The world has rusted, corroded by the banal level of deceit.

Curtis is now part of a team experience where suddenly he is surrounded by boys his age with a common goal–to make a touchdown. The team practiced every afternoon on the high school’s football field, even in the rain, which would turn into sleet soon. Some games were expected to be played in snow as the season lasted into early winter. 

But the team always practiced, because they actually believed that this year they would win their District and compete in the Texas State Finals. The Coach was doing his best to prepare his team for Friday night and their first game of the season. 

Curtis was grateful to Coach for his new position–protecting Christian, their starting quarterback. Neither Christian or Curtis had ever played a team sport before, so every practice both of the boys were learning plays for the first time. Both boys took hits in practice that shouldn’t have been permitted. The Coach took the position that boys must govern themselves–in the spirit of boys pushing boys as friends and teammates. The Roy boys being the exception.

What evil part of man do we deny in ourselves?

“Why haven’t I heard from Christian?” Curtis said out loud to himself. Christian had missed homeroom. He hadn’t shown up yet for Algebra. Mr. Jeffries was beginning to hand out copies of the algebra test, yet Christian’s desk was still empty. Normally, Christian and Curtis would have exchanged half a dozen texts by now, but Curtis hadn’t heard from Christian since he dropped him off last night at the pharmacy. 

It was nearly time for the second period to begin. “Why hasn’t Christain returned any of my texts?” Curtis replayed the night before in his head. No one had heard from him since last night. The first game was less than a week away. Christian never called in sick. Christian would have texted him if he wasn’t coming to class today. He was sure of that.

Second period began at 9:45 a.m. Mr. Jeffries had already passed out the algebra test and number two pencils. Christian’s desk was empty. His test paper was left, with two yellow pencils, resting on the paper on his desk. 

“There’s gotta be something really wrong. He would have let me know, for sure by now, that he wasn’t coming to class.” Curtis told Mr Jeffries, the Algebra teacher, as Mr. Jeffries walked down the row of desks, placing the test, face down, on each student’s desk. 

The classroom was quiet. The students had settled down and begun to open the first page of the test. Only the sound of paper test pages turning interrupted the stillness of the classroom. Mr. Jeffries was quietly whispering on his phone to Ms. Worthington, the Principal’s secretary. 

“No. Christian Carlton didn’t call in sick this morning. No, but I can call his parents now, if you’d like. The office usually emails parents first and gives them a chance to check on their kids before we start calling, usually by noon.” 

No sooner had Ms. Worthington hung up her phone when the emergency sirens began to go off. Red lights twirled on the ceilings in the school corridors. Alarms and the shrill sound of emergency vehicles racing down the highways were heard from outside. Flashing red and blue lights joined a chorus of sirens from the Police and Fire Departments, mobilizing volunteers towards downtown Dallas. Emergency warnings were coming in through City, County, State and Federal government offices downtown, and the reports of gunshots reverberated across the forty-eight continental States. Cable and broadcast television stations were interrupted by emergency announcements that explosions had been reported in 199 cities so far, all synchronized by time zone to go off simultaneously across the United States.

The algebra test was forgotten as students dropped their pencils and reached for their cellphones. Mr. Jeffries called the Principal’s office again, but this time he couldn’t get through. Teachers suddenly isolated in their classroom with their students, were all trying to get some answers. No one yet knew why the school was suddenly in lockdown. No one knew if they should lead their students out of the school, or remain hidden, locked down in their classrooms.

Keep the students quiet. Keep the lights off. Stay away from windows. Block the doors. 

Mr. Jeffries went to the classroom door and turned the multiple locks that had been installed on all classroom doors after the Uvalde school shooting in 2022.

Some students moved right away to shield themselves under their desks. Mr. Jeffries, Curtis and two of the boys in class shoved the bookcase and then Mr. Jeffries’ wooden desk in front of the bookcase in front of the door. One of the students went over to the electric switch and turned off the lights. Then she returned to her desk and sat below its table, knees bent, and pulled her coat over her head. Two students went to the windows and pulled the blinds all the way closed.

From the exterior the classroom looked deserted. The kids sat on the floor, behind their desks in clusters. Some of the students held each other’s hands and prayed. Many of the students were texting their parents, telling them “I love you,” in case they didn’t get home. Mr. Jeffries told the kids to turn off the ringtones, in case someone with a gun was outside and could hear them.

The World stopped to watch the United States crumble as reports from 199 cities across the Nation reaffirmed that a civil war, an insurrection, was happening right this minute in the United States. For years white militias had stored weapons and ammunition in bunkers and secret rooms hidden below barn floors. They practiced shooting religiously in the weekend countryside gun clubs, waiting for just that perfect reason that would eventually lead to an opportunity to use those guns. 

Explosives and sophisticated bombs with synchronized timers had been hidden in underground bunkers, waiting for this opportunity, at last, to fulfill the threats of overturning the government and leaving the United States with the taste of the “war on democracy” again within US boundaries. 

Ironically, this time civil war was against President Trump and his GOP House, Senate, and Supreme Court. Trump was the real traitor. No one wore their Maga hat or GOP t-shirts or carried a banner, “Trump forever,” as volunteers tried to escape gunfire on the streets after the bombs went off all at once.

Christian’s absence soon was forgotten in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. Sirens were going off in all the schools in the Dallas area as well as in the Mt. Pleasant Community Schools. The Fire Departments were already in their gear and another series of sirens were heard as the fire engines and ambulances mobilized and headed towards downtown. Hospitals and emergency services were following contingency directives as off-duty doctors and nurses rushed to the emergency rooms to help the incoming wounded. 

Mt. Pleasant Police were already preparing to join the County Sheriff and the Dallas Police to surround the Dallas downtown and try to stop the armed militia that was indiscriminately shooting at anyone on the sidewalk. Snipers hidden on roofs and high rise open windows, were shooting at anyone with a visible gun that was shooting people on the street. No one knew for sure who the enemy was.

Reports from Houston included cellphone videos from citizens still on the street who were trying to get out of range of the snipers. The Mickey Leland building in Houston was smothering and collapsed upon itself about an hour after it was hit, killing at least two hundred government workers. Men with guns circumferenced the bombed building and shot anyone who dared step out of the rubble. 

The Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse in Dallas was bombed at 10:05 a..m., the same time Houston reported their bombing.

Local television news reporters started to arrive on the adjacent Dallas streets. The Cabell Building had been destroyed by two bombs. One that went off inside the building was simultaneous with the step van bomb that went off on the street. News trucks with an antenna dish on their roof and pasted photographs of the newscaster on its side, tried to find a safe place on the street to park. When the first reporter opened the van door, an assault of bullets whisked past the door and boomeranged on the metal ceiling and through one window. It appeared that the citizens patrolling the streets thought nothing about shooting reporters. Press was part of the problem, according to their former leader, Trump. 

Ambulances’ shrill alarms pierced the air amidst the sound of artillery blanketing the streets. Shots were heard throughout the downtowns as citizens decked out in survivalist fatigues with ammunition hanging from around their necks and under their arms, spread towards the residential blocks of ranch style homes. 

The Mickey Leland Building in Houston, Texas, had been hit and was on fire right now. Sharpshooters and a crew of emergency services associates were on site and police were trying to stop the random shootings on the street while they tried to get the wounded out of gun range and into an ambulance.

The Nation reverberated with cries of fear and confusion, not yet clear who was responsible for multiple attacks on the government. Federal and State government leaders were unprepared. Some had been caught at their desks the moment the bombs exploded, and were gone. No broadcaster had enough information to calm their audiences’ fears right away. Reporters raced to bomb scenes with large cameras and pretty young reporters trying to fathom the destruction and report in depth in three-minute news clips on cable television. 

Federal buildings, State and County government buildings were caught with no warning. Government employees across the continental US who were at work, were likely dead or wounded. No group claimed responsibility from any dominant, known terrorist group. Snipers were sent to the bombed cities, but no one was certain if the stroller on the sidewalk was another enemy’s grenade–the enemy responsible for the bombs, or a mother caught amidst gunfire with her baby on a walk. 

Frantic parents were calling the schools, wondering what the Superintendent’s instructions were for their kids’ school safety protocols during an insurrection. Some parents wanted to come and pick up their children right away. They didn’t know what was happening, but parents wanted their families to face the upheaval together. They wanted to hide from the gunners who were now patrolling the urban streets and moving out towards residential areas. Parents began to show up at the schools, demanding that their children be released to them right now.

The School Superintendent coordinated information with local police and fire departments, while County and State officials compiled local news briefs of updated information from the Mt. Pleasant Mayor and the City Council. There was no vetted information beyond the fact that bombs had gone off in cities across America, but, so far, only in government buildings. There were no reports of threats at any of the schools, or at any church, or domestic store. 

The bombs went off all at once and there have been no messages or threats of a second bombing reported so far. Soon the School Superintendent announced that schools would close for the day. Buses were beginning to gather at the front of the schools prepared to take the children home. Parents lined the front sidewalk, looking for their kids.

After the bombs had exploded, some of the bravest people on the street ran towards the bombed building to help those inside. Within minutes the gunners began to saunder down the tree lined streets, shooting at random, and shooting at the people trying to help the bomb victims. They shot at anyone moving. 

Then people on the street started to run away from the bombed building in an effort to escape from the shooters, leaving victims of the bombing wandering out of the ruins to be shot down by snipers. Men attacked the wounded with automatic AR15s. Bomb victims became targets as they tried to escape.

An endless repetition of gunshots and bombs exploding had people racing out of the bombed building to be shot by an armed garrison of citizens shooting at citizens. The same news was repeated in 199 US cities. The largest, most historical, government buildings provided the insurgents with precious State’s history to annihilate. That the bombs went off simultaneously across the States paralyzed Emergency Services and the Department of Homeland Security. The scariest part was the mass organization of the rebels since the bombs were designed to detonate all at once in different time zones. The bombs went off at 11:05 a.m. in Eastern time, 10:05 a.m. in Central, 9:05 a.m. Mountain, and 8:05 a.m. Pacific time. 

No one even really noticed who was gone, who was missing. No one had heard from Christian all day. The Roy boys were missing too.

No one had a clue.