The Too Soon Tomorrow
I am paralyzed at the thought. Could it be real?
Please, oh please, say it ain’t so.
Guns in the classroom. Even one coveted and held by the instructor. The care-giver-in-charge or servant-leader, or whatever name you wish to grant the teacher. The woman with a gun and ultimate authority in that blessed space.
I spend countless hours at the front of a classroom or pondering the quickened heart and wondrous beauty of that exalted place – one of pride, of joy – and yes, of transcendence.
A gun in my waistband looks alien, as I look down in the future. In fact, I look down with loathing and disgust at the killing tool I am entrusted with in this dark, too soon tomorrow.
What gives me the strength to lift the gun to put someone else down? Who gives me the responsibility to spill someone else’s blood?
How do I find the tortured but ultimate peace that King (ML Jr), I know of from that last march in Memphis, who wondered what next will come from the sure loss of my life? Is there the promised land of ultimate liberation – or only the crying of my Mother?
Why must I – the nameless one who is the teacher – be the anointed one who stops the killer from his – always his – desire to right a gendered slight? Why did he choose to pick up a weapon for his supposed patriarchal duty?
And what comes next? Perhaps my ambidextrous skill to put down simultaneously two wounded boys from their imagined girl trouble? Before they kill my Friday after-school winding-down colleague or the fourth tight-end tenaciously holding on to a practice squad position who is cherished by his Daddy?
When does it end? Oh, when does it end?
The beloved community, so majestically-hued in most teacher’s imagined future, is gone. Forever…. And never to return….
Please, oh please, say it ain’t so.
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