Kablammo!

I was informed today (thank Google) that a kid in my high school graduating class died 2 years ago. He was 18. Rumor has it he died by his own hand. I never gave two shits about him while he was alive (I think I never actually had a conversation with him in my life), so I won’t pretend to be more distraught by this news than I actually am.

To be perfectly frank, I’m a bit less upset by the idea that this particular kid may have taken his own life than I am by the idea that a kid in my graduating class may have taken his own life. Having gone to school with somebody who’s now dead is an unsettling feeling, as is finding out about such years after the fact. Jesus, call me selfish, but I hope I leave more of a legacy than some Final Fantasy VI fan-fiction and a cautionary example of why the senior slump is a bad thing.

On one hand, I can’t envision him hurting a fly, but on the other hand I really wasn’t surprised at all to learn that he was gone. He was certainly smart enough to deserve better, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought through whatever he may or may not have done.

In other news, if I had any notions about having any skill as a writer (hint: I certainly did) this fellow has disabused me of them. I’d be jealous, but jealousy would serve absolutely no purpose. We’re obviously not in any sort of contest, but he won anyway, and I begrudge him nothing. After all, he took my half-formed opinions about Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, fleshed them out, thought them through, and wrote about them in far more detail than I would have in a million trillion years. Well played.

Song of the Moment: «Pinball Wizard» — The Who