When the canisters fell, they were ready,
thinking, “More tear gas”, but a white cloud
flowered above, then changed colors and emitted
a sweet odor that made them want to breathe in
the way one breathes in the smell of sweet tea.
The color darkened until it looked like a burning
and people ran to put out what they thought were
fires on their neighbors’ rooftops. Muscles began to
cramp, constricting as if from the bite of a scorpion.
A woman dropped her child as she scratched herself in a fit
of convulsions. A father attempted to hold down
his son who flailed and moaned until he fell into a coma.
The teenagers who played with the canisters, who taunted
their apparent harmlessness, shrieked and shook in pain for weeks.
The doctors had never seen anything like this before. The villagers
had never seen anything like this before. The convulsions came
like waves for an entire month and family members who sat and cried at bedside
wailed in pain almost as much as the victims who looked like rabid dogs.
Some visitors were stunned silent, their eyes inward, heads tilted to the side
as if not looking would somehow make it not be truly happening.
In a laboratory far away were beakers, scientists in white gowns and goggles,
microscopes, and gloves. At the end of the day, they went home
to their wives and wives to their husbands. The tables were set,
the dinner was ready, warm and steaming,
and the children swung their legs beneath the table.
