The Shape of My Future

2002 

My bedroom was at the end of the hallway. The walls were lined with Precious Moments wallpaper; little girls and boys all with wispy hair and white skin, bows holding pigtails and heart shaped patches on their jeans. All reciting bible verses and holding flowers. We were never a family for nightly prayers, and as I was growing the wallpaper was starting to curl at the edges.   

In the same hallway as my bedroom was the bathroom. I was walking past it – the door was open, even though it was being used. My stepfather was showering. I had to use the bathroom and there was only one in the house. I stepped on my Disney princess stool, hoisting my figure onto the cold, round seat.  

Privacy was never something grasped in tight, slobbery, baby hand clutches. My mother and grandma had no shame getting changed in front of me nor walking to the bathroom naked to shower. Doors had locks, but they were never to be used.  

I’m washing my hands when he turns the shower knob all the way right and opens the curtain.  

“What the hell are you doing?” My stepfather’s eyes scrunched up, his nose pointing at me. He lunged for the towel with one arm. The other, he extended and swept me out of the room. I would have nothing to compare it to until I watched Wipe Out for the first time and inflatable red tubes smacked fully grown adults into the water, the sound of them hitting the water’s surface audible from the comfort of my couch. I was carried by the arm off of the tile floor and into the hallway wall before sliding down, just like the tears that followed.   

My nose felt hot. I was still, then ran for my room, closing the door behind me. I curled up in the corner next to my dresser, sobbing, staring at the wallpaper, curled, mimicking me.   

2011 

In my grandmother’s house on the wall between the kitchen and the living room there are markings for the height of my mother until she was thirteen. A straight line up, until she plateaued in early adulthood. 

In fifth period history, we draw events for the American Industrial Revolution on a timeline. We all draw the lines with a ruler, as if history doesn’t repeat itself, as if history didn’t invent the wheel. 

 2010 

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.”  

I’ve had the Lord’s prayer memorized for a few years now. My stepfather has me baptized at the same church as him. At confirmation, we learn that the inside of the chapel is meant to be shaped like an upside-down boat. I feel like one of the cattle in a herd on Noah’s arc. The pastor walks us over to the altar.  

“You see how there’s a semi-circle shape? The reason it’s not a full circle is because the other half is in heaven.”  

My future is an angel at the altar of God. My future is the shape of a cross necklace I am given when I become confirmed in a faith I fundamentally disagree with. I let it rust in the box.  

2014 

At work I’m making small talk with the new server. 

“What are you studying?” 

“Nursing.” Gold hoop earrings, a necklace that says her own name, bleach blonde hair in a claw clip, “You?” 

“History Education. I want to be a Social Studies teacher.” We chat about how I want to decorate my classroom in the future. She says I give the vibe of the teacher that only uses fairy lights in her classroom. I smile. I think, though, I don’t want to be trapped inside a box all the time; I want to sit on the grass of the football field and read.  

2011 

My family is a blue-collar, gun-owning sort of family. I was taken hunting three times, third times’ the charm, they were hoping, but I cried each time. There’s a photo of my first time in my dad’s office. The grass is matted down by dark, sticky blood and stomping footprints and there’s still a wetness to the doe’s nose. If you look closely, you’ll be able to see the glistening of tears in my eyes. This doe’s future was bullet shaped and sharp. 

2014 

The nametags on the door in the guys’ halls have trees. I spent a lot of time in that forest, but not because I was one of those girls. At least, not at first. You spend enough time in the hall’s lounge though, and every single boy will remember your name. One of them played bass guitar and wore worn-out bracelets from summer camps. His best accessory was a pill bottle in his pocket.  

He said he was bored all the time, so he drank, and he was lonely, so he flipped a quarter at the lunch table to decide if he should pop a pill or not. He described taking opioids as a warm, fuzzy feeling, but every time he took one he cried himself to sleep. Pills were his prayer. His roommate started sleeping at his girlfriend’s place more often to avoid the situation, which only made the bass player cry harder. He texted me one night asking me to come to his dorm room – said he felt like killing himself. He couldn’t stand without help. Maybe pills, maybe alcohol, probably both.  

I slid my arm under his to walk him to his desk chair and he slumped his chin onto my head. He began stroking my hair. I pushed his arm away from my head and he shot up, looked at me, not enough light in the room to see the expression in his eyes, and shoved me back.  

My footing was lost in scattered shoes in the entryway and I fell backwards against the wall. He crashed into the wall opposite of me, and I bolted for the door. Behind it’s closing I hear the sound of rattling pills in a bottle like a miracca.  

Twenty-three minutes later, I get a text. “You come over, put ur arm around me, and them act like I’m allll over u. Fucking whore.”  

2023 

The lesson plan I had lined up was a work day on the students project analyzing the effects of the American revolution on African Americans and other people of col- 

“We are entering an emergency lock down. Follow emergency procedures at this time.”  

The intercom repeats, “We are entering an emergency lockdown.”  

I slam the lights down, lock the door, count my students. I should have twenty-eight in this class.  

Four, five, six.  

Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven….twenty-seven… 

“Is anyone absent today?” Class had only just begun and I haven’t taken roll yet.  

Miriam – blonde girl, lots of makeup – pipes up, “Kim isn’t here. She had a dentist appointment today.”  

Twenty seven. All accounted for. There’s muttering among the students. “Shut up!”  

“It’s just a drill, calm down.”  

“We don’t know that.”  

“Mrs. Brannon, it’s just a drill, right?”  

I don’t recall an email about a drill today.  

“I don’t know. Let’s follow procedure like the announcement said. Get to the back of the classroom.”  

… 

The students are in the back of the classroom, lights off, but sunshine is still flooding in through the cracks in the blinds. Ezekiel has his arms around his legs, and he’s staring at the dust particles in the rays that snuck into the room.  

We hear a popping noise in the distance. Ezekiel jumps and I see twenty-seven sets of eyes staring up at me.  

I begin pulling desks to barricade the front door.  

We are all deer, standing in a field, waiting for a bullet. 

I am picking the desks up so you can’t hear them scrape against the floor. I slide backpacks towards the students to hide behind.  

We are lambs for slaughter during the passover.  

… 

The sound is getting louder.  

Kao is one of my quieter students, but I hear his voice, “Mrs. Brannon, you need to hide too.”  

Again, twenty-seven sets of eyes. My nose is hot, my Apple watch is warning me that my heart rate is high.  

I finish moving one more desk and sit down next to Kao.  

In hindsight, I know that we’re supposed to follow this order: run, hide, fight. I should have been hiding next to the door ready to smack someone with a textbook if they walked in.  

In the moment, Kao grabbed onto the side of my arm and leaned on me. I look down at the child. Black hair, one small hand clenched onto me, and the other holding tight the chain of a cross necklace. Small, and still, he recognized a similar fear between us. I wasn’t a police officer, ready to fight someone off, not even to these kids. I was me, and I was scared too.  

And in hindsight, I’m sorry, I should have given you a trigger warning, but where the hell was one for the kids?  

2013 

It’s summer my junior year of high school, and nobody is more eager to have me as an employee than my father. He owns a gun range in town, and I become desk receptionist number one. I wear a crop top to work that my grandma giggles at, saying she used to wear one like that when she was my age. History is circular, she would tell me. I hope working at the range doesn’t come full circle for me, but I have a sick feeling in my gut that the bullets going straight through targets will prove grandma right.  

2023 

My arms are mountains of goosebumps. We can hear screams.  

Right now I want the future to be anything but bullet shaped. Where is the pill bottle, where is the curled wallpaper from my childhood, where is my guardian angel? 

2019 

When my great grandmother passes, my grandma takes on her Precious Moments collection. She lines them up in a china hutch and only opens the doors once a month to dust them. It’s funny, the things we choose to hold onto after the death of a loved one. Not a favorite sweater or handwritten card, but a doll collection, a brooch, or a set of pearl snowman earrings. I wonder what of mine my children will want to keep someday. Maybe they’ll decide my shape.  

2023 

Twelve sets of parents didn’t find their child when students spilled out of the school. I am helping my class find their families. Miriam’s dad cries so hard he gets snot in her hair. His calloused hands soften around her head, and I think if he could he would bury them in her scalp. I do not know it yet, but there are twelve students whose futures wound up being the shape of protests and candles. There are twelve futures who were molded into shapes for them by someone pretending to be God. Maybe they are God, I think, because who else would have the right to choose who lives and dies with no remorse.