Hilarious Pint of Pus

The crowd shuffled, shoeless, into the children's gymnastics room. The staff had neatly lined up their shoes outside of the brightly painted room, full of padded climbing structures wrapped in garishly colored pleather. It was Monday morning. Some had heard the news and had spent the weekend weighed with grief and worry. Others were concerned: curious to find out the reason for the meeting, but wary that it might inflict them with the same sorrow that they identified on the faces of those around them.

People found places to sit on the floor mats and apparatus. They faced forward, and only the occasional murmur of reassurance was to be heard. Two boys tried to sit on a trampoline, but, finding the arrangement inappropriately comic, quickly found themselves other spots.

When the director finally spoke, from the front, her voice broke with tears and the young man standing next to her put his arm around her shoulders. She stepped back for a second. When she came forward again, she told everyone the news.

Eyes glanced over to, and then quickly turned from a girl sitting on a big red mat towards the center of the room. She had a shield of friends around her. They leaned back on their arms, but occasionally would pat her in demonstration of sympathetic connection. Having patted her for a few seconds, the hands limply returned to their much easier duties as supports.

The girl's head hung low and her tears stained the bright yellow staff shirt with mustard drops.

The director stopped speaking and people waited, not really sure what to do. The center girl, clearly a lover, or a sister, got to her feet first. Her friends scrambled to join her. She led them out of the gymnasium. After a few more minutes, the room was filled with whispers, and after ten minutes, the room was left empty.

Thirty minutes later, the room was filled with busy three year olds pulling themselves up onto balance beams, pirouetting on the trampoline and perfecting the ancient art of the somersault.