And It Came To This

Three men ran-walked down the hall pushing the gurney. Yellow fluorescent T5s shining corroded on speckled tile squares, one mint colored tile for every five beige. The fall-out shelter brown brick corridors guided them to ROOM G7 with Vice Principal Craut leading, keys jangling from his lanyard like Nordic livestock.

“Which one is she!” the thick-necked buzz cut demanded, his cargo pants bulging unecessarily full of gauze and band-aids, while springing through the classroom door.

“Chuck, man, that’s why we have the bag, man” his EMT unit insisted, sipping ersatz coffee.

“And if I get separated from the bag, say, in smoke or in a confusing place, then what? I need gauze on my person, buddy. No lie, man.”

“That’s her. On the ground,” the substitute teacher, her first and last day, said, pointing to a small girl sprawled irenicly on the ground, her fairy-tale fingers and hands covered in cacophonic colors from finger painting. Her father’s Oxford, shot through with polyester, was worn backwards smock style. She lies surrounded with petrified faces draped in their father’s worn pajama tops and button-downs, similar to Paul’s inverted crucifiction, eyeing their felled classmate.

“Mrs. Mister, how long has she not been breathing?” Chuck asked, no time to spare, cutting vertically the Oxford off Cassandra with medical scissors pulled from his utility belt.

The substitute with Dalmatian dogs embroidered on her cardigan stared mute; most saw malnourished cows. EMT apprentic Philip Rockingham assumed spotted Whippets.

“Never. She’s been breathing the whole time,” the substitute relayed.

“What happened? How long has she been down?” the third EMT asked.

“I don’t know. I mean . . . she was finger painting and just became soulless, fell off her chair and laid there.”

“I’m gonna go with paint fumes. Maybe,” August Washington, the skeletal bus driver, offered.

“August,” snapped Craut, “Get back on your bus. Now please.” August had unnecessarily guided the ambulance from the street to the clearly marked main school entrance, flagging widely the ambulance down with her tattered raglan, running alongside the ambulance, slowly it down, in effect, the driver verifying, “Chuck, that Poodle-haired freak still in my blind spot? I need to get right up on the curb,” before her untied shoelace ensnared the stretcher wheel in the entrance lobby—the first time Chuck removed his medical scissors and the second time August vowed to wear velcro shoes.

August Washington’s shoe was swiftly cut free in the elementary school mezzanine where she was left behind lying beside the empty trophy case. “ROOM T15,” she yelped after the EMT, the stretcher and pit-stained Vice Principle Craut, “the damaged little one’s in T15.”

“T15,” the EMT verified aloud while jogging officially, checking the nautical wristwatch he once foolishly showered in, subsequently fogging the case and yellow second hand.

“Absolutely not,” Craut gasped in correction, “she’s in G7. Right around the corner. In Mrs. Mister’s room.” Chuck mistook the substitute for Mrs. Mister. Mrs. Victoria Misters.

T13 and T14 were the auxiliary boiler-room and the HVAC, respectively. T15 didn’t exist.

“Mrs. Mister is out sick. That’s a substitute,” Craut barked, expediting the process because the substitute stared without answering Chuck. Chuck being convinced the substitute was Mrs. Mister, staring curiously at the woolen bulimic bovines on the cardigan.

Paint smeared Cassandra, golden hirsute covering her cherubic face, was strapped to the gurney, neck brace in place.

“Thanks, mister,” Chuck said to Craut, who helped secure Cassandra, while staring at the substitute.

With Cassandra loaded in the ambulance, Chuck began to pull the door closed from the inside when Craut and August Washington sprinted upon him.

Blurted August, “I’ll ride with them. You follow behind.” The EMTs pushed August from entering the now-delayed vehicle. “That doesn’t happen in real life. No one can ride.”

August instinctively ran towards her idling bus. “August, absolutely not!” Craut, balding for obvious reasons, scalded. “You can only drive your administrated route. That’s county property. Don’t even think about it.”

August screamed after the departing ambulance, “Type-A positive! I’m Type-A positive—if it comes to that!”

Resting in the child’s ward, Cassandra regained consciousness and remained under critical watch, constantly measured vital signs beeping intravenously on her bedside near uneaten vanilla pudding.

The ER doctor approached the waiting room. Cassandra’s parents wanted answers.

Doctor Stevens waved them towards the private holding room. Well stocked with tissues. Most families begin crying uncontrollably when brought into the private waiting room, called Bereavement Central by hospital staff, seeing the excessive floral tissues boxes covering the central coffee and end table. They assume demise. Cassandra’s mother followed suit, combusting in tears. Her father embracing a stoic bitterness. Suffer silently, soldier.

“Sorry to bring you in here,” Dr. Stevens said, pocketing his hands, thumbs exposed, “My ex-wife was about to come into the regular waiting room. Saw her through the window. She wants our Pug, Winston, back for the weekend. Can’t spare him, you see, because I actually have Sunday off. I hope you understand. Been too humid for Winston to walk on my days off. Tiny nostrils and humidity are big trouble. With the crisp autumn and everything, well, I’d like to have him this Sunday. Enough with Winston, let’s talk about Cassandra.”

“Dick,” Cassandra’s mother growled.

“Please, Dick was my father’s name. Call my Rick,” Dr. Richard Stevens said. “Cassandra is going to make it. She’ll be fine.”

“Wonderful,” her parents glowed.

“What triggered Cassandra’s collapse? Is it genetic?”

“Atavstic. You could say. Or environmental,” Dr. Stevens began. “Cassandra will be fine. She’s in mild shock right now. She suffered from excessive self-expression.”

“Excessive self-expression?”

“It’s something we’re seeing more and more. Children are over encouraged to express themselves. They’ve become soulless, hollow creatures. Things can go wrong. And they have. They spend so much time expressing themselves that it leaves no time to cultivate any ideas, concepts or emotions actually worth expressing. Vapid circular self-expression results. People just start expressing the mere fact that they’re constantly expressing themselves or spin their wheels encouraging other people to express themselves. It’s rampant in our current culture.”

“Recently? Is it medical?”

“The later 20th and early 21st century. Over self-expression cripples young children and many adults. Particularly when regurgitating commercialized entertainment or glorying the idea of self-expression just because they can. It’s abusive.”

Cassandra’s mother agonized over what could have been Cassandra’s truthful eulogy:
Cassandra died, like many other children her age, doing what she loved: regurgitating derivative commercial ideals, situations and sentiments concocted in heavily group-studied corporate campaigns.

Doctor Stevens continued: “To be optimistic, the outer several layers of most individuals are group-based. Mimetic. People imitating observed social behaviors. A lot of people are annoying, irritating because of this. We shoulnd’t dismiss them. Underneath their grating aping are beautiful people with unique perspectives and nuanced emotions. With a capacity for real change and growth. Everyone applauded the Enlightenment, Martin Luther without critical thought if you ask me. If they could’ve only seen, today, the pernicious effects,” Steven opined, “they’d see the irritating effect of self-expression. It’s not pretty. Millions of people thinking they’re special and the undying need to express said belief.”

“Mediocrity is the new nepotism,” her father, arms crossed, forlorn and futile, snipped at the window.

“With upward social mobility . . . well you’re shit out of luck. People will talk your ear off about their dreams and visions ad infintum.”

“I remember when shit was shit. Those were simple days.”

“Honey, please. Aristocracy won’t heal Cassandra. Stay positive.”

“She’s right. Pining for hereditary patronage is merely wishful anachronism. Cassandra nearly self-expressed herself to death peddling clichés and what they call ‘common sense.’”

“Isn’t she a bit young for this?” her mother asked clinically.

“No. Prevention never starts too young. Avoid self-expression, cliché and self-identification through material products. We don’t advise not expressing. Responsible self-expression. We want our youth to be respectful stewards of self-expression.”