This is just a short one, but its about a moment that I'm sure I'll come back to at some point….

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Revelation

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death - Revelation, 1. 18

"Did that kid bring the bible back?"

I look up from my book jacketing, distracted by the question from my colleague Nolene. "What kid?" I ask curiously. I run a Middle School library, and a Catholic school we may be, but we don't get many kids asking for our copy of the Bible at lunchtime. They get enough of that shoved down their throats in class. That's why it's a reference book; I'm always scared the rebellious ones will deface it if we trusted them enough to let them check it out.

"You know," Nolene replies, "that miserable looking one who looks like she'd benefit from a few home cooked dinners."

I glance around, looking for someone who might match the description but the library is empty save for a group of girls giggling over a medical encyclopaedia in the far corner. See, that's what a Catholic education does you! Eventually I spot the Bible laying discarded on of the tables and head over to retrieve it. It's open at the Book of Revelation but that's not what catches my attention. What catches my attention is a piece of crumpled notepaper that sits next to it, and when I unscrew the ball and read the inky scrawl that covers it the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Tutting I take the paper over to Nolene and hand it to her.

"What is this place coming to? Oldest kids we've got are only 14 and this is what they're writing?"

Nolene looks down at the piece of paper, shivers and then, after glancing round to check for prying ears, reads it out.

"He was dead to her. He was her hell.

Then I came along as well.

She wants to forget. But how can she?

Now she has to look at me.

He is gone. But I'm still here.

To ruin her life. Each single year.

She says she wishes she was dead.

But I think that she means me instead.

I knew she was hurt but didn't know why.

Now I know, my life's a lie.

She spat those bad words at me.

And now, finally, the truth I see.

Rape is why I have a life,

And so as she drank I took the knife.

Held it to my legs and bled.

And wished and wished that I was dead.

Why did it have to be all about me?

Why did I have to hold the key?"

She shivers again, "Vivid imagination someone's got."

Maybe, but I'm not convinced. Filth like that, it's got to come from somewhere and we've got a responsibility; its not just teachers who have to look out for the kid's welfare. I take Nolene by the arm and lead her to the lunch room which is a writhing throng of kids and activity.

"You see her?" I ask, and then wait as Nolene peers across the room. She takes her time, not that I blame her, they all look the same to me and then eventually she points to a skinny kid with the look of a bad attitude about her who's sat hunched up in one corner of the lunch room all alone.

I snort, "Well you can forget that. I'm not dealing with that one." I'd heard the talk in the teachers lounge, "The mother's a WASP, teaches at the university, was on the board of the little madam's elementary school and got half the staff fired. Intervene there? No thank you."

I take the disgusting poem from Nolene and look down at it again, shaking my head, "Probably something of nothing anyway but where do they get it from? That's what I'd like to know." I glance over at the girl again, at the dark circles under her eyes – the result of being asked to wash off ridiculous gothic make up no doubt. "You know she's new this year?" I told Nolene, "Not even twelve yet probably." I screw the poem into a ball, shaking my head sadly, "God knows what trouble she'll be getting herself into in a few years." I drop the ball of paper into a nearby waste bin, glad to be rid of it, "Still, not my problem, is it? Let the mother deal with her."