Nightmares

As boredom overtakes me, the loudest silence mingles with the overpowering urge to shatter it. Oxygen passes through me as I take a deep breath for both comfort and relief. The loudest, most agonizing scream darts like lightning through the small 5th grade classroom. The scream seems never ending and shatters the penetrating silence that echoed just seconds ago. But why am I the only one that seems to hear it? Why am I the only one in the class that seems to be clutching their ears in agony? I bolt from my seat and into the empty hallway. No one’s there, either! Where did it come from, then? The second the realization hits me, it’s like physical agony, ripping and clawing at my body like some invisible monster. My brother is dying. I knew it. I knew we had that telepathy stuff everyone is always telling us about, but this is different. It was a boys’ shriek, I was sure. I had heard it plenty of times before; when he fell off of the monkey bars and broke his arm when we were in the 1st grade. When he jumped off of a four foot slide and overreacted. Sometimes, it was a shriek of delight; like when he jumped off of the swings at the playground. Not now, though. Now, it resonated on fear. Now the image arrives. A man with the gun is all I see. Then nothing. The next thing I am aware of is the sight of my dead brother lying in the street, bloodied and hardly recognizable. I reach down to touch his hand, to assure myself that he isn’t still in pain, or alive at all. I try to touch him, with my mind, my body, anything. His mind feels like baked Alaska and his hand is its frozen counterpart. I body doubles in horror, and my fingertips gladly welcome the grief overwhelming me, slowly. Replace the pain, I beg. Take it all away. Calloused hands grasp my scrawny shoulders. My father looks down at me, and one of the roughened hands lifts to cover my gaping mouth as I scream.