❝the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it...history is literally present in all that we do.❞
- james baldwin
a group of 8th graders on a trip to Washington D.C. discover that hist...
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the white house.
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𝓣𝓱𝓮 National Archives beyond the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom is a dream. The temperature warms as soon as the students are shepherded onwards, but no one can truly speak, absorb anything, or even function. What should be the simple act of walking becomes a mechanical process of one foot in front of the other on repeat, masked in the cloudy haze of an experience far beyond the ordinary. Minds go fuzzy, and everything is vague, as if they are looking through a sheet of glass that separates them from the world they thought they knew. They can't think, can't seem to process what has happened.
But around them, life goes on.
Ryan Majillzadeh and Clover Mendoza read a plaque together. Aubrey Williams drags a shell-shocked and barely responsive Elijah Cavanaugh away to show him something on her phone that he doesn't register in the slightest. Kyle Bolt bounds through the various exhibits, stopping only to play with every touch screen he sees. Isaac Faulkner and Amelie Richards observe an interesting display, and Amelie turns to share it with her friend Violet as she passes, but reconsiders upon seeing the girl's oddly vacant expression. Only much later will it occur to the blonde just how a writer or poet might describe Violet's face: she looks like she's seen a ghost.
The eighth grade class of Washington Middle School makes their way through the Archives, and nine utterly and completely shocked kids climb back onto the charter bus without a clue of anything else existing in the National Archives but for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and some really, really, really weird occurrences. Slowly, each tries to regain their proper frame of mind and figure out what the hell just happened.
"Hey, man," Peter Clark says to the boy sitting next to him, "You don't think ghosts and shit are real or anything, do you?"
Isaac Faulkner, about equal with his best friend Peter at baseball but far better than him at paying attention, sighs as he tears himself away from the actually fascinating information Jake is telling the group about their upcoming destination. "Uh..." Isaac gives him a look that expresses his thoughts clearly: you're crazy. "No?"
