“This didn’t happen when we were in school.”
“That’s true, honey, it didn’t.”
“I just don’t get why now all of a sudden – wait, why do you? – you don’t have to sound so patronizing.”
“I’m just listening, honestly.” She changes from her robe into scrubs, loose fitting and dark purple as an eggplant. Her phone rings. She answers it on speaker. “Say hi to your father,” she says.
“Hi dad,” Lily says. “How’s the year so far?”
“Well, honestly, you wouldn’t believe it – I don’t know, maybe you would – but I have to make a speech today because a student got arrested and apparently there’s a rumor he was –”
“Oh my god, Dad, I’m so sorry.” Lily is the sweeter of our two children. She’s in college in Boston, and says she wants to do something with public relations, or maybe Spanish. There are kitchen sounds on her end. “How’d you hear? What are you going to say?”
“The chief of police woke us up,” Emily says. “It was 4:00 a.m. Crazy, totally crazy. I guess from what he’s telling us the FBI had been watching him for months, like, his social media stuff but also, you know, bank receipts. He had bought a bunch of guns and ammo and stuff, and then recently, I don’t know when, he didn’t say, he went out and got the same automatic whatever the guy in Las Vegas used.”
“And that’s when they decided to raid his house? Not, like, when he was buying regular guns? Regular old kill-people type guns?”
Emily laughs, but something in my face makes her stop and put her hands around mine, to cup them tightly. “It doesn’t make sense, I know, but at least they got him.”
“That’s true,” Emily says, “it’s so tragic, but it’s one less thing to worry about.”
“But who’s counting.” Lily says. “How’s Adee taking it all?”
“We’ll, she’s still sleeping, so I’m sure Facebook or whatever will update her as soon as she wakes up.”
“It’s Instagram, mom, or Snapchat, nobody uses Facebook anymore. Only, like, aunts and people trying to sell furniture.”
“Everybody knows that,” I say as I knot my tie.
“How about you, Dad? You think the students know yet? What are you going to say? How do you, I mean, how do you write that speech?”
Behind the backyard fence a red diamond rattlesnake unfurls and in a single strike catches a speckled side-blotched lizard camouflaging itself among some pebbles. Two house finches alight on the shed; and road crews begin cutting through asphalt in every state across this enormous unwieldy country; and politicians wake up thousands of miles from their homes, in apartments they share; and parents pick the ripest bananas from the bunch; and the rivers swell and dry and swell; and a few miles west, surfers sit and wait and watch a dozen Western sandpipers dig for beetle larvae in the wet sand washed clean by the last wave; and it all keeps going, always, and what can anyone do or say about any of it?
This story can be read as a continuation of ‘Nevermind‘ by Matt Liebowitz
Image: Guns in display cabinets in a shop from wikimedia commons. Uploaded a work by Anne and David from https://www.flickr.com/photos/annedavid2012/28801213597/ with UploadWizard
literally stories 
Matt
Effective follow-up to your first story “Nevermind.” The topic is too big to address with just one story. But little approaches help people to discuss and maybe learn, but no one will ever understand.
Excellent glimpse into a household’s reaction to such a dreadful possibility. So many people want a police state to respond to their own failure in parenting. In writing the first thing you think of is usually best, not so with a society.
Leila
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Excellent, realistic dialogue that reads like a play and I could see it in film or on stage, but then the refrain, that kind of zooms out and lifts us above the whole nation is masterful.
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A very difficult subject to write about but looking at this from the point of view of ‘others’ who are involved on the periphery is a clever way of delivering the story. The dialogue was very natural and believable I thought – good stuff – thank you – dd
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What can anybody say? The ending says it. A believable and sensitive treatment of a horrible subject.
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A sideways glance at the horror that is more effective than staring at it full on – tight, crisp and very powerful!
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Matt
I was totally impressed with this really original piece; the form of it was amazing…the realistic dialogue scene and then the sweep-out to the big picture was extremely well-done…Last year I received a text from one of my daughters that said “I love you dad there’s a guy with a gun outside the school”…luckily the school was already locked down…and the police apprehended the suspect as he was attempting to enter a side door; he was indeed carrying a loaded pistol…
Again, I want to highlight the really impressive originality of your story. It looks easy to do, and that is NOT easy to do. It says volumes in a small space, also NOT easy to do. There was sympathetic human wisdom behind the “ordinary world” surface of this tale, which on one level can even be called experimental or modernistic. Thanks for a truly excellent story…
Dale
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Hi Dale,
All I can say is that is something to be thankful for(?????)
And even though that would have been terrifying, it didn’t escalate. And that message from your daughter should be horrific but on the other-hand, hold that close to your heart!!!!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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Maybe the speech next?
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Matt
Like everyone else, I loved the naturalness of the dialogue. But for me, it was what happened ‘Behind the backyard fence’ that set it off. It could be added to any story I ever wrote, or almost anyone ever wrote, and it would be true. You would have to change some of the animals and a few of the landmarks, but it’s the way of things — from the serious to the trivial. There is an inevitability to the events of our lives ” . . . and what can anyone do or say about any of it?”
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Hi Matt – The comments on this may be a wee tad historical now!! But I wrote this a few days after reading it!
…
I think we are reluctant, well, cautious, in accepting these as the travesty that it is, is still happening.
But this does touch on the side-lines and we have published one with the same sort of outlook before.
This is one of those topics that is raw but I think as long as we don’t accept the gratuitous ones, we can explore the thinking.
On an off-shoot sort of thinking, that’s another thing I fucking hate about politicians – Look at trump with his nicked ear, you would think he had been crucified. But young Americans (Mainly) are being fucking slaughtered in their schools and colleges and what is done – Fuck all!
Same sort of mind-set here. Society and the establishment states that it’s deplorable when an MP is killed but we have been raped, murdered, stolen from and conned as long as we have been here and fuck all is done.
We had some civil disobedience due to those poor three wee girls being stabbed, but that’s not the reason. We just had a whole load of wankers wanting to fight with the police. My point is, those arrested (Who are fucking with the establishment) have now been steam-rollered through the courts and have already been sentenced. (Which should happen with all cases) While this was happening I saw a news report about a young woman who had been raped and it has taken more than six years for the case to go to court. That paedo Edwards is another example in a reverse way – He’s been found guilty, actually pleaded guilty but it is going to be October before he is sentenced – Why!! It’s a simple solution – Have courts open 24-7. Drunk drivers, assaults, theft and all those annoying crimes, get them to the judge and get them sentenced when they happen. (If they are done bang to rights) That would thin down the herd and that poor woman may not have to wait six years. Also change the High Court system, where only crimes that are potentially a ten year plus sentence are held there. A court should be a court. This is all so simple but and it’s a huge BUT – If that happened, we would need a shit load more jails.
Same as the health service, make the doctors / consultants / surgeries be available at the weekend. Us folks need to work shifts and weekends so should those on eighty grand plus.
But no, that will never happen due to EVERY fucking government wanting to appease certain groups and money men.
Rant over!!
…Excellent my fine friend!!!
Hugh
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