Unfinished Business

Todd Anderson was quite frankly astonished to still be a student at Welton Academy. Following his English class' final salute to their Captain, they had been lectured and reprimanded and denounced in front of the entire student body. Todd had been in the most trouble, of course. He had been the perpetrator, the ring-leader, of the small rebellion that had taken place in the English department that day. But the school's administration must have realised how a mass-expulsion would appear to prospective alumni and seemed to have put the class' behaviour down to an emotional breakdown, caused by the death of one Neil Perry, and had pretended that it had never happened.

No one had quite gotten around to assigning Todd a new roommate, nor to moving him to another dorm. And he was more than okay with that. He spent a lot of his time alone in his room, lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling and pretending that Neil wasn't really gone, he had never been gone, he had just gone to the bathroom or to the library and soon he would wander back in with that huge open smile on his face. And sometimes Todd would sit on Neil's bed, where the not-unpleasant smell of Neil still lingered. He would sit there and think, "Well this is what it's like to be Neil. This is what it was like to be Neil." He was seeing the world from where Neil had seen it. At times he would sit on that bed for hours and just breathe in Neil's smell. And then going back to his own side of the room was like hearing about Neil'' suicide all over again.

The Dead Poets. It had all been such a release. For a few short months they had felt as if they had the power to do anything, and no matter what, they would channel the words of the poets. But that had ended and now all they could do was reminisce. Neil was dead, Charlie was miles away, Cameron was doing the sensible thing and had avoided the Dead Poets altogether, though Todd had caught him casting furtive glances in they direction every now and then.

Sometimes, when he passed them in the halls, Todd would share a glance with Knox or Pitts or Meeks and for that split second it felt as if the Dead Poets would live again. But it only lasted a moment and then Todd would keeps walking.

And on days when everyone was out, visiting the town or home with parents, Todd would stand in the empty foyer and call Charlie. Sometimes he would come to the phone, sometimes not. And they would talk about mundane things: about school and classes and teachers, and there would be so much left unspoken. Todd never told Charlie how much he still cried and Charlie never told Todd how proud Neil would have been of him.

These were their ways of trying to move on. But of course it didn't work. Because their heads were still swimming with unanswered questions. They wanted to know what had driven their best friend to kill himself. And in a fascinating, disgusting, morbid way, they wanted details. Had Neil done it in his bedroom? What were the last thoughts that had run through his mind? Had he slit his wrists, or had his parents found his suspended from the ceiling with his Welton school tie.

And although they searched for it many times, Mr. Keating's poetry book never reappeared.