"I hate him. He could get hit by a car randomly in the street, and it wouldn't matter to me. It would probably make my days better."

Anyway, it happened. It would. And so then the whole school was plunged into mourning of varying depths. Mourning of the grievous type, and mourning of the more celebratory kind.

Let's be honest. He made everyone's life miserable. He never bothered to even sit. His room was the hallway, not a desk.

The administrator who suspended him that day couldn't stop questioning himself: could I have done more? Should I have done it? What have I done?

The ones who knew that boy years ago cried, genuine tears of potential unknown forever. Those who knew him latterly had to try a bit harder.

I still hated him. Well I don't know, can you hate somebody who is dead? Is that just spite? Is that just vengeance? Did this make me a terrible human being or worse, did this make me less than human, to celebrate the denial of his humanity?

Has the death in this place infected me?