He was killed instantly, around midnight, out on the North Shore driving home from his job at a hotel. He d been the friendly one. He always had a greeting for me, a compliment on my hair or a funny remark about something. He was always friendly, eager, the one who smiled back at me when I talked to the class. He had a relaxed, easy walking style, wearing blue jeans, flirting with all the women, studying to be a chef.
School is life, they say.
This is not preparation for life. This is life and it was his life, about all he had left, dead at nineteen, dead before the semester ended. And so this semester, sitting in this quiet office in this quiet building, I commune with silence. They re all gone from me, like Brady. There will be time to play with rice paper pieces and time to create patterns of colors in delightful shapes to build a collection of my artistic works, so says my tedious brain.