A short story based on a poem by Seamus Heaney.
This is a revised version following some advice that the ending came a little too 'off guard'.
I have kept it simple however in light of such a sensitive and personal subject.
As always, comments welcome.

  I sat outside the Headmistress’s office, sitting on my hands, staring at the blood red carpet, my feet swinging to and fro, knocking the legs of the scuffed wooden chair from time to time. The halls were deathly quiet apart from the occasional breeze of chat and laughter that drifted lazily out of briefly opened classroom doors. A teacher walked past and patted me gently on the head. I looked up and smiled awkwardly. She pulled her face into a warm and maternal stare of empathy. Her eyes were watery. I looked down at the carpet again, concentrating hard on one of the firm white mounds of chewing gum dried on its surface many years earlier, that the janitor had never managed to lift.

Forgetting myself, I snorted with laughter. It was so funny when the head had stepped in it and lost her shoe. That prank was so worth the lines and detention I had had to do.

Just then, the head came out of her office.

‘Ok, your Dad’s here. I’ll take you outside.’

Although I tried to shake her off, she put an arm around my shoulders, and guided me down the corridor towards the front of the school.

I glanced at my watch. It was time for lunch.

As we made our way through the crowds, I counted bells, knelling classes to a close.

Bring bring.
Bring bring.
Bring bring.

The other kids were being herded like cattle. I was struggling to catch my breath as time and time again I was shoved and elbowed against a wall. I barely heard the head ordering them to behave. My head began to swim.

Bring bring.
Bring bring.
Bring bring.

Breaking my out through the glass front doors I gasped and gulped for air. Stopping for a minute to pull myself together I stared up at the sky, willing myself not to pass out. Cotton clouds bobbed back and forth on a blanket of the deepest blue. Birds soared high through the sky, weightless and effortlessly towards the heavens.

I lowered my eyes, spotted Dad’s car, and commanded my feet to move.

Three hours later, with all the self control I could muster, I stepped tentatively out of the car. My eyes unwillingly fell to a spot on the road behind me. I felt as though my heart was in a vice and my entire body stiffened. There was a tiny red spot; a few shards of glass and an ominous lingering smell of burnt rubber that perhaps I was imagining.
 

I meandered my way up the drive, meeting my mother at the porch, and bending briefly to kiss her cold cheek. She was rocking silently, clutching something tiny to her chest.  Inside the house I flushed with embarrassment as elders stood ceremoniously in line to shake my hand. The baby cooed and laughed in the pram. I saw a tear slide slowly down my Dad's cheek, but still he stood tall and strong. They told me he had always taken funerals in his stride.

I trod my way up the stairs, stopping to pick up a pair of fireman red Wellingtons on the top most step. I went to the bedroom and placed them beside the bed adorned with ‘Fireman Sam’ bedcovers. A yellow hat sat proudly on the head of the scabbiest teddy you had ever seen and beside him, sat a lone shoe, laces undone. I went to get changed.

The next morning, as I heard the car pull up, I stood, straightened my tie, and closed my eyes. I reached for my mothers hand as she coughed out angry tearless sighs.

Candles, pale roses and snowdrops adorned the bedside where he lay. I had not seen him in six weeks. He looked paler now, smaller. He wore a poppy bruise on his left temple.

‘It’s been a hard blow.’ said someone softly in the corridor behind me. I failed to acknowledge whether he was referring to the accident or the outcome. For all my mind could see or understand at that moment in time, was that there before me, lay my brother, as if in his cot, as if he was simply sleeping. No gaudy scars, the bumper had knocked him clear.

There lay my brother in a four foot box; a foot for every year.