Who's Next?

In these United States, it's anybody's guess.

Yesterday, I wrote about standing in my kitchen, complacent in a way that in this moment feels quaint. I wrote about my unearned nonchalance, hearing a sound that might have been gunfire but I knew was not, living in a neighborhood devoid of gang violence or drug trafficking, and not a war zone.

I am, however, near an elementary school, and a supermarket. I live in the United States, land of unlimited opportunity to head over to the local gun shop to buy an assault rifle.

The strange (prescient?) thing is, the reason I wrote about what I did yesterday, the thing that got into my head, was over the weekend, Sam and I were driving through Newtown, Connecticut, and the village of Sandy Hook. It’s pretty here, Sam said, but is “pretty” anyone’s association to Sandy Hook now?

Today you can add Uvalde to that horrible list, right after Buffalo.

I wrote yesterday about the randomness of circumstance. I guess that applies to elementary school kids, too. Which shopper’s or teacher’s luck is about to run out? Here, in this nation, our government must be liking the odds, because it’s literally anybody’s guess.