Dearly missing the Russian

Not all change is good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say most change is bad. Change bothers me in myriad ways: he is no longer alive, she is no longer in love with you, it is now an expensive high-rise, and so forth. One of the things that bothers me most, though, is when construction claims my normal walking route. I get used to my routes for walking places, and I do a lot of walking. These routes become my havens of mental decongestion and it is while walking them that I carve out my history.
I used to walk past this building on U of M's campus where I could see directly into a man's office. I did not know his name, but he looked very much like a mole with glasses. And he had, on his desk, a miniature russian flag. So, in my mind, I called him The Russian. I'd see him every day when walking from home to work and back again, and over the years I invented dozens of stories about who he was and where that flag came from and so forth. Then, one day, he just wasn't there anymore. His office was empty, and within a week or so his building was torn down. I was mortified - where had my comfortably predictable russian gone? I would never know.
Just the other day construction workers started tearing up the street on which I walk to work now, and it made me think of the Russian and how much I don't appreciate change. On the way back from work, there was new cement poured, and these two little kids were talking about how they were going to write their names in the cement so that "people in the far far future would know them." Impractical though their plan may have been, for a brief second it was really appealing. So I stooped down, and, with the cap of my water bottle, wrote a big, deep "G" in one corner of the newly-poured area. That was the first time I'd ever done that, and now I kind of hope this kids are right.