I

t’s a quiet day in Smalltown, America. The only sound is the chirping of crickets creating the steady, dimmed hum of suburban life. Oaks line the paved roads. Little cars with small families pass by the rows of doppelganger houses. White clouds mark the clear blue sky. Birds dot the setting sun. At night the neighbors, all so well-known to each other, sleep peacefully. Owls call. A lark awakens the sleepy town. Monday morning. Yellow school buses. Little children with little hands clinging to their parents. Children riding bicycles, stopping for cherry-red stop signs. The school bell rings. Every mother kisses her child good-bye. Mothers linger for a while as their innocent little lambs walk slowly to school. The children walk, step by step. Skipping the cracks in the sidewalk. The children vanish through the maroon door. The bell rings one last time. Then silence. Like the calm before a storm. It’s a quiet day in Smalltown, America.

The midday heat rises. Mirages can be seen on the paved roads. The children frolic at recess. They play kickball in the field. They dig for treasure in the sandbox. In the distance, a man cloaked in a heavy winter jacket opens his garage. He goes to his father’s cabinet and takes out a rifle. He walks back to the car, loads the rifle into his trunk, and starts the engine. He is sweating from the mid-September heat, his winter jacket concealing his father’s pistol from Vietnam. A round of ammunition is strapped around his chest. He comes out of his driveway, and drives a couple of miles to the school. He parks his car in the visitor parking lot and makes his way toward the maroon doors. Step by step he walks, skipping the cracks along the way, as he’d always done. The man swings open the door, and walks into the hallway where he once lined up during lunchtime to eat Sloppy Joes on Fridays. It’s a quiet day in Smalltown, America.

The thunder of bullets. A kaleidoscope of smoke and shells. Plaster rains from the ceiling. Little children play possum behind the bodies of their classmates. A cavalry of police arrives. Children too shocked, too scared to cry, form a ribbon of fear, lining up outside the school. A media truck carries an army of cameramen and journalists armed with cameras, pens, and microphones. Breaking news. Life in America comes to a standstill. Every man, woman, and child locked to the television set, eyes affixed to the screen. Self-proclaimed pundits yell across the nation in every home, in every town in America. In every town but Smalltown, America.

In Smalltown, America, mothers weep. Candlelight vigils are held, little flames in the starry night. Thousands flock to these outpourings of despair. A score of children are laid to rest. A little boy who liked to play football. A little girl who liked to play with her chemistry set out in the meadow. Faces of the fallen flash fleetingly on our screens. The story of a girl’s pink dress – a dress that her mother had bought for her daughter’s fifth birthday– breaks out across the nation. The pink dress, now stained with the blood of her fallen classmates. The girl’s mind now stained by the sound of the gun. It’s a loud day in Smalltown, America.

A week later, America’s eyes have gazed away from Smalltown, drawn inexorably toward the next disaster. The cameramen and talking heads – they have all walked away. The people of Smalltown can only despair. They scream and they lash out: “Our children died here!” America shuts them out. The memory of what happened in Smalltown fades away. The vigils are silent. The candles dim. The people of Smalltown can cry no more; big men with big money have silenced Smalltown. America forgets what happened there. Americans stop talking about it, stop writing about it, stop caring about it. The faces of the fallen fade from the mind of America. And the children die in vain. America grows quiet, when Smalltown needs it most. The crickets have stopped chirping. It’s a quiet day for all of America.