It was early September. I remember the freshness of that Monday morning. Fall was in the air--my favorite time of year. It was dark when I had gotten up and barely getting light as I went to school at my ususal time and my husband went to work at the Post Office--around 7:15--I just thought it must be a cloudy day--but I remember that smell in the air--it was a different kind of freshness--there was something different about the air that morning. I got to school and I noticed that it had not gotten any lighter outside. Daylight savings time was a month away--I was ready for it now. I still did not realize anything major was happening. I prayed God's protection over my classroom as I did every morning as I turned on the lights and unlocked the door. In came a student named Charlie who had been waiting in the hall.
"What's going on with the weather?" he stated in a way that was not a question as he put his book bag on his desk. "Are we expecting a hurricane or something?It seems weird out there."
Katrina was not that far off as a memory--even to those of us so far inland, we would never soon forget. But no, the weather forcast had mentioned only slightly warmer weather with no chance of rain until the end of the week.
I began my usual routine of turning on my computer after a weekend rest, and it came on with lightning speed--wow- I was impressed--those fiber-optic cables really are giving us increased speed. However, it would not stop!--It started going through web pages and searches as fast as I could blink my eyes in amazement. This has to be some kind of malicious software problem--or hackers getting in to our network and putting bugs in it---Oh I'm so tired of having computer issues. I immediately sat down and began pushing keys to try to get it to respond to me. It slowed down and then just lingered for a moment before shutting down black. So this is what a crash is--I often wondered what it was to have a computer crash, and now I've had it happen to me. Charlie was still watching and interested in my computer situation. "Everybody's computers must be messing up today" he said, "I heard Mr. Cane ask Ms. Harris if her computer was working." Well?... I waited for more. "I didn't hear what she said, just that there was a problem." Then he walked out as usual to go walk the halls before the first bell.
So I went on to sign in at the office--it sure is noisy to be so early, I thought.--the halls were beginning to fill with people in sort of a rush--everybody was talking---
"Did you hear about that?" they were saying--"A car went flying over Jake's car and into that old Honda in front of Jake."
"Over?" someone else sounded out, "How did it do that? Have you talked to Jake? What about Jake? Who was driving the Honda?" Everyone was talking and asking questions.
Sounds like someone was driving wreckless--being an Evil Kineval dare devil!--I continued to walk toward the office and listen to what people were saying. Was I just imagining it, or was that a strange metallic smell in the air? All this talk about cars flying. Bizarre things seem to keep happening this morning.
About that time I heard a grinding metal sound and so I ran up to the window that looked out over the front of the school. I could see down the road and it turned out to be a bus that couldn't stop and scraped up next to a line of traffic, mixing metal all the way until it turned sideways and skidded down the road and off the pavement. What is wrong with everybody's driving today? Was it the strange dimness of the sun? ---like the twilight--hard to see? Even before I could finish that thought the lights in the hall flickered, some went out and some came back on then flickered non-stop. This is crazy--the school's power is messed up, that's what must have messed up my computer too.
The principals were in the usual Monday morning meeting. One came out quickly as I approached the sign in desk and tried to calmly say to forget signing in, we are closing the school before the bell rings. But he got more and more alarmed as he heard himself announcing: "The buses are turning around to take kids back--The radios and newstations are announcing to the parents---it's happening everywhere--Let's hope most people didn't even waste their time getting out of bed this morning. This is crazy!---- buses wrecking, cars flying in to each other--and did you know that no computers are working?"
So it wasn't just my computer--this is a schoolwide---or area wide problem. I almost felt better--then I remember the strange wrecks and the funny smell of the air and that's when it hit me---something was changing and we could not stop it.
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