The Unstruck Sound

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Our headmaster experienced a massive stroke Monday afternoon. Mr. Montegut was taken from school by ambulance to Touro Infirmary where he was in the ICU all of Tuesday. He passed quietly this morning without ever regaining consciousness." Mrs. Schneckenberger, the assistant headmistress of Bon Coeur Academy, stood at the podium on the stage of the school's auditorium.

All Bon Coeur students in grades five through twelve had been called over the intercom to an assembly at the end of the school day. Tenth grader Sajidah Williams sat with two of her best friends.

Someone screamed, "No!"

Sajidah looked around. Several girls seated in the row with her started to cry. Her friend Tony Most, one row up, hit the empty chair next to him. The auditorium seat looked like it might shatter under his fist. Saj's heart pounded in rhythm with his assault on the velvet-covered chair as he struck it over and over.

"We will have a moment of silence," Mrs. Schneckenberger said. Instead of silence, though, wailing filled the air.

"Please, show some respect," Mrs. Schneckenberger said into the microphone. "Settle down."

Saj listened as her friends and classmates muffled their sobs. She hadn't been raised with any religion, but she bowed her head. She knew that this was a time people prayed, if they knew how to pray.

"Let us meditate on the merit of a life well-lived," Mrs. Schneckenberger said.

The students became quiet. Then, from out of the silence, a female voice chanted, "Om mani padme hum!"

Other students joined in. The sound "om" seemed to vibrate in the big room.

Tony had his eyes closed as he chanted. Saj's roommate, Hasneem Bijan, was chanting so softly she was really only moving her mouth. Next to her Devi Ghosh stared ahead as tears rolled down her cheeks, but she said the sounds with a bell-like tone.

"Om mani padme hum! Om mani padme hum!"

The chant filled the room. Saj felt the vibration in her chest. When the students shouted the word "hum," she felt like the top of her head was going to explode.

"That will do!" Mrs. Schneckenberger yelled. The chant started to die down, and then it started up again.

"Om mani padme hum!"

"Stop!" Mrs. Schneckenberger cried into the microphone. "There is no need for that. Please remember where you are and the proper response to the occasion!"

The chanting stopped. Feet shuffled as students got up and left the auditorium without waiting for Mrs. Schneckenberger to finish.

"School will resume as usual. The funeral will be a week from Saturday in order for friends and alumni to make arrangements. You are dismissed," Mrs. Schneckenberger said over the noise of children leaving the auditorium. The three friends walked out together. Hasneem was sniffling into a wrinkled tissue. Devi's brown eyes flashed with anger.

"Not even one day off! That's so disrespectful! But, as usual, it's the students who get accused of the exact thing the adults do!" Devi said. "They call that 'gaslighting.'"

"What did it mean though? What was everybody saying when Mrs. Schneckenberger asked for silence?" Saj asked.

"It doesn't really have a meaning. It's a mantra. You repeat it over and over to achieve enlightenment," Devi explained.

"I thought it meant Behold! The jewel in the lotus!" Hasneem said.

Saj asked, "So it's something you say when somebody dies?"