Sic transit gloria mundi

This afternoon I biked to a coffeehouse I like on the west side of town, Portofino, and was perusing a copy of today's Detroit Free Press. There were a few interesting items on the front page amidst the usual blather: one about rumors going around in the Detroit Latino population that they're being monitored while shopping at grocery stores, another about a 16-year old girl who met a 25-year old man on MySpace and flew to Amman, Jordan to meet him. But it wasn't until I got to page three that I found something that really caught my attention.

A girl in Chesterfield Township committed suicide the previous Thursday (link). It was the second teen suicide there this month, and writers described the scene as they found it the next day:

"The playground was immaculate, betraying no signs of what transpired Thursday, when neighbors getting ready for school spotted a 13-year-old girl hanging from a swing set near Chesterfield and 24 Mile."

Excuse me, what Gothic nightmare did I just wake up in? I pictured the girl's body swaying in the mists of a June morning and sunlight cresting the tops of the surrounding trees. I wondered, what did her face look like when they found her? A dull, blank expression perhaps. Eyes still open? I wondered whether she had used a rope or a belt, maybe something else entirely. What might she have been thinking in those last moments, as the last breaths left her? Did the end come quickly or with panic and kicking feet?

I put the newspaper down and felt terrible for the world.