A bullet ended Paul Channeler’s childhood at age six when it passed through his abdomen and into the brain of his best friend, Myra.
He had assumed he would marry her one day; his mom and dad were best friends; it made perfect sense. He knew nothing of the fickleness of a human heart or that childhood crushes end. Nothing could make best friends part, he believed.
Until, one day, something did. Trauma immobilized him and forced him to watch Myra’s blood pool on the classroom floor. Paul had never known death, but as he stared into Myra’s lifeless eyes, he knew, with an obdurate certainty he’d never felt before, that she was no longer there behind them.
Had it not been for the bullet, Paul would have amounted to nothing. Already bored with school, he would have developed a nonchalant attitude toward learning. By grade six, he’d have earned nothing higher than a C, and in high school, he’d have struggled to maintain a D. He’d have drifted from job to job, never satisfied.
But the bullet changed all that.
To six-year-old Paul, Myra’s death had been an aberration; the first, the only, the last; the never-before and never-again. But near the end of his hospital stay, a counselor let slip mention of other school shootings. Paul filed it away, and after returning home, he went to the family computer. Despite spelling mistakes, the internet knew what he was looking for and served it up. Before the end of that very day, Paul understood a new, chilling reality: school had never been safe. Killers
