by Richie Narvaez

Trigger warning for school shooting.

There is a school shooter in the building.

Wait, let me build the scene.

I teach creative writing at a community college. It’s not Ivy League, but I still teach with the same passion, integrity, duty as if it were.

Sunlight beams through grit-covered windows crisscrossed with chicken wire. The room smells of coffee, disinfectant, and chalk. A hopelessly regular classroom.

Today’s lesson is creating a sense of place.

I have Burroway’s sublimely adequate textbook open, am about to attempt to delight the class with a charming anecdote about that rascal Jay McInerney, who I met once at a book signing. For one of his books. I’ve not had a book signing since ’92.

(Critics did enjoy my novel. It got a nice write-up in Kirkus. But what I remember most is the Goodreads troll who wrote, “Makes for choppy narration.”)

As on most days, in the middle of my anecdote, Claire, a flurry of citrus, vanilla, and blonde highlights, strolls in twenty-five minutes late, as if she owns the classroom. Because of course, she does. As on most days, I have to pause to collect my thoughts. She places her perfectly formatted pages—see, Shunn really isn’t hard to follow—atop my desk, atop my lecture notes. Then she sits, second-row middle, fiddles with her bagel, even though the syllabus explicitly states, “No eating is allowed.” She coyly soothes the bagel’s burnt edges with cream cheese as alabaster as her skin.

She writes about her love affairs and ignores every suggestion I make.

• Never use “beautiful” in your writing. It’s cliche.
• Never use “heart” in your writing. It’s cliche.

She will get an A in class because reasons, as my students say.

There is a school shooter in the hallway. You have just started class, and you can tell because there’s a feeling in the air that’s different from all the many, many drills. Somewhere someone is screaming. And then you hear the now too familiar pops of gunshots, distant.

Let’s meet more characters.

As on most days, in plods—let’s call him Stanley—in plods Stanley an hour late. Surly, wearing a jean jacket that has been perfectly distressed, a red plaid shirt, combat boots, and fingerless gloves. Writes about loneliness, dead animals, taking drugs. If typed, these plotless stories are single-spaced, and inevitably have some ugly stain.

• Use strong active verbs a to show action.
• Choose active voice over passive.

Still, he will pass the course. I’ve had other Stanleys in class before. The one time I failed a Stanley, I spent months looking behind my back in the parking garage.

Security texts everyone. Sirens wail closer. Your wife will be getting an alert about this on her phone, something to finally interrupt her Instagram scrolling.

The rest of the students blend together. Most wander in on time, pay attention, engage with the material, try. Then there are those for whom the class is a place to not-so-stealthily text. Or nap.

On rare occasions, you get one who is talented. Allison went on to write a bestseller, win a Pulitzer. She didn’t thank me, despite everything we’d gone through together, in her foreword, her acceptance speech, or in any interviews she’s ever given.

• The convention is to keep your POV consistent.
• The convention is to keep your verb tense consistent.

The school shooter is right down the hall. You hear the now too-familiar pops of gunshots, close.

As the mandatory Active Shooter training videos—“Run, Hide, Fight (Full Course)”—have instructed you, you bunch the students into a corner, tell them to remain calm. you go to turn off the light, cover the glass, jam a chair under the doorknob—

—but there is the school shooter already opening the door.

And, look, it’s your prize student Claire, wielding an AR-15. “I do all the extra credits,” she might say, “and then you make me the villain?”

Just kidding, or JK, as your students write. Of course it’s not Claire. In a genre story, that might suffice for shock value, but without foreshadowing it’s cheap, lazy. Statistics are statistics. Of course it’s Stanley. Though it might’ve been more of a fresh twist if it were Allison.

You make a mental note to make notes to a story about that.

Then: As the authority figure, you know you must rush Stanley, take a hit for your students, your charges, for they have their whole lives in front of them. Your wife and you have just put a down payment on the co-op of your dreams, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to keep affording it given recent downward trends in enrollment.

You step forward, arms rising. Stanley shoots you straight through the heart.

JK.

Actually, the bullets staccato up your belly, your chest, your head. Your brain matter and all your memories—including the one of meeting that rascal Jay McInerney—and all of your feelings, including, yes, regret, remorse, for never having finished your second novel—speed out the back of your skull. But you use “heart” because it’s a nice callback to the note given earlier, and sometimes the effect your story will have is more important, more beautiful than fact. Or craft.

For example, you die believing you have given your brains, your life to stop the bullets from hitting Claire. But in that case you are telling, not showing, because reasons.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

I am the award-winning author of more than seventy published short stories. I have two novels out, Hipster Death Rattle and the Agatha-and Anthony-awarded Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, as well as two short story collections, Roachkiller & Other Stories and Noiryorican. You can find out more about me at richienarvaez.com.