OBVIOUS, OUT IN THE OPEN

A pack of students walked down the path in the early morning, most of them silent and tired but one of them loudly grousing about the indignity of an eight o'clock start to her day.  At eleven or so, that same girl wandered back down the path, idly noting the shape of a person hidden inside of a dirty sleeping bag laying beneath the trees by the fencing.  She didn't think anything of it, just some bum sleeping rough.  And then at three, this same girl returned with a different group of friends on their way to another class of theirs.  The same form lay there beneath the tree, seemingly unmoved.  This time she noticed, and started wondering more actively about who lay inside.  She walked by the last time at around nine, after a long day of classes and dinner and a few hours at a bar that didn't worry too much about state issued ID's.  And this time when the girl looked over to where that mysterious person had slept, she noticed black and yellow police tape strewn in a rough perimeter around that same area.  The bottom dropped out of her stomach as she realized what she'd been observing all day long.  Her shoulders sagged with the guilt, knowing that a very sad story had played out right next to where she lived her frivolous little life.