Listen.

I'm not a very talkative guy. I know that as a fact.

But sometimes, quite to my surprise, I find myself talking and talking and talking to no end; it's as if I talk all I want that has been bottled up inside me.

This assignment is a bit like that.

I listen.

then I speak.

It's simple really, but the hard part is actually finding somebody to have an hour long conversation with.

For me, it was quite an uncomfortable topic to discuss.

My friend's friend had committed suicide, (where I will not be handing out facts without my friend's foremost and absolute agreement), and the dialog began from there.

"So your roommate," I started out testily, "Did you see everything that happened to him?"
He shook his head, turning around in his chair to listen to me.
"I don't feel too bad recounting that stuff now." he shrugged, "Therapy helps, I guess."
I let out a sigh in my mind. It would seem that the biggest obstacle that made this line of conversation so prohibitive was now gone. Trying to be the honest but discreet guy I wanted to be, I started out a simple conversation starter.
"So, can you tell me what happened?"
He thought for a moment and inclined to do so. After all, I was also a close friend to the guy who committed suicide as well.
And so began his chronological explanation of the night the tragic even happened. At this point, all I knew about the suicide was that he was possibly drunk.
Due to the sensitive nature of the subject, I cannot state any specific facts on this post, but as time drew on, the explanation came quite vividly to my mind. I knew his face. I knew his room. I could picture it all happening. A disturbing experience, at the very least. However, I listened intently. This was like another experience for me, one that I had yet to even hear of, much less (and god forbid,), experience.  There was no question to ask. The details were given to me in extreme clarity and detail. Occasionally I would ask for details and odd facts which may help clear up the seemingly complicated web of processes, both in material and mind. However, I had to ask one big question that had been repeating itself ever since I heard of the tragedy.

"Why,", I breathed, "would he do something as stupid and random as that?"

".... I wouldn't call him stupid." he replied back, but with an expression showing agreement to my statement. Curious, I asked, "Why?"

Then I got a handful of facts, all of them just like a key to each and every single suspicion I had about his acts. It was as if the last missing pieces of the puzzles were put back into the picture. It all made sense now. It made sense why he would have wanted to kill himself. He was in an army program. He was expected to show up for court for underage drinking. He felt that the offence would severely undermine his placement in the program. He was drunk. He had made a wrong decision.

I agreed with him. Now he didn't seem like an idiot to me. Now I truly felt the reason why he took his own life. It almost justified it. However, nothing can justify taking one's own life away. In the end, I merely nodded.

"Still, he's an idiot for doing so. Look how many people he shocked."

I asked him to tell me the story.
I mirrored my own feelings by expressing my opinion about his death.
I did not paraphrase.
I guessed at several of the events that had happened, but there was nothing of importance that would be considered a tide-turner.

I agreed with him on the unfortunate nature of his decision as well as the circumstances that bought it forth.
I built on the small fact that he was drunk to an extension of his personal campus life.
I could not compare. What would I have to compare against such an event?

The time is skewed and my body is breaking down.

I leave this page here.

RIP, Karl Kowall.

You will always be in our hearts.