Every senior class of every high school in america has a tragedy. Either a suicide or a car accident ends up extinguishing that bright light of promise in of your peers. When this happens and you're only 17 and not fully emotionally developed you can do one of two things.
1) Make a self-righteous display of pity over the departed person.
2) Act overly flippant about the whole process as you realize how little it has actually impacted you.
Needless to say when my senior class's tragedy occurred, I chose option # 2.
The tragedy was that some guy died in a car accident. I was even in my first period with the now deceased student. It had made the news, so everyone knew about it. Everyone, that is, but the teacher.
While calling attendance, the teacher actually called the dead kid's name to see if he was there. Having decided to be flippant, I took comedic fortune by the hand and said in an eerie, quavering, ghost-like echo, "He-e-e-e-e-re."
Some kids laughed. Some kids looked at me with scorn. The teacher counted his days until retirement.
