This is the first I've written in a while and probably the first time I've posted to this page something that wasn't depressing or fear-inducing, so I hope it's as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write.
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The wind blew against his face and whipped past his ears and the last thing he saw before everything went black was the truck as it came thundering around the corner.
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"Ah, and here I was expecting to see another styrofoam ball solar system. Tell me what you guys got."
Mr Miller was young. Too young, he thought sometimes, to have such a responsibility as teaching these kids the complexities of tectonic movement and life around deep sea vents. He was fresh faced, fresh minded and fresh out of school.
"Its a volcano," she said, her arms behind her back, one thin hand grasping another thin wrist.
"Yeah, Mr Miller, you'll like it." The other one stuttered, his gaze shifting to the other side of the room. His eyes widened as a boiled egg was suddenly sucked into the bottom of a flask, extinguishing the match beneath.
"Yeah? Well it sure looks cool," Mr Miller said. "Show me how it works." He crossed his arms and planted his feet, furrowing his brow in his best make-my-day stance.
Kaylee giggled, her huge orange shirt making her look even smaller than she actually was. Mr Miller had told the kids to wear one of their parents' old shirts today, knowing they'd be destroyed. Billy, his attention still anywhere but at his own table, had already proved the importance of that good judgement. The smears of invisible ink that had turned out not so invisible after all decorated the front of his shirt in a mockery of good tie-dye.
"It's all about the vinegar, Mr Miller," the third one said with a hint of disdain in her voice. Ash liked to be the leader, he'd assessed. If she was there, she was in charge. She reached for the measuring cup at the edge of the table.
"I want to do it!", Kaylee whined, her shrill voice rising as she quickly brought her hands out in front of her, one set of thin fingers curling around a measuring cup full of smelly liquid. Ash, the leader, redoubled her efforts, reaching towards the measuring cup as Kaylee brought it to her side, away from Ash's hands. "I'm in charge, you little brat."
"You did it last time!", the smaller one pleaded, the vinegar sloshing agaisnt the sides of the cup. Billy was across the room now, two liters of diet coke under one arm and a roll of Mentos in his hand. Mr Miller's pocket vibrated.
"Girls! Come on, I want to see this thing go. Ash", he said, stepping around the table and pulling the two girls gently apart, "why don't you tell me what happens while Kaylee does the first step of whatever cool thing you guys have put together?" Ash looked up at him, her lips dramatically forming into a pout, "But Mr Miller, she doesn't even know how to do it!" He felt Kaylee push against his side, measuring cup held protectively to her chest. "I do too!"
Mr Miller wondered how they'd ever gotten even so far as having the volcano here. He was fairly certain the only chemical reaction he'd be likely to see in this five foot area was the deadly reaction of girl + girl = explosion. "It's vinegar, right?", he said quickly, trying to stop the killing before it began. "I didn't even want to do this stupid experiment anyway," Ash stated, storming off across the room in a huff, nose up and feet stomping.
Kaylee set the measuring cup down next to the volcano and moved her eyes to look up at Mr Miller without lifting her head. "She's a jerkface." Mr Miller couldn't help but laugh. "You know you're not supposed to call anyone names, Kaylee." His pocket vibrated again as he kneeled beside her, resting his elbow against the surface of the table. "Well she is. She's always trying to boss everyone around." She turned her whole body away from her teacher, the sulkiest face on the planet forming over her features.
Mr Miller looked around conspiratorily, leaning towards Kaylee. "She's not over here now, you know, so it looks to me like you're the boss." He clapped his hand on her shoulder. "Now come on, I want to see this thing go!" He stood up and put his face directly over the volcano, peering down into the open vent. He raised one hand, extending his finger and sticking it down into the opening.
"Stop! No, you'll mess it up!" Kaylee darted over towards him, slapping his hand out of the way and giggling in spite of herself. "Well if you dont show me I'm gonna have to do it myself," Mr Miller said, slowly going for the measuring cup. "I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it!" Kaylee grasped the measuring cup and lifted it towards the volcano. Little girls were as bipolar as they came.
Mr Miller's pocket vibrated again. "Watch this, Mr Miller, watch." Kaylee dipped the measuring cup over as he fished in his pocket, wondering what could possibly be so important this early in the day. An unknown number flashed over the touch screen. He hated using his phone during class but he couldn't help the funny feeling that washed over him just as the first trickle of vinegar disappeared into the depths of Kaylee's paper mache experiment.
"Hello, is this Mr Miller?", the disembodied voice inquired into his ear, his mouth curling into a smile as he watched the first frothy explosion erupt down the sides of the paper mache. Kaylee jumped into the air, her ponytail flipping up behind her as she clapped her hands. "See? Isn't it so cool?", she said. Ash rolled her eyes from across the room, arms still firmly across her chest.
"Awesome!", he said, raising his fist towards Kaylee's hand, her fist meeting his in the best kind of congratulatory gesture. "This is he," Mr Miller answered into the phone.
"This is Kandburg Regional Hospital. It's about your brother." Diet coke fizzed around his shoes. Billy ran past him, shirttails flapping.
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The hospital was cold. Hospitals are always cold. Mr Miller checked his watch, his foot tapping impatiently against the white tile. He wrung his sweaty hands and looked up and down the emergency room again, leaning to look towards the double doors on the far side. His hands fell to his knees and he raised himself up, breathing in heavily. "Excuse me, miss?", he said, his eyes lighting on the nearest nurse. She wiped her hands on her blue scrubs, "Sir, I told you already, we'll let you know as soon as we know." She offered a tired smile to him. "Just take a seat, okay?" She stepped around the counter, placing one hand on his shoulder and guiding him towards the row of straight-back chairs with happy green plants on either end.
He shrugged her off, running his palm across his forehead and over his short brown hair. "Fuck," he muttered. "Fuck fuck fuck." He walked towards the window, only realizing after he was standing directly in front of it that the blinds were closed. A stab of guilt shot through him. He knew he shouldn't have bought his brother that skateboard.
"Sir?"
He looked down at the woman seated next to him. "God,", he blurted, looking back to the window quickly. The baby in her arms had only looked up at him for a moment, but it was a long enough moment to give him an eyefull of round pink nipple, a drop of milk still clinging to it as if for dear life. She didn't try to cover herself up. He looked again, suddenly self-conscious that maybe it was rude to be self-conscious about something so natural. The baby turned back to the task at hand.
"What's a 12 letter word for fluke?" Mr Miller shifted from one foot to the other, attempting to look anywhere on earth but at this woman next to him. She held her phone in one hand, the daily crossword taking any attention she might have otherwise put towards this man staring no where else but at her nipple. Her breast seemed almost to be coming at him from around the baby's head. She leaned toward the table in front of her, dropping her phone in her lap. Magazines slid over each other as she pulled a diet coke from the table's surface. She lifted the soda to her lips and looked up at him, her lips twisting impatiently. The baby clawed at her massive breast and the loudest sound in the world was the tiny sucking noise as he ate hungrily.
Mr Miller took a seat two down from her without a word. He opened the first magazine he touched and scanned the middle page, desperate to no longer see nipple everywhere he looked. He didn't read a single word, his fingers thoughtlessly flipping from page to page every other second.
"It starts with a C," she said, looking at him again. He pursed his lips and raised his eyes, then checked his watch again. The baby started crying, losing the nipple again. "Aww," the woman said, bouncing the baby on her knee, "She just misses her daddy. Ain't that right, sweetie?" The baby shreiked, milk bubbling out from the corner of her mouth. "He'll be alright though, honey, he'll be just fine." The woman looked at Mr Miller again, mistaking his utter silence for some hidden desire to have a conversation. She dropped her voice to just above a whisper. "He was in an accident, you know. Someone was out in the middle of the street like a fool." She huffed, "People should learn to stay out of the road." The baby continued to bounce up and down, shrieking. The woman's bare breast rippled like the sea as she turned back to her crossword.
Mr Miller checked his watch again.
"Mr Miller?" He was on his feet before the second word drifted over the heads of the sick and injured around him. "Yes that's me, right here," he said, tripping over his shoes. The triage nurse stood in a doorway across the room. "If you'll come this way please, your brother is waiting for you." Mr Miller walked past the woman and her baby. She lifted the diet coke to her lips again. "Coincidence," he blurted as he brushed past her. The woman looked up from her crossword. "Huh?" The baby flailed and threw up, spurting slick white milk across the woman's collarbone. She jerked, dropping the soda. Diet coke fizzed across the white tile floor as Mr Miller stepped through the double doors and into triage.
