The girl denting the blinds of Principal Sherman's office twisted her knees together. She had been quivering since early that morning when Principal Sherman began randomly discharging the school's revolver. (A mandatory instrument of precaution covered in the budget, after much argument and protest from all parties involved, to accommodate the escalating social epidemic of violent student outbursts.)
Principal Sherman leaned back in his chair, shoeless feet on his desk, mismatched socks dotted with blood. A scattered geometry of ceramics lined the floor.
"What are you holding in? Number one or number two?"
"Two" She sobbed.
"You and my wife. From both ends."
The girl moaned, struggling to block her waste with impatient terror.
"I gotta go!"
"You mean, Cynthia, now that the virtues of discipline practiced under my tenure are finally going to be imprinted upon the community's attention deficit disorder - now that the vast weaponry of the media is finally aimed at education - you, with your selfish, underdeveloped, adolescence bowels, want to step down from that window and jeopardize all my hard work by letting those police snipers sick their death rays on me?"
Cynthia sighed, "yess..."
The legs of Principal Sherman's chair dropped with an awkward coughing sound.
"Maybe you're right, darling." He swiped his perspiring face against his sleeve. "But how can I value the opinion of a girl who only two weeks ago was caught chucking a used tampon onto the restroom ceiling? Hmm? I think that makes you fodder for the trailer park, young lady. Yes! Exactly like my wife. So, you just think about that and - wait - my blood pressure, be quiet. Listen."
Principal Sherman slipped his finger through the trigger-guard of the revolver so he could touch his neck. He raised his free hand, motioning for silence, and counted his pulse. A few nervous moments passed. Cynthia held her stomach.
"I have the opposite problem. I need Metamucil. All messed up down there. How ironic. Gotta hit the spoon. Maybe I should check my prostate while I'm at it."
He screamed and raked the gun forward. The glass behind Cynthia exploded and the blinds came down around her head. She stood, concealed, just her eyes peering out through a broken strip, like an intrusive neighbor. Her knees shook and then relaxed. The stink worked through the room.
"There. My little man-orb isn't firing blanks, yes? I'm glad you're done fidgeting with your groin, Cynthia, as entertaining as it was to watch. And what's more, good thing you're wearing panties, you little slut, or I'd have you shelving up that shit with your palms for the remainder of the day..."
He approached the office doorway cautiously and leaned on it, looking back. "I'll return with sawdust and a toothbrush. You better have a major attitude adjustment waiting for me."
The hall was filled with students cowering in front of windows. Bill, from maintenance, stood poised with a sub-machine gun.
"Bill! I'm going to walk toward you."
"Hug that glass like the step-father you always feared, brats!" Bill racked the slide of the gun menacingly, as if there wasn't a polite method for preparing a sub-machine gun to blast.
The students pressed themselves against the windows so hard the squeaking of bodies on glass filled the hall. Principal Sherman approached Bill with a sense of guilt and fear and over-reaction, but said nothing to indicate his feelings.
"This is going good. They wouldn't dare snipe over a child's head, right?"
"Right."
"Or would they?"
"Never..."
"You never know."
"True."
They stood there, sweating.
"Principal Sherman...what are our demands?"
"Demands?"
"That's what the man with the bullhorn keeps asking."
"I was...trying to tune him out by singing."
"You have a great singing voice, sir."
"I know...gosh, I mean, thanks, Bill."
"It's okay...what should we tell them."
"I don't know...what do you want...more than anything?"
"I'm fine, thanks."
"Ok."
Principal Sherman hopped past the windows. Most of the panes of glass on the main entrance had been punched out by Bill's bullets. Earlier, one of the students had sneezed an ugly pattern of snot onto the glass and Bill had had an outburst.
From behind a blockade of police cars, a man in a ridiculous yellow trench coat was speaking into a bullhorn. His trench coat was so yellow that even Principal Sherman, who had no knowledge of fashion, had to scoff. He droned on, his voice a dull electronic amplification. He seemed so boringly convinced by his recital that Principal Sherman couldn't at first make out the individual words the man was saying. Principal Sherman thought the bullhorn would work better inside a classroom.
"Excuse me!" Principal Sherman asked, peeking around the corner with periodical jerking movements.
The policeman, who had been propping the bullhorn at an upward slant, immediately turned and aimed the device toward the main entrance.
"YOU THERE! WHAT ARE YOUR DEMANDS?"
"Uh...I'm fine! Thanks."
Principal Sherman leapt away and stepped down the hall. The voice was saying,
"WHO'S SHOT? WHO'S HURT IN THERE! SO HELP ME, I'LL...!"
"Bill! I think they mean business! He threatened me."
Bill stood very stiff in the middle of the hall. A middle-aged woman was behind him, pressing a gun to his head. Her face was round and drooping, and painted camouflage. Principal Sherman could barely distinguish the outline of her sweatpants.
He struggled with what to say to the woman that might help Bill.
"What is this? Jesus, you look disgusting. Where is your self-respect? You smell like cheese."
"That is the smell of diapers, Principal Sherman. Years from now, in your prison cell, you'll remember the smell of diapers and curse the day you took our children hostage."
"Ha! The smell of diapers reminds of me of so much more than just my own shortcomings!"
"Drop the gun!"
"Drop yours, madam!"
"I'll shoot your janitor."
"Go ahead! He's not a member of any union I ever heard of!"
"At least I'll look good in my casket!" Bill said, with genuine pride.
There was a screeching sound. Two more middle-aged women plopped out of the ceiling vent. They collected themselves and aimed automatic rifles at Principal Sherman. One of them had a small bush sticking out of her helmet.
"You're outgunned, skinny!"
"So you've changed a lot of diapers, have you?" Principal Sherman taunted.
"More than you'll ever comprehend."
"Well, let me show you something. Come here."
They all took very brisk, sliding steps toward the Principal's office, monitoring each others' movements. They stopped in front of the door. Principal Sherman motioned with the hand that wasn't aiming at the women.
"What do you call that, Sherman?"
"Crapped her skirt."
"Why is she slumped over with the blinds on her head? Did you kill her?"
"No. She's ashamed. And now you will put down the guns or I will shoot her."
"She's already dead. Dead from the shame of going in her skirt. And it's your fault."
"Cynthia?"
The form under the blinds shifted. "When I sat down, it got worse!" Cynthia cried.
"I'll put one in her brain, unless you release Bill! Her bowels won't have much to empty when she dies!"
"You don't know what you're doing, Sherman! All true assassins know a bullet to the heart is the best kill shot."
"Balls! It's the head!"
"Heart, newbie!"
"Cynthia...where would you rather be shot...in the heart or the head?"
"Please, help me!"
"Bah! She's just a child, Sherm! What does she know about killing?"
"I'm telling you, I'm right, you sentimental bitch! Headshot! Listen to the way that sounds! Headshot!"
"The heart is the beginning of all life!"
"Don't turn this into something it isn't or I might shoot myself before I shoot you!" Principal Sherman sobbed.
"Officers! Thank God you're here!" The woman screamed...and a volley of bullets tore all five of them to bloody pieces littering the tiles of Truman Elementary's main hallway.
Sean Kilpatrick is studying forensic photography. He turns every page of the textbook with his tongue. He goes around repeating, in his best Brando voice, "...you have to crawl up into the ass of death." He's published at Exquisite Corpse, Stirring, Cthulhu Sex, Poetic Inhalation, Blue Food, Zygote in my Coffee and more.