“Just you and me, you can't tell anybody else.”
“I won't. I promise Laura! I wont'.”
“Ok. My big brother told me last night that one of those planes could come here and crash into the school.”

James could not think. In ten years of living he had not considered dying until this moment. Recess had disappeared and was replaced by an immediate sickness and the image of big planes falling from the Lafayette sky directly onto him. Sinking deeper into sadness he looked up at his classmates. Climbing quickly to the top of their schools property, they all smiled and pushed each other. Giggling up the big hill is where they would die. James was certain of this. He decided to walk from the corner of his rusted-out portable classroom where he stood with Laura towards the top of the hill to alert his friends they were about to die.

Beneath his feet the world lightened. It was supposed to rain just outside Lafayette that day and in James' mind it poured. The camo rainboots he wore served their purpose. He walked his green mile between the trees from the portable to the playground. Catching a corner of the slide through a space in the trees, he stopped walking. James remember the first time he slid down it. He began to sob at that thought. At the top of the hill, his classmates prepared their Friday afternoon tradition. At the edge of their playground, on top of the big hill, there was a big field filled with hay during the year. After its bailing, the children would see who can push them further. James loved this game.

Laura wondered what was bothering James.

“Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

James could not respond to her. He was at once angry with her. It was obvious why he was crying. He kept walking past the playground and towards the big hill.

Looking up he again saw his classmates off in the distance. He saw them readying the big hay bale that took 5 kids each to move. James walked a few feet more and felt he could not bear to give them bad news. He sat down, facing away from his friends and towards the deep woods in which he would never explore.

The childrens game begun. Each team of 5 took corners of their hay bale and began pushing. The winced and groaned and the lighters kids legs fumbled as they got them rolling. The hay bales begun to pick up steam. James heard the laughing of his friends above him and he turned to look. They all ran towards him and the hay bales grew bigger as they approached. He smiled in his happiest moment all recess and briefly forgot his imminent death.

Overhead a plane approached ear-shot. James prepared himself. He closed his eyes and placed his head in his hands against his lap. Sitting silently he was deep in thought. He had never kissed Laura and he had never smoked a cigarette. These were his biggest regrets. As the sound of engines grew louder overhead, he braced himself. It all went silent.

He could not hear the plane or the buzzing of nearby bees. The young children jumping and kicking rocks in the playground were muted. The sound of his classmates yelling out to him to move out of the way were heard only by everyone else. James sat quiet as a monk, seemingly asleep. The biggest of hay bales hit his back, and rolled up and over him onto his neck. The boys pushing that hay bale down the hill could not stop it, and they heard James' bones crushed into broken seashells you'd find on the Baton Rouge beaches.