Friday, December 20th, 2019
Math teacher Vaughn Marvan was giving up a Friday night because he’d heard some intriguing things about the quality of the new production, and he was curious. A student had told him that it was the most ridiculous play in the history of the school, maybe any school, so, he gave up Friday night. He made sure to pay attention, because he knew he was going to be bombarded with questions come Monday. Being the only African-American teacher at Bowl Valley High School, he had somehow become the representative of all People of Color to the faculty, so everybody was always pestering him for his opinion on everything. He’d briefly considered starting a newsletter, but it turned out to be a bigger hassle than it was worth, and he couldn’t come up with a funny name for it.
He thought it had to be some kind of joke, at first. The production couldn’t possibly be as bad as it seemed. At one point, he put up a finger and paused a conversation with another teacher and just fixed on what was happening on stage. The play had a gladiator theme. Vaughn didn’t know much about history, but he suspected authentic Roman spectators would have had something to say about gladiators exchanging dramatic dialogue for ten minutes instead of fighting each other. Also, he knew that there weren’t clocks in the Roman days and the emperor of Rome had clearly used the word. And at one point, he could have sworn that a chariot was being pulled by a unicorn.
Vaughn was not the first person to notice the smoke billowing up the steps. A student tapped his shoulder and pointed at it. Exactly then, people’s heads, student and parents alike, spotted the cloud emerging from a stairwell beside the stage. It was causing immediate confusion in the audience. Was it some kind of special effect? Vaughn knew this was unplanned, that’s why he broke into a run.
At the top of the stairs, he hit the wall of acrid smoke. He covered his nose and mouth, pausing for a moment to hack and cough, his lungs upset. Within a minute, emboldened people were suddenly gathered behind him, making lots of noise, but doing nothing.
"Don't come down here!" someone shouted from the floor below. It was the voice of a student, this got Vaughn moving, again. Down the stairs, black smoke poured from a doorway on the right side of the hallway. He recognized it as the trap room, where the stage elevator was located. He was under the impression that this room had been closed off for several weeks. Now it was spewing black smoke. A student with a sooty face was standing in the hallway, just outside the door. It was a face Mr. Marvan knew, but the boy’s name was a blank. His face lacked the panic you would expect of a child in this situation.
"Get away from there! Are you out of your mind?" Vaughn yelled.
The boy ignored him and plunged into the room. Vaughn was too surprised to say anything. The smoke was starting to make him feel dizzy. He approached the doorway carefully, his hands swatting the smoke away. He looked through the doorway. It was a vision of hell. The floor, the walls, all erupting in flames. The boy was standing in front of the stage elevator, struggling with something, but Vaughn couldn’t see what it was. Suddenly, the boy spun around and ran out the doorway. He was clutching some sort of package in his arms. Vaughn couldn’t see what it was.
"What is all this?" the man demanded. "What are you doing?"
"Get out of my way!" the boy screamed, shooting past him.
"Wait!"
The boy vanished into the dark smoke.
PHOOM!
The explosion was the loudest sound he’d ever heard in his thirty-seven years on earth. It knocked Vaughn back a few steps, rattled the teeth in his head. He dropped to his knees, sick and discombobulated. On the floor in front of him was the still figure of the student sprawled out on the floor, half out of the doorway. Vaughn crawled toward the boy, ignoring the raging inferno to his right. There was soot all over the kid’s face. He reached out and touched the boy’s throat, searching for a pulse. He tore his hand away.
“Help!” the teacher called out. “Help! There’s an injured student down here!” But he could barely hear himself in the cacophony of flames, much less be heard by others.