to ring.
       “You going to the movies with her Friday night?” Vernal asked in curiosity.
       “Yeah.  Wednesday I’ll get my license and drive us.  Can’t wait until then,” Ray told him.
       “Man, I hate Mondays so bad . . .” Vernal whined.

       Donnie sat in his American History class counting the seconds of the black trimmed analog clock on the wall.  His foot lightly shook on the floor in impatient wait.  He held his mechanical pencil in his hand with the lead pressed to the paper but didn’t write anything.  He was too nervous to write.  While every other student in the class was writing on paper, Donnie was waiting for second period to come.

       Ray walked side-by-side with Vernal and Nicky walking across campus.  Nicky turned to his second period class and waved, “See ya, guys.”
       “See ya,” Ray called.
       Ray and Vernal walked off together across campus with their backpacks and CD players.
       “Hey, are we going to the Chevron after school?” Vernal asked.
       “Yeah, sure,” Ray responded, “I got five bucks to waste.”
       Vernal began to depart from Ray’s side walking off towards the gymnasium entrance.  “I’ll see ya later, man,” Vernal said goodbye.
       “Yeah, see ya,” Ray said.  Ray walked off alone towards English class with his backpack over his shoulder and the expectation of a Monday morning English class.  He flocked through the classroom door along with the other students and moved straight for his desk way in the back.  He sat down setting his backpack neatly at his side so he can reach in for a pencil or a piece of paper if needed.
       Donnie came into the class keeping to himself and seating himself in the empty desk to the left of Ray.  Sean miserably walked into the classroom knowing the routine: sit down, get out your pencil, and sit silently for an hour.  The teenagers took their seats and Jimmy and Eric were late once again still laughing obnoxiously over meaningless topics.
       Mrs. Dobson stood from her desk and got ready to start the class.  The final bell rang and all the students sat ready and prepared in their cramp desks.  “Okay, guys,” Mrs. Dobson started, “Let’s get started.  Now . . .”  She reads out of her teacher’s edition searching on what to teach for the day.  “Let’s begin on figurative language.  You don’t need your books for this.  I’ll just do this on the board.”  She grabbed a blue marker and started to write on the white board the words “Figurative Language.”
       Donnie sat nervously and quietly in his desk.  His desk was all the way in the corner of the class, in the back and to the left.  Next to him was Ray watching Mrs. Dobson write on the board.  In front of Ray sat Sean who wanted to be in bed sleeping, like everyone else.  Jimmy and Eric had to sit in the front rows up ahead.  They were passing notes and giggling quietly.  Donnie couldn’t help but imagine in his head . . .
       “We got tone, mood . . .” Mrs. Dobson listed from the teacher’s edition while she wrote on the board.
       Ray yawned.  He sighed and got comfortable in his chair.  He looked around the classroom seeing Helen, the class “hottie,” sitting quietly in her tight crimson blouse.  Then at Kyle, the nerd with the glasses and notes out and ready on his desk.  His eyes gazed over to Drew, the hippie of the school, not paying attention to one word Mrs. Dobson spoke.  Then his eyes lazily shifted over to see Jimmy and Eric passing the paper back to each other’s desks.
       Ray was tired.  He knew he had to stay awake.  Had to stay energized.  For what?  Who knows?  Sean didn’t care for the class lesson.  He didn’t care what Jimmy and Eric did behind Mrs. Dobson’s back.  He was also too tired.
       An empty seat in front of Donnie.  Donnie looked around at the classroom seeing Ray, Sean, Helen, Drew, Kyle, the rest of the class who he didn’t really know, and the dreaded and annoying Jimmy and Eric.  Bad seeds.
       “Now, some poets and writers use onomatopoeia in their works.  The use of tone and the point of view in Frost’s poem depicts nature in its prime.  In your essays you need to remember to support your reasoning,” Mrs. Dobson went on again.
       A few teens yawned.  Some others just paid little bit of attention or daydreaming.  Kyle scribbled down on his paper and Helen held her hand at her knee with her other hand holding her head up.
       Donnie was nervous.  A cold draft locked on his billion pores.  Frost.  His eyes were open and vigilant.  His left hand rested on his backpack in readiness.  Ray slowly looked over at Donnie’s nervous face.  Peculiar . . .
       The whole wide world stopped.  Complete slow motion; at least that’s what it felt like to Ray.  Everything was natural and in its norm but it wasn’t the same.  A fragment of fate was manipulated.  In the classroom.
       Ray’s eyes locked on the backpack to the left of Donnie’s desk.  He could see parts of the backpack behind and underneath the desk.  When Donnie turned to look in Ray’s direction, Ray would just turn away looking at Mrs. Dobson’s lesson.  But then returned his attention to Donnie.  That stern and ready look on his face.  Ready for anything.  What is he doing? Ray thought suspiciously.
       Donnie very slowly put his hand’s grip onto an object in his backpack.  Ray saw it in Donnie’s left hand inside the backpack that rested against the leg of the desk.  He slowly slipped it out from the open zipper.  It was a handgun.  Ray’s eyes shot open with a silent gasp!
       Donnie stared down the row of desks at Jimmy and Eric in the front grinning like mad predators doing their daily work of feeding off the weak.
I’ll see you in Hell, Jimmy and Eric, Donnie spoke inside his mind.
       At that same moment, Donnie whipped out the handgun from the backpack and aimed it forward down the row of desks.  No one saw besides Ray.
       Ray sprang into action grabbing Donnie’s arm shoving his aim to the side.  He suddenly blurted out to the classroom in that moment, “Get down!”  Donnie and Ray began to fight over the handgun.  The students stopped and saw the fight begin between the two over what appeared to be a black handgun with a black grip.  Their eyes shot open in terror.
       Ray didn’t quite understand why he was doing it.  Why he was fighting Donnie.  He never had anything against him.  He didn’t care.  He never hurt him.  But he was fighting him.  Two wolves fighting over a firearm.  Ray feared the barrel of the handgun praying to God that one of them didn’t pull the black trigger.
       The students slipped from the desks staring in panic.  Mrs. Dobson couldn’t speak from the fright of the handgun in their hands.
       They both tugged at the weapon using their greatest amount of strength possible growling like beasts.  The handgun slipped into Donnie’s hand and BANG!  Sean fell back collapsing on the desk in front of him letting all feeling and strength go.  The class screamed in panic.  Mrs. Dobson tried to control the scream of the classroom.
       Ray finally used force, still having a hold of the handgun, and charged Donnie into the wall.  Donnie growled at Ray madly.  The barrel aimed at the students.  Their eyes stared at the two in shock.  BANG!  Jimmy’s eyes flashed open as he collapsed off his feet feeling the earth slip away.  Ray couldn’t stop it.
       Donnie head butted Ray wanting the handgun more than anything.  But Ray didn’t give up to the pain in his face.  He held his grip tightly on the metal.
       Ray took a chance and charged Donnie into the wall again risking the handgun aiming at himself.  He finally slipped his hand underneath Donnie’s and tugged it away from him.  Ray stumbled back away taking a fall in the aisle of desks.  The class stared in shock at Ray getting the gun from Donnie.
       While Ray climbed to his panicky feet, Donnie slipped his hand into his backpack and pulled out a second gun.  Donnie and Ray aimed their guns at each other standing on opposite sides of the row of desks.
       Ray held his organs down his gut and his throat tightly and secured while he took his steps over Sean’s stiff but still warm body.  Ray slowly backed away from Donnie keeping his gun aimed at him.  The students were quiet and waiting for more to happen.  They were all backed away on the other side of the classroom with Mrs. Dobson.  Helen, Kyle, Eric, Drew, and everyone else.
       Ray became calm and aware of his situation.  He wanted nothing awful to happen to anyone else so he calmly spoke to Mrs. Dobson, “Mrs. Dobson . . .  Take everyone out of the classroom.  Quickly, now.”
       Donnie didn’t object, just standing quietly while he kept his gun aimed at Ray with a mad face.
       Mrs. Dobson quickly led the students out of the classroom leading them away.  The class was emptied leaving only Ray and Donnie left with the stiff bodies of Sean and Jimmy lying warm on the carpet floor.
       There was a long moment of silence between the two.  Ray couldn’t believe that something so awful could happen.  Out of any day in the year it had to happen that day.  Nothing special about the day, except it was a day of being ill equipped.
       Ray didn’t dare to speak to Donnie.  “Why?” Ray finally built the courage up to finally speak a word.  “What could possibly compel you to do something like this, Donnie?  We all have our grudges, but this is insane!”
       Donnie became madder at Ray.  He was silent until he finally responded, “How?  Why?  Are you a retard or something?  Do you not see the torment I get from assholes like Jimmy?  The living hell I suffer everyday?”
       “Donnie . . .  There are ways to settle problems but this isn’t one of them.  Murder doesn’t solve everything,” Ray protested.
       “No, but suicide does for me.  Homicide, then a quick fatal suicide.  Ray, if you want any chance on living I suggest you to put my gun down and get the hell out of here.  Now, while you still can.”
       “Donnie, I’m not leaving here.  All right?  I’m not leaving until we can work this out.”
       Donnie’s eyes stared at him in madness.  “Work what out?  What is there to work out!  You are nothing like me!  You don’t know what it’s like to be me!  Eventually, you get to a point where you can’t take it anymore!  When you can’t seem to handle the world and everyone in it!  You wonder what your status is in the world!  In the society of the world!  What are you, Ray!  What is your status?  I’m the lowest of all creatures!  Weak and injured to shits like them,” Donnie gestured to Jimmy’s body that gets colder by the second.
       “Jesus Christ, Donnie . . .  Life can be rough but you can’t just let simple things like Jimmy or Eric stand in your way!  I know it’s hard!  I know!  I have been there, Donnie!  Grade school, middle school; I felt the same way!  But this isn’t how you fix it.  There are alternatives.  Not taking a gun to school and killing someone innocent like Sean!” Ray yelled in pain.
       “Remember your words, Ray . . .  Because they will be your last.”

       The police cars parked in the parking lot and on the school campus.  The administrators and Mrs. Dobson directed the authorities to the classroom where the bloody murder took place.  The police peaked through the door’s window to see two figures standing silently in the classroom.
       The officers slowly opened the door to sneak into the classroom where Ray and Donnie still stood aiming their guns at each other.  “It’s all right, fellas.  Everything will be all right,” one officer spoke.
       “No it won’t,” Donnie spoke in assurance.  The officers had their guns aimed at Donnie backed away in the corner by his backpack at his desk.  Ray stood near the white board thinking about the blood slowly slipping out of Sean’s body.
       The officer that spoke before slowly put his hand on Ray’s shoulder trying to get him to lower the handgun.  “It’s okay, son.  Lower the gun.  Just slowly put it down.”
       Ray took a deep breath and slowly lowered it.  He took a step back allowing the officers to do their jobs.  But a dark feeling crept across and through his body and he slowly raised his gun back up at Donnie.
       “C’mon, son, let’s put it down,” the officer spoke to Ray hoping to save him from danger.
       “No.  I’m not leaving,” Ray quietly responded.  His eyes never left Donnie’s insane face.  “Donnie, I’m not leaving here until you put your gun down and come with me.”  Ray was playing the negotiator.  A classmate.  Sat next to him all semester in the one class.  Now the negotiator.  “We can work all of this out, Donnie.  Everything will be fine.”
       “Fine?  Are you really that dumb?  A brain will not function or work after brutal starvation,” Donnie poetically cited to Ray.
       “No one else here had to die today, Donnie,” Ray said with a feeling of hope.  The officers watched as Ray talked to Donnie and aimed his gun at him.  “You don’t have to die.  I don’t have to die.  No one else has to die.  We can all go home.  We can all go home and go to bed.  Because at school that’s what we usually want.  A nice good nap.  So let’s go home and sleep, Donnie.  Because no one has to die here.”
       Donnie paid no attention to Ray.  He just kept his muscles locked aiming the gun at him.
       “Look . . .  I’ll prove it.  I’ll lower my gun.  As long as you lower yours.  If you lower yours, I’ll lower mine.”
       “Never,” Donnie blurted.
       “No one has to die,” Ray repeated softly.  “We can all just walk away from this.  Your mind, your prison, your pain can all be healed.  In due time it can be helped.  People who will listen.  People who want to help you.  Those who care for you and love you.  Donnie, people do love you.  You are not a monster.  Okay, Donnie?  You are not a monster . . .”
       Nice touch, the officer thought.
       But Donnie didn’t move.  He didn’t twitch.  His same maddening look staring down the sights of his gun directed and fixed on Ray.
       Ray slowly and gradually lowered his gun downward.  He slowly bent down to the floor keeping his eyes on Donnie and laid the gun on the carpet.  “See?  You can trust me.  I want to help you, Donnie.  I want to help you,” Ray repeated over again truly meaning it.  But there was no effect on Donnie.  “We can help you.  There is hope for all of us,” he said softly.
       The longest thirty seconds were spent in the minds of the six living people in the classroom.  The four officers watching Ray and Donnie waiting for when they should start shooting.  Then the thirty seconds ended.  Ray’s gun was on the floor and Donnie was the one with a gun.
       Donnie said, “Hope God is nice.”
       BANG!  He fired a bullet into Ray’s chest and gunshots erupted in the classroom as the four officers fired madly at Donnie splattering his red blood to the carpet floor.  Donnie’s face quenched in anguish as he collapsed off his feet losing balance.
       Ray held his chest slowly falling through the space of the open air and dropping down on the carpet.  The room finally held its silence once again.  The officers checked Ray and two rushed out of the classroom to the school administrators who stared in panic.  “Call an ambulance!  Hurry!”
       Ray knew in his last seconds that he wasn’t going to make it to see Andrea Friday night.

       Sean’s mom hurried to the school jumping out of her car and hurrying to find the ambulance taking Sean away.  She cried and wept for her son.  The police tried to calm her while she panicked.
       I should have let him stay home! she yelled and cried at herself over and over in her head.  I should have let Sean stay home today . . . !

Description
       Donnie awoke before his mom could enter his room and wake him.  His eyes stared blindly at the ceiling open and dreary.  He slowly drew his bed cover off of his waist and set it aside on the mattress.  He sat on his bed alone and crying.  He held his face with his cold-skin hands.  His eye pupil peaked through his blurry fingers at the digital clock on the small table next to his bed that read the time of “6:03.”
       Donnie sighed with agonizing internal emotions.  He rose to his feet and slowly ambled towards his closet door that had a KORN poster stapled to it.  Donnie turned the gold-painted knob and opened the creaky door.  It was just another one of those mornings that no high school or middle school student could take.  The weariness, the darkness despite the sunshine from outside, and the melancholy reminder of a prison totem poled with stale pillars of verbal anarchy and edifying monarchy.

       Ray groaned at the unsettling moan of his brother standing in his black-framed doorway.  “Ray, get up,” his brother tiredly croaked.  Ray hung his mouth open on his pillow sleeping in his red-patterned boxers.  He slowly, still with his eyes shut closed, staggered onto his feet, but fell back onto the bed.  Ray rubbed his face with his hand still drowsy from his five-hour sleep.  He finally built up the strength to stand and opened his dresser drawer.
       Ray tugged out from the cramped room of the drawer a baggy pair of Levi jeans.  He growled in anger at the drawer that held onto his jeans.  He slowly slid on the annoying pants slipping one leg in at a time.  He stuffed his sock-covered feet into his skater shoes and pulled his Toy Machine Skateboards T-shirt out from the dirty clothesbasket.
       Ray walked out into the living room still with his eyes open just a little bit so he can see where he’s going and to keep the light from polishing his eyes.  Ray muttered while he walked past his brother who sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.  Ray opened the refrigerator door and reached in for a fresh bottle of instant chocolate milk that his mom got from the grocery store the other day.

       Sean sat at the living room couch wearing his morning school clothes.  His mom was packing her briefcase with the documented files.  Sean groaned wearily, “Please, mom . . .  I wanna stay home today . . .”
       “No, Sean, you’re going to school.”
       “But I gotta cold.  I might infect the others,” he begged.
       “That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” his mom quickly replied while she slipped away into her bedroom for her purse.
       Sean sat waiting for his mom to come back out to the living room.  He knew deep down that it was important that he should stay home.  Not because of the test he wasn’t prepared for, but for some other reason.  His mom came back out with her purse and he pleaded, “C’mon, mom . . .  I’m passing all my classes, we’ve only had one homework assignment all week, I’m not going to miss anything.  Please . . .”
       “No, you’re going to school.  I don’t want to see another C on your report card,” she snapped back at him.
       “Please.  I’ll do the dishes and I’ll clean up,” he bargained.
       “No, you can do that when you get home,” Sean’s mom cleverly spat back at him.  “C’mon, get your stuff, let’s go.”
       Sean groaned madly grabbing his backpack from off the floor and heading to the front door feeling like he couldn’t step outside.  That his sixth sense banged at his head berating at him to stay.
But Sean’s mom pushed his back out the door and to her car.  He miserably walked to the passenger door to get in the 2001 Echo.

       Donnie rode the dismal school bus along the rural roads frequently stopping to load the teenaged passengers.  Donnie’s face stared coldly out the dew-covered glass window feeling that same old heart pain that usually never appeared physically.
       Throughout the entire bus ride, Jimmy and Eric sat in the back of the yellow bus always talking about something with each other.
       “Oh yeah, the Yankees killed ‘em last night!” Eric loudly exclaimed to Jimmy.
       Jimmy agreed with his arrogant grin and nod.  “Yeah, I know.  Oh yeah, did you get the geometry homework done?” he asked the plump and lazy Eric.
       Eric thought in his head, “Uhh . . .  No, I guess not,” he finally replied.
       Jimmy madly stated, “Shit, ‘cause I didn’t do it.”
Eric watched with his eyes toward the front of the bus past the many heads of hair to see Donnie sitting quietly like many others just droning out the noise from the back.  “Hey, Donnie!” Eric cried out.
       Only Donnie turned his head to look at the obnoxious Eric who stared at him.  Donnie wasn’t sure why he did turn because he knew what exactly was coming.
       “Stop looking at me, Donnie!” Eric obnoxiously demanded in humorous authority.
       Donnie angrily turned his head forward while Eric and Jimmy idiotically laughed.  How do they always have energy to pick on me in the morning? Donnie thought.  Not even I have that kind of energy.  Those assholes . . .
       Eric and Jimmy, the two popular idiots of the school, sat in the back chuckling at Donnie’s humiliating anger.
       Donnie thought in his head, I got second period with them . . .  At second period . . .

       Ray skateboarded to the bus stop listening to his CD player.  The soft and easy-going song “Tomorrow Comes Today” by Gorillaz played into his ears.  He watched his feet while he turned his skateboard to the left and the right.  His light backpack hanged on his back and shoulders while he passed down the street.

       Ray walked across school campus towards his good old buddy Vernal.  Vernal sat lightly shaking his head to the rock beat of the song “Where is My Mind?” by The Pixies.  Ray’s Toymachine skateboard was strapped onto his backpack, which was designed to carry skateboards.  Ray tapped Vernal’s shoulder and sat down next to him.
       “Hey, man,” Ray said.
       Vernal pulled his earphones away to look at Ray.  “What’s up?” Vernal responded.
       Ray sat quietly next to Vernal waiting for their other buddies Scott and Nicky’s bus to arrive to the school.  Vernal raised his earphones back up to his ears and finished listening to his song.  Ray reached into his pocket and slipped out his wallet.  He looked at the picture of the beautiful and cute Andrea.
       Andrea was a lovely blonde with the greatest smile.  Her blue eyes stared from the picture and at Ray’s irises.  He wanted to smile but didn’t want to in front of Vernal.  To show that he had the “hots” for a “chick,” a vocabulary he picked up “hanging out” with Vernal and the guys.
       Vernal looked to see the picture of Andrea in Ray’s wallet and looked from the picture to Ray, and back to the picture.  “Man, she’s a cutie,” Vernal stated over the finishing music of The Pixies.
       “Yeah, she is,” Ray agreed.  He closed his wallet and slid it back into his pocket waiting for the first period bell to ring.
       “You going to the movies with her Friday night?” Vernal asked in curiosity.
       “Yeah.  Wednesday I’ll get my license and drive us.  Can’t wait until then,” Ray told him.
       “Man, I hate Mondays so bad . . .” Vernal whined.

       Donnie sat in his American History class counting the seconds of the black trimmed analog clock on the wall.  His foot lightly shook on the floor in impatient wait.  He held his mechanical pencil in his hand with the lead pressed to the paper but didn’t write anything.  He was too nervous to write.  While every other student in the class was writing on paper, Donnie was waiting for second period to come.

       Ray walked side-by-side with Vernal and Nicky walking across campus.  Nicky turned to his second period class and waved, “See ya, guys.”
       “See ya,” Ray called.
       Ray and Vernal walked off together across campus with their backpacks and CD players.
       “Hey, are we going to the Chevron after school?” Vernal asked.
       “Yeah, sure,” Ray responded, “I got five bucks to waste.”
       Vernal began to depart from Ray’s side walking off towards the gymnasium entrance.  “I’ll see ya later, man,” Vernal said goodbye.
       “Yeah, see ya,” Ray said.  Ray walked off alone towards English class with his backpack over his shoulder and the expectation of a Monday morning English class.  He flocked through the classroom door along with the other students and moved straight for his desk way in the back.  He sat down setting his backpack neatly at his side so he can reach in for a pencil or a piece of paper if needed.
       Donnie came into the class keeping to himself and seating himself in the empty desk to the left of Ray.  Sean miserably walked into the classroom knowing the routine: sit down, get out your pencil, and sit silently for an hour.  The teenagers took their seats and Jimmy and Eric were late once again still laughing obnoxiously over meaningless topics.
       Mrs. Dobson stood from her desk and got ready to start the class.  The final bell rang and all the students sat ready and prepared in their cramp desks.  “Okay, guys,” Mrs. Dobson started, “Let’s get started.  Now . . .”  She reads out of her teacher’s edition searching on what to teach for the day.  “Let’s begin on figurative language.  You don’t need your books for this.  I’ll just do this on the board.”  She grabbed a blue marker and started to write on the white board the words “Figurative Language.”
       Donnie sat nervously and quietly in his desk.  His desk was all the way in the corner of the class, in the back and to the left.  Next to him was Ray watching Mrs. Dobson write on the board.  In front of Ray sat Sean who wanted to be in bed sleeping, like everyone else.  Jimmy and Eric had to sit in the front rows up ahead.  They were passing notes and giggling quietly.  Donnie couldn’t help but imagine in his head . . .
       “We got tone, mood . . .” Mrs. Dobson listed from the teacher’s edition while she wrote on the board.
       Ray yawned.  He sighed and got comfortable in his chair.  He looked around the classroom seeing Helen, the class “hottie,” sitting quietly in her tight crimson blouse.  Then at Kyle, the nerd with the glasses and notes out and ready on his desk.  His eyes gazed over to Drew, the hippie of the school, not paying attention to one word Mrs. Dobson spoke.  Then his eyes lazily shifted over to see Jimmy and Eric passing the paper back to each other’s desks.
       Ray was tired.  He knew he had to stay awake.  Had to stay energized.  For what?  Who knows?  Sean didn’t care for the class lesson.  He didn’t care what Jimmy and Eric did behind Mrs. Dobson’s back.  He was also too tired.
       An empty seat in front of Donnie.  Donnie looked around at the classroom seeing Ray, Sean, Helen, Drew, Kyle, the rest of the class who he didn’t really know, and the dreaded and annoying Jimmy and Eric.  Bad seeds.
       “Now, some poets and writers use onomatopoeia in their works.  The use of tone and the point of view in Frost’s poem depicts nature in its prime.  In your essays you need to remember to support your reasoning,” Mrs. Dobson went on again.
       A few teens yawned.  Some others just paid little bit of attention or daydreaming.  Kyle scribbled down on his paper and Helen held her hand at her knee with her other hand holding her head up.
       Donnie was nervous.  A cold draft locked on his billion pores.  Frost.  His eyes were open and vigilant.  His left hand rested on his backpack in readiness.  Ray slowly looked over at Donnie’s nervous face.  Peculiar . . .
       The whole wide world stopped.  Complete slow motion; at least that’s what it felt like to Ray.  Everything was natural and in its norm but it wasn’t the same.  A fragment of fate was manipulated.  In the classroom.
       Ray’s eyes locked on the backpack to the left of Donnie’s desk.  He could see parts of the backpack behind and underneath the desk.  When Donnie turned to look in Ray’s direction, Ray would just turn away looking at Mrs. Dobson’s lesson.  But then returned his attention to Donnie.  That stern and ready look on his face.  Ready for anything.  What is he doing? Ray thought suspiciously.
       Donnie very slowly put his hand’s grip onto an object in his backpack.  Ray saw it in Donnie’s left hand inside the backpack that rested against the leg of the desk.  He slowly slipped it out from the open zipper.  It was a handgun.  Ray’s eyes shot open with a silent gasp!
       Donnie stared down the row of desks at Jimmy and Eric in the front grinning like mad predators doing their daily work of feeding off the weak.
I’ll see you in Hell, Jimmy and Eric, Donnie spoke inside his mind.
       At that same moment, Donnie whipped out the handgun from the backpack and aimed it forward down the row of desks.  No one saw besides Ray.
       Ray sprang into action grabbing Donnie’s arm shoving his aim to the side.  He suddenly blurted out to the classroom in that moment, “Get down!”  Donnie and Ray began to fight over the handgun.  The students stopped and saw the fight begin between the two over what appeared to be a black handgun with a black grip.  Their eyes shot open in terror.
       Ray didn’t quite understand why he was doing it.  Why he was fighting Donnie.  He never had anything against him.  He didn’t care.  He never hurt him.  But he was fighting him.  Two wolves fighting over a firearm.  Ray feared the barrel of the handgun praying to God that one of them didn’t pull the black trigger.
       The students slipped from the desks staring in panic.  Mrs. Dobson couldn’t speak from the fright of the handgun in their hands.
       They both tugged at the weapon using their greatest amount of strength possible growling like beasts.  The handgun slipped into Donnie’s hand and BANG!  Sean fell back collapsing on the desk in front of him letting all feeling and strength go.  The class screamed in panic.  Mrs. Dobson tried to control the scream of the classroom.
       Ray finally used force, still having a hold of the handgun, and charged Donnie into the wall.  Donnie growled at Ray madly.  The barrel aimed at the students.  Their eyes stared at the two in shock.  BANG!  Jimmy’s eyes flashed open as he collapsed off his feet feeling the earth slip away.  Ray couldn’t stop it.
       Donnie head butted Ray wanting the handgun more than anything.  But Ray didn’t give up to the pain in his face.  He held his grip tightly on the metal.
       Ray took a chance and charged Donnie into the wall again risking the handgun aiming at himself.  He finally slipped his hand underneath Donnie’s and tugged it away from him.  Ray stumbled back away taking a fall in the aisle of desks.  The class stared in shock at Ray getting the gun from Donnie.
       While Ray climbed to his panicky feet, Donnie slipped his hand into his backpack and pulled out a second gun.  Donnie and Ray aimed their guns at each other standing on opposite sides of the row of desks.
       Ray held his organs down his gut and his throat tightly and secured while he took his steps over Sean’s stiff but still warm body.  Ray slowly backed away from Donnie keeping his gun aimed at him.  The students were quiet and waiting for more to happen.  They were all backed away on the other side of the classroom with Mrs. Dobson.  Helen, Kyle, Eric, Drew, and everyone else.
       Ray became calm and aware of his situation.  He wanted nothing awful to happen to anyone else so he calmly spoke to Mrs. Dobson, “Mrs. Dobson . . .  Take everyone out of the classroom.  Quickly, now.”
       Donnie didn’t object, just standing quietly while he kept his gun aimed at Ray with a mad face.
       Mrs. Dobson quickly led the students out of the classroom leading them away.  The class was emptied leaving only Ray and Donnie left with the stiff bodies of Sean and Jimmy lying warm on the carpet floor.
       There was a long moment of silence between the two.  Ray couldn’t believe that something so awful could happen.  Out of any day in the year it had to happen that day.  Nothing special about the day, except it was a day of being ill equipped.
       Ray didn’t dare to speak to Donnie.  “Why?” Ray finally built the courage up to finally speak a word.  “What could possibly compel you to do something like this, Donnie?  We all have our grudges, but this is insane!”
       Donnie became madder at Ray.  He was silent until he finally responded, “How?  Why?  Are you a retard or something?  Do you not see the torment I get from assholes like Jimmy?  The living hell I suffer everyday?”
       “Donnie . . .  There are ways to settle problems but this isn’t one of them.  Murder doesn’t solve everything,” Ray protested.
       “No, but suicide does for me.  Homicide, then a quick fatal suicide.  Ray, if you want any chance on living I suggest you to put my gun down and get the hell out of here.  Now, while you still can.”
       “Donnie, I’m not leaving here.  All right?  I’m not leaving until we can work this out.”
       Donnie’s eyes stared at him in madness.  “Work what out?  What is there to work out!  You are nothing like me!  You don’t know what it’s like to be me!  Eventually, you get to a point where you can’t take it anymore!  When you can’t seem to handle the world and everyone in it!  You wonder what your status is in the world!  In the society of the world!  What are you, Ray!  What is your status?  I’m the lowest of all creatures!  Weak and injured to shits like them,” Donnie gestured to Jimmy’s body that gets colder by the second.
       “Jesus Christ, Donnie . . .  Life can be rough but you can’t just let simple things like Jimmy or Eric stand in your way!  I know it’s hard!  I know!  I have been there, Donnie!  Grade school, middle school; I felt the same way!  But this isn’t how you fix it.  There are alternatives.  Not taking a gun to school and killing someone innocent like Sean!” Ray yelled in pain.
       “Remember your words, Ray . . .  Because they will be your last.”

       The police cars parked in the parking lot and on the school campus.  The administrators and Mrs. Dobson directed the authorities to the classroom where the bloody murder took place.  The police peaked through the door’s window to see two figures standing silently in the classroom.
       The officers slowly opened the door to sneak into the classroom where Ray and Donnie still stood aiming their guns at each other.  “It’s all right, fellas.  Everything will be all right,” one officer spoke.
       “No it won’t,” Donnie spoke in assurance.  The officers had their guns aimed at Donnie backed away in the corner by his backpack at his desk.  Ray stood near the white board thinking about the blood slowly slipping out of Sean’s body.
       The officer that spoke before slowly put his hand on Ray’s shoulder trying to get him to lower the handgun.  “It’s okay, son.  Lower the gun.  Just slowly put it down.”
       Ray took a deep breath and slowly lowered it.  He took a step back allowing the officers to do their jobs.  But a dark feeling crept across and through his body and he slowly raised his gun back up at Donnie.
       “C’mon, son, let’s put it down,” the officer spoke to Ray hoping to save him from danger.
       “No.  I’m not leaving,” Ray quietly responded.  His eyes never left Donnie’s insane face.  “Donnie, I’m not leaving here until you put your gun down and come with me.”  Ray was playing the negotiator.  A classmate.  Sat next to him all semester in the one class.  Now the negotiator.  “We can work all of this out, Donnie.  Everything will be fine.”
       “Fine?  Are you really that dumb?  A brain will not function or work after brutal starvation,” Donnie poetically cited to Ray.
       “No one else here had to die today, Donnie,” Ray said with a feeling of hope.  The officers watched as Ray talked to Donnie and aimed his gun at him.  “You don’t have to die.  I don’t have to die.  No one else has to die.  We can all go home.  We can all go home and go to bed.  Because at school that’s what we usually want.  A nice good nap.  So let’s go home and sleep, Donnie.  Because no one has to die here.”
       Donnie paid no attention to Ray.  He just kept his muscles locked aiming the gun at him.
       “Look . . .  I’ll prove it.  I’ll lower my gun.  As long as you lower yours.  If you lower yours, I’ll lower mine.”
       “Never,” Donnie blurted.
       “No one has to die,” Ray repeated softly.  “We can all just walk away from this.  Your mind, your prison, your pain can all be healed.  In due time it can be helped.  People who will listen.  People who want to help you.  Those who care for you and love you.  Donnie, people do love you.  You are not a monster.  Okay, Donnie?  You are not a monster . . .”
       Nice touch, the officer thought.
       But Donnie didn’t move.  He didn’t twitch.  His same maddening look staring down the sights of his gun directed and fixed on Ray.
       Ray slowly and gradually lowered his gun downward.  He slowly bent down to the floor keeping his eyes on Donnie and laid the gun on the carpet.  “See?  You can trust me.  I want to help you, Donnie.  I want to help you,” Ray repeated over again truly meaning it.  But there was no effect on Donnie.  “We can help you.  There is hope for all of us,” he said softly.
       The longest thirty seconds were spent in the minds of the six living people in the classroom.  The four officers watching Ray and Donnie waiting for when they should start shooting.  Then the thirty seconds ended.  Ray’s gun was on the floor and Donnie was the one with a gun.
       Donnie said, “Hope God is nice.”
       BANG!  He fired a bullet into Ray’s chest and gunshots erupted in the classroom as the four officers fired madly at Donnie splattering his red blood to the carpet floor.  Donnie’s face quenched in anguish as he collapsed off his feet losing balance.
       Ray held his chest slowly falling through the space of the open air and dropping down on the carpet.  The room finally held its silence once again.  The officers checked Ray and two rushed out of the classroom to the school administrators who stared in panic.  “Call an ambulance!  Hurry!”
       Ray knew in his last seconds that he wasn’t going to make it to see Andrea Friday night.

       Sean’s mom hurried to the school jumping out of her car and hurrying to find the ambulance taking Sean away.  She cried and wept for her son.  The police tried to calm her while she panicked.
       I should have let him stay home! she yelled and cried at herself over and over in her head.  I should have let Sean stay home today . . . !