My Explosion

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Eventually, I went back into the room. My table was closest to the door, but I didn't go to it. I lingered, reading the list of chemicals on the blackboard. I imagined myself on the other side of the window, at the end of camp, holding a lit sparkler.

I remember a flash of light becoming many flashes of light, quickly and powerfully. When I try to put myself there, I remember it as being similar to the feeling of being jolted from half-sleep by the sensation of falling. (Or maybe I have it backward. Maybe I am awoken from half-sleep by my memory of the explosion?) I don't remember colors or sounds so much as force. I remember screaming. I don't remember the door, but I must have opened it to get out of the room. Did I open it with my hands? Did the sparks shower the room? Somehow, I know that they did. I was the first one out. Did I push the door open or pull it?

PUJA

I heard a huge bang. I don't remember seeing anything for a few seconds. I could hear the fire alarm ringing and children shouting. I remember being shoved out the door into the hallway. When I got out of the classroom, I looked directly ahead. There was the long corridor, lined with lockers. A few feet in front of me, I saw an adult patting down a child who appeared to be on fire. All the other children were running to the staircase. I don't remember moving, but somehow I ended up on the playground outside.

ME

I remember running but getting nowhere. Minutes passed that I can't account for. Strong hands on my shoulders. Someone grabbed me. An adult. Who? Rows of lockers streamed passed. It isn't mentioned in any of the records, but I can't let go of the memory of running full speed and headfirst into a locker. It would have knocked me unconscious and couldn't have happened.

I remember seeing my older brother in a line of students evacuating a nearby classroom. (Yellow smoke, I later read, poured out of the room I'd just left.) He was toward the end of the line. He called my name. We waved to each other, the kind of waves people give toward the windows of departing trains. He doesn't mention any of this in the letter he wrote with all of his memories of that day. He says the first time he saw me was in the principal's office, and I have no memories of that encounter. Which of us was on the train and which on the platform?

MY BROTHER

I returned to the playground. Adults made us clear the blacktop. On the other side, you could see that the ambulances had parked close to the building. A big noisy helicopter landed. In the distance, I could see paramedics in jumpsuits and helmets pushing kids on gurneys. I thought that you were one of those kids. As soon as the helicopter took off, I decided to run home as fast as I could. I didn't tell anyone that I was leaving. I just left and cried all the way home.

ME

Then I remember seeing Stewart, who was my best friend, with whom I had spent thousands of hours of my childhood making movies, and discussing the relative values of comic books, and looking up bad words in the dictionary, and playing H-O-R-S-E on the hoop above the door of his parents' garage, and eating candy on curbs, and playing Nintendo, and honing our plans to conquer the world. He, too, had dark hair. And he, too, wore glasses. One Halloween, we wore no costumes and told everyone we were each other.

Stewart was slumped on the floor, his back against a locker. His feet were straight in front of him. He was 9 years old. His glasses were crusted over with a hard black ash, like burnt sugar. He said, "Jonny?" breaking a film around his mouth.