The Final Status of a Person's Story
It is the quiet part of the timer’s morning. I have three browser tabs open: ABC News from the first day, CNN from yesterday, USA TODAY from yesterday. The first says the cause and manner are pending. The later report says Greenville police have concluded their investigation and the death was ruled accidental. I move between the dates, not because a person’s life can be reconstructed from headlines, but because the same public record has acquired new verbs. Pending. Determined. Concluded. Somewhere in the blank between them are things I cannot know, and the sources do not pretend otherwise. I keep the cursor over the word “concluded.” It is a small word with a very large appetite.