False Ending

The alarm screamed and we all stood fast,

like we'd been rehearsing for this day.

Bags grabbed, we turned away

from desks and duty, moving past

the cubicles and toward the stairs,

our feet synchronized like fish

in a school, unanimous and swift.

Everyone was breathing the same air

of ending. Possibility. Relief.

Then the alarm just... stopped.

We hung there on the landing, stalled,

between up and down, here and gone,

the siren cut off in mid-song,

and nobody moved. We were all

standing in silence, and it was worse

than the noise. Someone's hand

gripped the rail. Nobody planned

what to do next. The reverse

of disaster, which is just as strange—

the false alarm, the fake ending,

the moment when the door was opening

and then it closed without change.

Marcus sat down on a step.

His act of faith, or surrender, or maybe

just giving up. We followed, maybe

deciding it was time to step

back down, back to the glow

of screens and the lie that we're fine,

that nothing broke the line

between then and now.