A scene that opens with a woman standing next to herself in a coma, all she can do is wonder, "How did I get here?" When Mia, an African American woman, woke up this morning the only thing on her mind was the interview she had that morning to be an administrator in training at her high school. She is a dedicated science teacher with a husband and teenage son. As she prepares for her interview her joy for the job and her life is clear. After the interview is a success, she rushes home to share the information with his family but locks her keys in her car. As she looks around her car for a way in, asking her neighbor to call her husband for a second set she decides to check the backdoor, unknowingly making the biggest decision of her life. With her hand on the back door she is told that a gun is pointed at her and to raise her hands. In that moment she freezes and the only thing her mind can process is science. She begins to define terms, not raising her hands, more definitions, not raising her hands, in this most fearful of moments her mind isn't working- not the way it should.
She finds herself being struck on the head with the butt of the gun. On the ground she bleeds trying desperately to figure out what she did wrong in coming to her home, to celebrate. A story that dives deep into the importance of de-escalation rather than violence and the love that a woman has for her family and her students. Will she ever wake up from her coma to share how in the scariest moment of her life, science is what brought her solace? Never say what you would do? this story is a testament to realizing that you honestly will never know until you find yourself frozen and only focused on the elements of life.