I wrote this during a writing workshop prompt earlier this week. It was put together in five minutes, but I thought that it was pretty good, that it was pretty sad, and unfortunately, that it'll probably be pretty true. Hope you agree with the pretty good part. Please comment if you do. Thanks.

What can I say about Alex Clermont that everybody here doesn't already know. He was five feet seven inches. He was brown. He loved comic books, shrimp, and any joke that could convincingly fit the word penetration into it.

Alex was also a sucker for love. He loved the idea of love, and shared himself mind, body, and soul with several of us crying here today. Love with Alex, however, was never permanent, with every relationship of his having in it a fatal flaw. He never found what he was looking for either in love, or in life in general, but I think he was okay with that.

I miss Alex's toothy smile. I really do. It was always fake of course. He would tell you so. "I'm a writer," he'd say. "I lie for a living." But although his smiles were always lies, I felt that behind that grin he knew something true, something real. Something wonderful, something tragic, something unique about me, and the world we lived in. Something grand that he would gladly tell you if you simply asked the right question."What is the point of life?" I once asked him.

"The point of life is to live. The point of life, Stacey, is to live."

I miss my brother. More than anything right now I miss his spark of life. But, his life was a search for peace, acceptance, and comfort. Today, I think he finally found what he was looking for.