When I went back to school after my arrest, I got switched into a different Honors English class. I was fine with it; at least I didn’t have to see my old English teacher every day. The first time she saw me in the hall after I got back, she turned around and went the other way. I guess she didn’t want to deal with me, either. My parents told the principal they thought the teacher should apologize to me for what she did. She didn’t apologize, and she sure didn’t seem sorry.
The first assignment in my new class was to read this poem called “The Hollow Men.” Everyone was paired up except me. They’d gotten the assignment while I was suspended. Ms. Maley, my new English teacher, was nice and had these kinda sad eyes and a soft voice whenever she spoke to me. She offered to let me join another pair, but I didn’t want to butt into a group. The poem was kind of hard to understand. It was about a bunch of dead guys who couldn’t figure out what to do.
Now the last stanza is stuck in my brain like a bad song. One of the scary texts I got after I was arrested quoted those same lines.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.