Contagion Diaries
Volume 1
June 9th, 2015
10:09am
I am afraid this morning, having received news of that my former Media Studies professor, an award-winning and well-loved scholar and friend to many, father of two whom he loved very much, died suddenly and inexplicably last night. He mentored me closely and helped to get my first academic paper published during my junior year, an accomplishment which only four other undergraduates at my alma mater had reached.
All of us were men; all of us were mentored by him. One of us died my senior year in 2014.
We walked into ENG4800 at 8am the next day.
Our English Literature professor commented at the end of class that everyone seemed unusually quiet, and someone quietly informed her of the news that she should expect one less set of papers to grade.
She wept and sent out an announcement to other professors; it was ridiculous that they didn’t know.
Several of my classes were cancelled that day, and it gave me time to obsess over the details of my classmate’s death, even though I had none. I barely knew his name; I knew he liked to play guitar.
He seemed nice.
He was dead, and he would be followed in death by his favorite professor.
Read “Contagion Diaries” on a larger screen, or in the Medium app!
