The email from my co-teacher came at 1:30. A writing assignment for our 11th grade ELA class, with a request for scaffolded organizers. An email I didn’t read until just before my 1:57 class. what are the odds? another last minute request It’s 2:40, and instead of going home, I’m crafting organizers. Simple enough to…

The brighter-than-daylight flash. The louder-than-thunder sound. The earth-leveling blastwave. The hotter-than-the-sun searing heat. Dust. Rubble. Shattered ruins of high rises. The horrifying shadowed outlines burned into rubble: the last remains of disintegrated human beings. Swirling dust bearing radioactive death. The ever-sickening, whose hair falls out in clumps. The slowly-dying, whose skin pales, then dries out…