Ropes

There's a pipe in the Chemistry room, drooping down from some chemistry related contraption above my head. It is as thick as my thumb, and drips down, around and back up in a loop. It's tear drop shaped. I never took chemistry so I don't know what the pipe is for, but I'm sitting here taking my standardized test and I can't make myself focus on electrons or particles or experiments on a salmon population. I'm just staring at that pipe. And in my head, it's not a pipe.

With my feet drenched in 5:30 dew and my eyes drenched in 5:30 sun, I stood puzzling in the midst of the yelling, the crying and that one blood curdling scream. Their bodies jostled around each other - slow motioned in my memory- as they threw you back and forth mosh pit style in front of the barn door. I was dazed, baffled and still blinking awake until I saw, through the crevices of their bodies, the rope in the barn. Still hanging there. Still swinging.

There's a window shade in the English room with a string dangling from it. The window is open, and the little plastic hoop at the end of the string is twirling rhythmically in the breeze. We're talking about human rights, about those indefinable things that we all, as global citizens deserve. That one boy next to me who never shuts up leans over and whispers, "A smart black person and a dumb black person are sitting in a room and the phone rings. Who answers it?...The dumb black person because the smart one isn't real." I wouldn't laugh at this on a good day, but today more than ever I want to turn to the boy with the weasely face and shove a pencil down his throat. I don't. I don't do or say anything. I'm too busy staring at that little plastic ring, spinning faster and faster as the wind picks up.

Sitting in your backless hospital gown, you were asked if you would have gone through with it. My fingernails dug into my other hand as I prayed for the right answer. I've found myself counting on higher powers a lot more since I saw that rope. When Charity found out what happened, she told me that during times of unimaginable difficulties, lots of people find comfort in trusting the improbable. I didn't answer her one way or another, but thought of that day in the ER when I prayed, and knew she was right. When she led me upstairs to take a nap, I laid down until she left the room, then sat up and kneeled on the bed facing the window. I looked up at the sweet blue through the budding branches, and I thought of your rope. I thought of how you told the nurse that you watched the sun come up with it resting on your shoulders.

There's a bright orange extension cord hanging from the backstage lighting. It coils around itself in a graceful circle, then twists back like a vine so that only the loop is left hanging. I almost laugh when I think how often I've been haunted. I'm standing in the dark in my heavy, sequined costume with a deep white fur across my shoulders and I can hear my cue steadily approaching. I try to clear my throat, try to tear my gaze out to the empty microphone looming- waiting for me- but I can't. I'm still stuck in your ropes.

I think the hardest thing was carrying on. Sitting still. Answering correctly. Thinking straight. Not crying. Not helping. The hardest thing was sitting here doing nothing, when I knew you were hours away with a deep red burn still circling your neck.