Sunday I got a call that a kid died. A UMaine student, I found out. His name is Dylan. I had to get the story, talk to his friends, family and police. I had to knock on the door and ask about Dylan. Ask how he smashed his skull into the basement floor after his drunken fall down the stairs. His friends put him in a bed down there and let him sleep it off. Police found him the next morning in the bed, skull fractured, body laying in a pool of vomit. This has not been published yet.
Then I was forced, via homework, to read story upon story about death.
Going to bed last night I had nightmares. I haven't had nightmares for years. I was trapped in a basement. A killer upstairs. I was with another girl, I had to kill her to be released. In a separate dream I killed people and they came after me as a mob of zombies.
When I woke up I went to English class. I got there late, but I knew. I could feel the death again. Somber. I interrupted it. After class I asked my friend Lisa what would, any other day, have seemed like an odd question. "Lisa, I got to class late. Did someone die?" She explained to me that the professor's father had a stroke and his mother was in some state of dying.
I don't know what's going on, but I'm getting tired of making people cry.
