Incel-fiction

“Kick it! Kick it aside!!” The teacher yelled to me in panic, her eyes flicking between mine and the gun that lay at my feet. Melvin had almost reached it; in a few moments he would have finished his short crawl over the floor and again hold the weapon that he brought to the classroom. He had to crawl, since his lower body was held by the strong yet weakening arms of Travon, his primary target.  

I always struggle to recall what exactly happened up to this point. The class started normally, all of us, single or in small groups, trickling into the room. Melvin was probably the first student who entered; he almost always was, thinking that the presence of the teacher would protect him from the animosity of the hallways. He sat close to the teacher and close to the door, so he could exit quickly and reach the next classroom once the lesson was over and the hallways where slowly filling with students again.

Travon, also almost always, entered a few minutes after the class started. The teacher was used to it and reacted with quiet tolerance. She also tolerated his ritual, which he did ever so often. When he felt like it, Travon would wash his hands in the little sink that was installed in many of the classrooms, always next to the door. But he would not dry his hands with the dirty old towel which hung next to the sink but instead shake his wet hands towards the floor and, increasingly often, Melvin.   

I have seen this many times. Melvin would be ridiculed, bullied and publicly humiliated by whoever felt like it. In the beginning he would put up some resistance, but quickly realised that the whole class was turned against him. I think that the others were afraid that, if Melvin would ever escape the role of the whipping boy, Travon and his cronies would put this mantle upon one of them. And so they made sure that Melvin stayed in this role. Add peer pressure to the mix and you have a perfect all-against-one scenario. The teachers, as you can imagine, did little to nothing to interrupt this cycle. Melvin was just not worth the trouble that Travon/the students would cause if the teacher would seriously try to correct this behaviour. And on this day, it was no different. Travon would sprinkle water on Melvin, pass him and head for his seat in the back.         

And then it was different. My memory is blurry here but the first thing I remember was the sharp screaming of the girls, which turned into an almost constant background noise during the whole affair. There was shouting, a gunshot, screaming and more shouting. When I could think more or less clearly again I stood with my back against the wall. Melvin was on the floor, crawling towards me. Travon was also prone and held on to Melvin’s hip and legs. There was blood under them, smeared from the struggle. The rest of the class, teacher included, was pushed against the far corner. Tables, chairs and all kinds of teaching materials were thrown over and pushed aside. Melvin reached out with his hand and it was then that I realized that he was trying to reach the gun that was now between us.

Trying to comprehend my situation, I could barely hear the yelling of the teacher, who urged me to kick the gun aside. I know I should have done so immediately. I should have pushed the gun far out of reach and then ponce on Melvin, restraining him together with Travon until the police arrived. He would have had no chance against the two of us and we would have been hailed as heroes. But that is not what I did. Instead I slowly backed away, to the other corner of the room. I do not recall it but some of the survivors say that my foot touched the gun and pushed it a little more towards Melvin. If this is true than it was an accident and I am deeply sorry for it. I reached the corner of the classroom, watching the entire time. I watched as Melvin finally reached the gun. I watched as he pointed it at Travon´s face, which was by now at the height of Melvin´s knees. And I watched as he shot him through the forehead.

I expected even more screams from the girls at this moment, but instead the whole room was absolutely silent. With the death of Travon, everybody had instantly realised that, for the next few minutes, there was nothing that could stop Melvin from exacting his revenge. It was as if the whole social universe had been put upside down. Now it was one-against-all.

He made to stand up and in doing so, pushed Travon ´s body aside and thereby revealed a previously inflicted gunshot wound on Travon’s body. I would like to say that he, after getting his bearings, looked at me with an expression of mercy, ensuring me that I would be spared. But in reality he did not acknowledge me at all. He moved through the room, gun in hand, always keeping an eye on the class, some of the students now silently weeping. He went towards his already opened backpack, reached inside and, after fumbling for a moment, retrieved a second gun.

The sudden presence of a second gun is what might have made the teacher snap out of her shock induced trance. She started to try to reason with Melvin, telling him that she understands him and that he does not have to do this. I think that were her only two points, since she repeated them over and over. If he actually listened to her then it was not noticeable. Instead he returned to Travon´s body and pointed the gun, the first one, at it. The desperate pleading of the teacher was replaced by a choir of screaming when Melvin unloaded the remaining bullets into the corpse, focusing his fire on head and chest.       

The silence of the gun was again followed by the silence of the class. He just dropped the weapon next to Travon’s now unrecognizable head. I think one of the girls threw up. Now his attention was focussed entirely on the class. He raised the second gun, moved a few step towards them and began aiming. Here would have been my second, smaller, chance to turn the table. His back was to me and I could have reached him within a moment. But again I decided to be the watcher. And so I watched as he fatally shot the teacher, four boys, two girls and finally, himself. The targets where not random, he aimed carefully to hit these specific students, sometimes shooting them multiple time to make sure that they would die.      

It felt like an eternity until the police arrived but when they did, everything was a blur again. They made us all lay prone, searched us und send us out of the building with our hands over our heads. In the following investigation I was the main witness. I was asked to describe the sequence of events many times over. Each time I made sure to highlight how afraid and paralyzed with fear I have been. I had to do this because more and more often I was asked, by survivors, investigators, grieving parents of victims, why I did not just push the gun away. Slowly these questions turned into accusations and when the notion made it to the social networks that I maybe, accidentally, pushed the gun a little more towards Melvin, my family and I had to leave town. I won’t go into detail, but suffice to say, people often look for someone to blame when they are sad and desperate.    

There is not a day that goes by without me thinking of these events. I often ask myself what I, and others, could have done differently to prevent this tragedy:

Maybe if we had better gun control, Melvin would not have been able get those weapons.

Maybe if we had better mental health care, he would have been institutionalized in time.

Maybe if we implemented active shooter training, the class could have overwhelmed Melvin together.

Maybe if the teachers did their damn job, he would have felt safe.

Maybe if the class had just left him the fuck alone, he would not have hated them so much.

Maybe if someone had showed him some goddamn kindness, he would have seen that life can be something other than a waking nightmare.    

Maybe Travon, the teacher and all the other bastards deserved to die.

Maybe I’m glad that Melvin had his revenge.

Maybe I did push the gun towards him before I backed into the corner.

And maybe it was in no way accidental.

After we had moved to another place, were no one knew us, I returned to my old school one final time. They had raised a monument to honour the victims of the shooting, right at the entrance. It was an ugly thing of stone and metal with a huge plaque bolted to the front. “Never forgotten” was written on it, followed by the full names of the victims and their ages at the time of death. Melvin was not mentioned at all. I decided to correct that and, in the cover of night, used some hard to remove (and expensive) metal paint to write “Melvin = Hero” on the plaque. Bright red, he would have liked that.     

I’m sitting in my room now, trying not to giggle too much, observing the unfolding shitstorm online. People are so easily outraged nowadays, especially when children are involved. I share what I see with likeminded individuals. People who understand what Melvin went through and who understand that some people just need to get what they deserve. I am especially pleased to see that Melvin got his own Fangirl-following. They pose with his face on their shirts while dual-wielding replica guns, he would have liked this too.