We Don’t Talk About That Here

I am standing atop a small hill. Rain drizzles from an impassive gray sky, forming brown pools around my feet that spill down the hill, carving tracks in the loose soil. I survey the field below me – a grassy expanse ringed by A-frame cabins – gripping the glow stick in my hand proudly. It was a surprise my mom had left in my suitcase, and we had just used it in our nightly class meeting as a “talking stick.”  For a moment I am alone, and everything seems calm, muted by the rain and the dark. And then the stillness explodes in a cacophony of eleven-year-old squeals. My entire class streaks past me like water over rock, half-tumbling down the muddy rivulets to the field below. Everywhere there is laughter and screaming, and I feel light, lighter than I thought possible. Without thinking, I raise the glow stick and fling it into the sky above the mass of students. With a collective yell, they swarm toward it, jostling in the half-lit muck, until it is finally captured and triumphantly raised, and for a moment, I belong.