Death As We Know It

UNE; LE DOCTEUR

Does guilt fade over time? I've been told that it does by countless people. Well-meaning doctors, psychiatrists, friends, but their words never convince me. I can't shake the bitter taste that remembrance leaves on my tongue, or the pounding feeling in my brain. However much I wish I could, I can never escape my past.

You may be wondering what I'm talking about. I would be too. But you have to understand that this story has layers. What I'm writing may not be the whole truth. Ask someone else, and they may give you different dates, or events, or outcomes. I don't know. But what I do know, is that I was there for the majority of what you're going to read about. And maybe, you and I can accurately recall the events of the past together, in what seems to me, now, as a futile effort to prevent the surefire events of the future.

The story begins on a regular Monday afternoon in late September. It was a cool, breezy day, with the dead leaves just beginning to fall off their branches onto the pavement below. The sun bounced off of the laboratory buildings, casting warm light all over the expansive courtyard, prompting some of the students lounging around to remove unnecessary jumpers and jackets before returning to whatever mediocre tasks they were carrying out before. I wasn't enjoying the pleasant atmosphere, no, but instead, I was in the middle of a lecture, trying to zone out in peace while the professor rattled on about the importance of the new partnership between the business and chemistry students that had been decided on a few days prior. Being an International Relations student myself, I knew I would get the exact same, most likely scripted, tedious speech in my next lecture, which I found myself dreading. I only fully snapped to attention when the teacher announced that we would be paired up to create a product that would then go to the business students so they could market it ("Great", I thought, "double the work for me"). Not only did I not know anyone in my class, but I also worked better on my own, and so found myself groaning inwardly, like many of the others surrounding me. As the teacher began to call the pairs, I felt my attention slipping away again, and nearly let myself go, but not before I heard my name called.

"Dustin Demeret, and" she scowled "Ahmet Najdi."

I knew of Ahmet Najdi, and I knew of the professors' hatred towards him, for seemingly no reason, other than to be a conservative, who believed that Ahmet's "type" did not belong in America, Ahmet's so-called type being perfectly legal Syrian immigrants. She was convinced that he had cheated his way into one of the best colleges in the world, but his near perfect SAT score from three years before said otherwise. Ahmet hated her just as much, and made sure to mess with her as much as possible, embarrassing her in front of her colleagues, getting impossibly high scores, not for personal gain or achievement, but to annoy her even further. Their feud was later brought up with the board of management, which eventually resulted in the teacher- Professor Davies, I think- getting fired some years later on "Discriminatory grounds"

As I passed Professor Davies (I'm quite certain that was her name now) I sped up, trying to pass her out without any form of confrontation regarding my previous work in her class. She thought of me as a young prodigy, and I was eager to escape the inevitably and vaguely condescending conversation about potential and work ethic, which I had already received quite a number of times, and bored me to death, nearly as much as her classes did. I had one foot out of the door when she called my name.

'Dustin.'

I groaned inwardly again. She stepped closer, her bun tight enough to be giving her a free, (rather bad) do-it-yourself face lift. Her pink shirt was bright enough to hurt my eyes, and the look on her make-up slathered face was not welcoming. I scavenged through recent memories of the class, trying to recall any reasons for her to pull me aside, but I came up empty, until she started speaking, and all the puzzle pieces slid into place in my frenzied mind.