Hard Hug by Sherry Morris
When my seven-year-old niece describes the active shooter drills they practise at her school, I struggle to control my hands. They pinch and squeeze at my throat as if that could somehow choke back her words. They itch to cover my ears. If I let them, they might press themselves to my cheeks and pull. I won’t let them. Instead, I trap them in the hollow place under my arms where they twist and twitch.
She tells me,
‘When teacher says Get Out, we run.’
‘Hide Out means stay out of sight with the lights off.’
xxxxx‘During Keep Out, teacher locks the classroom door and we all pile into the cupboard. Play The Quiet Game as long as we can.’
She lifts her head, smiles. Proud to be a fast learner.
I inhale, exhale. Concentrate on hiding my hands, but my niece sees my face.
I can’t hide that. She asks if she got something wrong.
xxxxx‘That’s a lot of information,’ I say. Swallow down a mouthful of distress. Sit on my hands. Hope she doesn’t notice the squirming.
‘The bigger kids get to do more,’ she huffs. ‘Cory plays Alice.’
At least sibling rivalry is alive and well.
‘Who’s Alice?’ I ask, distracted. My hands have escaped. They’re on the move.
‘Alice isn’t a person,’ she giggles. ‘It’s a word to help you remember other words.’
Amid the magazines and newspapers on the table, she’s created a collage. The clusters of cut-out
letters, affixed and askew, menace down the page.
A lert
L ockdown
I nform
C ounter
E vacuate
I hear all about Alice but don’t listen. Drift from her eager tone, tune into my hands.
xxxxxI’d been to a range once. As a lark, for the experience. Felt the heaviness in my hands, against my shoulder. How it grew less alien as the afternoon lengthened. Listened as the instructor explained the action was the heart of the weapon. Never wondered about the heart of the user. Then I’d hit my paper target five out of six times, dead centre.
‘That’s not beginner’s luck,’ the instructor said. ‘You’d make a good sniper.’
I’d blinked, unsure what to make of his words, my hands.
xxxxxNow they curl and burn beneath me. I get up, pace. Grab a magazine. Roll it into a baton. Smack it against my palm My niece knows something’s wrong, takes out her phone.
xxxxx‘There’s a message circle. For emergencies. Mom, Dad, Grandma, best friends. When there’s only time to send one. I can add you.’
xxxxxA puff of air escapes my lips. I squeeze the pages of the magazine baton tight. A page slices my thumb. I wince. Watch it bleed. Even paper’s dangerous, they’d say.
xxxxxI reach for my niece, pull her close. Hug hard. Wish that were enough. Fear what’s in people’s hearts.
Even more what’s in their hands.
Originally from Missouri, Sherry Morris writes prize-winning fiction from a farm in the Scottish Highlands where she pets cows, watches clouds and dabbles in photography. She reads for the wonderfully wacky Taco Bell Quarterly and her first published story was about her Peace Corps experience in 1990’s Ukraine.
‘Hard Hug’ first appeared in; Humans in the Wild: Reactions to a Gun-Loving Country, Swallow Publishing; (Dec 2020). by Kathy Fish, author of “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild” agreed to be the first contributor – to purchase a copy click here…
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