Early this morning I was driving a friend home when he got a phonecall. Whoever it was on the other end informed him of the death of one of his friends, and how it had happened.

This friend once-removed had wrapped his truck around a 200 year old oak tree in a state of drunkenness. My friend was considerably upset at the news.

When I got home, it turned out that the dead boy was also a friend of my sister and also of my girlfriend. They were also quite upset, and my sister said something that sparked up the first embers of anger in me:

"I feel so bad for him!"

No. No no no. You shouldn't feel bad for him. You should hold him in the same bottomless contempt that I hold him. It was his choice to get drunk. It was his choice to drive drunk. He died as a direct result of his own poor choices, and now others will suffer.

He isn't suffering. He's dead. Gone. He doesn't care about the accident any more than the dirt they'll toss on his coffin cares what it covers.

The victims of an accident like this are the survivors. His parents and siblings. His girlfriend. His ex-girlfriend. The people that sit with him at lunch in the cafeteria. His third period trigonometry instructor who saw great things in his future. The girl he worked with who thought he was kinda cute.

All of the people in his life will now agonize and be miserable because of his incredible stupidity.

I have no pity or soft feelings towards people who kill themselves with poor choices - especially a friend once removed.