Passing By

I was walking to Thayer dorms this morning, to meet a friend for lunch and get some laundry done, perhaps write a bit as well.

Little things started to strike me: the queer, rosy tint my sunglasses lent the world, the surprising lack of tourists as I passed by the John Harvard statue, the yellow caution tape spanning the distance between Thayer's South Side and University Hall, the police cars parked in the yard.

"Someone committed suicide on the top step of Memorial Church" Joseph would tell me later. I would nod, and root about inside for something to feel, and come up only with the empty consolation that today was and is still a beautiful day and that later I will exercise and sit in my room talking about the depravity of suicide with my roommates and we would all turn comfortably over in our young lives and feel normalcy hem us in on all sides once more.

There's someone dead on the steps of memorial church. One friend saw his body; another saw the head. And I'm wondering why no one (not me or you or the tourists) seems to care.

"SOMEONE SHOT THEMSELVES ON TOP OF MEMORIAL CHURCH STEPS!!" one friend texts me after I already know.

"I know, It's terrible. Michael saw the body" I type back.

My phone buzzes and I slide it open. Another text from the same friend: "Let's do our laundry at twelve thirty. Meet in Thayer Basement?"

"Sure. See you then."

I go back outside because I've forgotten my detergent in my dorm room. Ducking under the caution tape, I go on my way.