[ WP ] Two best friends have a small , but escalating disagreement over something insignificant . One of them ends up strangling the other .

There is a simple honor in putting the toilet seat down after use. I know this. My mother knows this, as did her mother and a long lineage of mothers dotted along the string of history until the knot in which toilets were graced upon humanity. 
 
 Even Craig knew this—I am sure that he knew this because I had instructed him more times than I can count, the first instruction being when he first slept over at my house in second grade. I remember that daft nod that he gave me. 
 
 I remember how white my knuckles were when he nodded the second time, or the fifth time. 
 I saw this inability to do something so profoundly simple as the first in only three flaws that tarnished my best friend's otherwise reliable character. The second of which was that he did not turn away from people when he sneezed, and the third is that he is dead, and I killed him. I do not feel sorry for it. 
 
 How can one apologize for that which they do n't recall? Sure, I remember snippets. I see the pieces of that day scattered about, and it is not all that difficult to put them together—but do I remember my hands closing around Craig's neck as I pushed him against the wall? Do I remember the way his eyes bulged, how his lips turned blue? 
 Do I remember the way he relaxed under my fingers, how his eyes went blank, how he grew heavy under my grip for countless minutes until I let his cooling body hit the floor? 
 
 No, of course I do n't remember. But the white toilet that rested next to his body with its seat in a clearly upward position—that I will never forget. What a fucking idiot. 
 
 -002
