When The Darkness Takes Us: Jess's Story

Jefferson County 911

I feel threads. I feel things deep down inside of me winding their way through current events, like everything happening right now started a long time ago. But the threads are too tangled for me to sort out.

I'm sitting in my closet. I love sitting in my closet when I'm feeling sad. It's something I've been doing since I was a kid. In pitch black, I hold my laptop close. I'm wearing headphones because I'm well-aware that what I am doing goes beyond weird. It's a move away from simply odd and into the territory of disturbing. Worrying. And that's exactly why I shouldn't do it. I may be mentally ill, but that doesn't mean I don't know when I'm doing something wrong. I knew it was wrong to obsess over a man who isn't my husband. I knew it was wrong to bring all my issues into his life. I knew. And I know this is wrong too. I shouldn't let my brain go down his path, because I don't know what's at the end of this path, but the way there is so worrying that I know it isn't good. I know this is the sort of thing a really ill person does. Yet, I'm so sad and lonely, and this makes me feel better. Besides, it's not like I'd ever do anything....not me. I just....just like to listen.

And I have listened so many times. I've played the 911 calls on loop. I can repeat them word for word.

So, I do.

I pull up the most interesting Columbine 911 call on youtube. Patti Neilson. I listen to the static-filled voices and when they speak, I do too. I murmur the words along with the call I know so well.

"Jefferson County 911.....Yes. I am a teacher at Columbine High School. There is a student here with a gun. He has shot out a window. I believe one student....uh...um...I've been...Columbine High School?....Um...I don't know if it's....I don't know what's in my shoulder....if it was just some glass he threw or what..."

The Patti Neilson call. The Brooks Brown call. The Wayne Harris call. The Patti Neilson call. The Brooks Brown call. The Patti Nielson call. The Wayne Harris call. The Patti Neilson call. The Patti Neilson call.

I feel sick and I feel better all at once. I am nauseous and I am soothed. I am frenetic and I am placated. Momentarily placated. The panic and the static, it's like ice on a wound.

Jefferson County 911....Yes. I am a teacher at Columbine High School. There is a student here with a gun.

The suicide photos. They pop up right away on google. And, of course, they are all over Tumblr.

Harris died first. He put the sawed-off shotgun in his mouth. Shot through the top of his skull. Died instantly.

Klebold died slowly. Shot himself in the temple. I can't remember which of his guns he used. I google it, but can't find anything. Oh well, probably the TEC-9. You can tell he liked the TEC-9 because of how he holds it in the infamous cafeteria photo.

....and the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit....

I listen to Patti's frantic voice and in a calm one of my own, I whisper the words along, perfectly synchronized with her.

...There's something in my shoulder...OH GOD! OH GOD!...

The shooting in the hallway, just outside the library, has started. Patti sounds really scared, but she doesn't know she'll live through this. Other people in the library won't be as lucky.

I think about the victims-the youngest only fourteen years old-one with down syndrome-and poor Isaiah, who cried for his mother before being gunned down-I think of these dead children and my gut clenches. Tears prick my eyes.

....I am on the floor.........I've got....I've got three children......He just shot toward the door. I've got the kids on the floor....um...I got all the kids in the library on the...