River felt it like a light being shut off. A switch thrown. Lightning. An electric chair. She felt it like that, even though it was a gun shot, and, all things considered, merciful.
River went to the park where it happened, and she drew it all into herself, without meaning to. She looked at everything there was to look at, every blade of grass that had been disrupted. With her head lowered into her chest and her arms hugging herself, River walked.
She remembered how it felt. Being fixed. Healed. She remembered John calling her mei-mei.
And as she walked, she started to cry.
She stopped abruptly when she came to the man with the newspaper. She stopped abruptly because she knew what was in his head, behind the nice thoughts about her now-dead friend.