Page 81 - HMUN

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Nostalgia

- Srishti Ojha
The building seemed smaller than he remembered, the boisterous laughter and the chorusing
voices had inflated the school, made it swell with life and joy, a crescendo peaking at lunch
hour and leaving the building unrecognizable once its creators had disappeared. Its glazed
eyes were hollow, yet unblinking, carrying an aura of desperate welcoming. How very fitting
for a high school.

He didn’t exactly see his own time at school through rose tinted glasses, but the stillness of
the air and the waft of abandonment still made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Gingerly, he walked to the reception, irrationally sticking to the side of the path. The silence
hung heavy in the air, so tangible he could feel it settling in his lungs.

It was always strange to see a school without children in it, like being in a lonely airport or a
secluded highway rest stop. The clocks languishing without their usual attention, flakes of
rust on the school bell speaking volumes about disuse.

The blood on the walls didn’t help either.

Gunshots had riddled the walls, run through colourful math posters, lockers, doors. People.

It had been almost two weeks. Even so, the smell of industrial cleaners clung to the vestiges
of childhood. In the art room, one could almost believe that the blood was just paint, flung by
those unruly teens. But the neon police tape around the splatters allowed for no such
pretenses.

Prom posters still lined the walls, “A Magical Night” in glittery comic sans. They should’ve
been worrying about their dates, their shoes, their makeup. They should’ve been picking out
dresses for their graduations, not for their friends’ funerals.

The police and responders had tried their best to remove all traces of the tragedy from the
building; parents still came every day, to mourn, to regret, to cry. Candles clustered in timid