There's a Kind Of Hush

Not as much loud posturing and demandings to be heard. Students are more polite and eyes ask questions before voices do. We've come through a tragedy, the hardest part anyway, but two of the students and a teacher are still in the hospital--wheelchairs, pins, screws, crutches, transfusions, more surgeries--and everybody is walking a little more carefully. Substitute teachers are covering the classes, and getting ready for a long stay there. The quietness is a heavy kind. Life goes on without any more jolts...just a few flutters...and a sorrow-drenched slowness. True, there are also some spots of normal, head-shaking smiles at these people around us who mean a little more than they did a week ago...before the tragedy shot our adrenaline up in an anguished fear.