Zone Zero – Ben Welton

There’s not many kinds of news one can hear that can completely set you back. Back to place you’ve never once thought of was even possible or can stomach the emotion it hits you with. The type of news that just leaves you with the question: why me? over and over again. It’s occurrences like this that make you question a lot, make you see how little control you really have over the most important things in your life. It’s realizations like this that make us see and feel a greater power above us throughout or duration on earth. Because in the moment of acquiring this new knowledge, it owns you. There is nothing you can do, sure it wont hit you yet and you can delay the horrible setting in factor, but it owns you.

I remember the night of pulling up to one my best friends apartment last spring on a rainy may night at around 11:30. A group of us just stood around looking at each other blank in the face as ambulances and police cars surrounded us. Though we knew what had happened, anytime a policemen and emt shot a look at us, there was an instant reminder from the shier devastation their eyes had possessed. And that look never ceased to end, throughout the next day I would see it every class, every lecture, every test. It was like a live Facebook newsfeed directly in front of me, a couple whispers then a mouth drop and some teared up eyes. All I could think of was sure they’re getting off easy, a quick few moments of pain and sorrow before they just moved on. But I guess that was what I was most fearful of; when the pain subsides. Sure this may not make any sense, but in the scheme of things like losing someone, your pain from them leaving feels like the only connection you can still possess with them.

We talked to everyone we could about what had happened and what a few of us had seen, but the idea of moving on was formidable. Letting go at our age can be habitual, but this completely redefined the act of moving on.