Great art is also about timing: seven bucks for change

Wishing to pay tribute to a great author whose writing I had come to admire thanks to an introduction by an ex-coworker, I set out to honor him in the only way I knew possible. Feeling a small spark of creativity, I scribbled out this little drawing. I thought it was so clever! The only problem was that I had gotten lazy and decided to turn it in the next day, rather than turn it in the day it was created like most of the stuff I make. So, feeling that all is right in the world, I turn this in the following day with the high hopes of seeing it in the paper the next day. The only other problem was down the street in the state that borders mine, this madman had decided at that very moment to let his illness get the better of him. As I dropped off my meager offering to the editor's desk, his mind finally lost all touch with reality.
The next day as I came into work cheerful and satisfied at a job well done, I sat down at my desk and grabbed the student paper. Here it comes! Glory and roses for me! Hoping to scratch my itching ego and honor a great man at the same time, I flip it over. What I found splayed across the front page took all the wind out of my sails. The headline read:

33 SLAIN AT VIRGINIA TECH

Damn. The madman in the neighboring state had really done it. He robbed me of my tribute and had taken from me the juicy 7 dollars I was to gain for my submission to the paper! Damn him! Did he really hate life so much that he not only had to take the lives of so many people, but he had to con me out of 7 bucks too? Hell, if I had known he'd go through all this trouble, I would have mailed him the cash! 7 bucks doesn't nearly come close to covering the price of all those beautiful lives wasted, so why the hell did he do it? Why? Why heap so much suffering on the world? Hanging my head in shame, I came to this small conclusion:

The last thing the world wants to be reminded of in the wake of a devastating tragedy such as this is more death and how precious our mundane little lives are. Knowing this, the editor probably took my piece and threw it in the trash. Had I turned the piece in earlier, it wouldn't have taken on the extra meaning that I have unintentionally given it. Now this piece carries more weight for me than it ever would have before. So what if it didn't run in the paper, at least Kurt didn't have to bear what we have all seen these past few days. Maybe God knew this before he took Vonnegut out of this cruel world. A true, fitting tribute to such a man was that after so many long years of being witness to some of the worst atrocities of man he was finally spared this site as one of the worst. The world didn't need my drawing. It'll never even come close to paying for the lives of 30+ individuals, but for that knowledge, it was well worth the 7 bucks.