“When God drops a pencil.”

(Written In honor of the 86 children aged 6-10, and 18 adults who lost their lives at Jeanne D’Arc Catholic school in Copenhagen, Denmark. March 21st, 1945. Please note that the story contains themes of death and mentions war before reading. There is no description of injury, blood, etc.)

“Eva?”

“Eva?”

Marysia’s voice dulled against the marble of the collapsed building, trapped between the rubble like the rest of the children. It had only been a normal day at school. Before a plane. And a bomb. What had happened?

Sister Anna had taught them that day that God’s seconds may be different from ours– Sometimes, perhaps, God could not be everywhere at once. 

‘Grab a pencil,’ she had said. ‘And now drop it. Grab it from the floor immediately.’ 

Marysia only briefly glanced at Eva, two seats towards the front and to the right, before the room filled with the hollow, light clatters of their unified dropping, followed by the cry of chairs scraping against polished floors as the children raced to reach for the pencils that lay skewed on the floor.

‘How many seconds did that take you?’ Sister Anna waited near the board as the children began to shout answers.

“4 seconds!”

“It took me 8!”

“2 and a half!”

“Well,” she spoke, raising a single finger for quiet. “Maybe those few seconds were a few hours for God. Maybe even weeks. Maybe when he looks away, like you did just now for those few seconds, bad things happen.”

She could hear nothing except the gush of water, slipping between the rubble and pooling in the craters beneath her. It seemed impossibly deep. She could hear no rescue above them— if there was one..

It was only when she tried to move that she noticed a weight pressing atop her leg, pinning it between something cold and hard. Brick? Wood? It was too dark, too dark to tell.

“Mary?” 

Her voice was drowned by layers of rubble, reduced to a distant whisper— one Marysia still managed to hear. She tugged her leg one last time, hands bracing in the soil below, elbow bumping against a splintered, jagged edge.

“Eva. I’m up here.” 

A moment of silence.

“Im stuck, Marysia.” Eva called. Had the bomb sent them so many spaces apart? If so, where was everyone else and why did they not also talk?

“I am too. We’ll wait for rescue.” 

Marysia listened for the others. She expected to hear the scrape of someone moving, the frightened voices of children calling for their mothers, or Sister Anna telling everyone to remain calm. Instead, there was only Eva’s breathing and the steady rush of water. It was strange. The classroom had always been so loud that Sister Anna sometimes had to clap her hands just to make them listen. Now, even the rubble seemed quiet.

Silence only filled the space with them for a brief few moments. Fleeting, and nearly invisible in the absence of light, before Eva spoke.

“My mom did my hair very nicely today. The water is going to ruin it.” 

“Water? Is that what it is?”

“I think so. It’s a bit cold.”

The gush of it didn’t become louder— But perhaps its persistence grew. Still no one else spoke.

“It’s okay.” Marysia shifted to lay on her elbows, the space not quite cavernous enough for her to sit straight as they were told to in school. “She can redo your hair when we get home.”

“I hope so,” Eva said. Her voice sounded closer than before, or maybe Marysia was only imagining it. Sound did strange things down here. “She told me not to fidget today.”

Marysia smiled despite herself, though no one could see it. “You never listen.”

“I try,” Eva said. “I really do.”

The rubble stayed where it was, but dust began to shift in the air, a cold must drifting, carrying with it a metallic, dusty smell that made Marysia's nostrils flare

“Marysia.”

“Eva?”

“The water’s getting very high now.”

“That’s alright,” Marysia’s tone never changed. “Try not to move too much.”

“It keeps touching my chin,” 

“Sit up.”

“I already am.”

The rubble suddenly roared above them. Pieces of concrete ground against each other, shaking loose dust and fragments that landed against her skin like insects she could not swat away.

Silence stretched between them again, but was broken by Eva’s questions. 

“Was Sister Anna right? Even though mother always gets mad at her?”

Marysia did not respond immediately. She needed to think, and Eva began to talk again. The sound of water continued to race.

“The pencils, you know?” Eva coughed, the sharp hack echoing. 

“Has God dropped his pencil?”

Marysia closed her eyes.

“I don’t think he dropped it,” she said at last. “I think he's still reaching for it.”

Eva was quiet for a moment.

“Do you think he knows we’re here?” she asked.

“Yes,” Marysia said, immediately. The word felt important. Anchoring. “I think he does.”

“Then why hasn’t He picked it up yet?”

“His seconds are a bit longer. We will just have to wait, Eva.” 

Eva didn’t pause this time.

“I still have my mother’s hair clip in. I was supposed to give it back.”

Marysia didn’t pause either.

“Remember how your mother says that when you’re very brave, you don’t always feel it right away?”

“That’s true,” Marysia began. “You’re very brave.”

“I don’t feel brave,” Eva replied.

“You are anyway.”

“Marysia?”

“Yes?”

“Will you stay with me until God looks back?”

Marysia didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m right here.”

Many seconds passed. Marysia almost began to count them, before she spoke.

“Eva?” 

“Eva?”

This time, Eva didn’t respond.

The silence was different now— heavier, settled. The water shifted again, no longer searching for Eva’s voice. It found Marysia instead.

Cold pressed against her elbows and her legs. 

She drew a careful breath and tilted her head back as far as the stone would allow. There was nowhere left to move, nothing left to make room for.

Marysia thought of the classroom. Of pencils resting between fingers. Of the moment just before they were dropped— when everything was still, and no one yet knew what would fall.

She did not count the seconds.

Somewhere, far away, God reached down.

And Marysia waited.