Dead Man's Omen

It was dead silent at The Farm. No one but me and the omnipresent sun were seen on the Main Quad, that seemed to have freed itself from the usual student mêlée and now oozed an eery quiet. Was it summer recess that had put campus life on hold?

Bric-à-Brac welcome

I crossed the quad, hoping to find refuge from the sun in the university’s inner sanctuary, but despite Paoletti’s molten silica on the church’s facade displaying Christ’s welcoming of the righteous to the kingdom of God, the bronze doors were uninvitingly shut. It contrasted sharply with the message I got earlier that day, when entering a bric-à-brac not too far from The Farm. At that time life still seemed Californian happy and sunny. Why had Christ and the chaplain closed the doors on me? Was I not cut out to be one of the righteous?

A painter' palette knife

Blood on the Knife...

Wondering about life’s mysteries I strolled along the arcades and circled the quad. The silence closed in on me like the silence that closes in on you when you are spied upon by a thousand hidden eyes. Suddenly a flickering caught my eye. I rushed over, happy to find a soulmate – even though it most likely would have no soul – a mate that would lift my spirits and take away the anguish of being the last one left. I was right. It was soulless. Soulless and sinister, carelessly discarded by a murderer who knew he had nothing to fear, who knew that the wind of freedom blows over the cardinal colors of Stanford: a painter’s knife covered in blood…