Dear David,Last night, I wore the collar you gave me for my twenty-second birthday. Someone asked me about it, and I said it was custom-ordered for me by a very dear friend.
I left the rest unsaid. I didn't want to have to explain, to think about how the little package came in the mail two weeks before my birthday, how you forbade me to open it. I didn't want to think about my pleasure when I finally opened my present and tried it on. It fit perfectly.
I have it on in the picture of me and M, she standing behind me, me with my head back and laughing. I scanned it a few weeks before you died, and I could hear the happy and smug note in your text.
There was only a little history between us. But it was a lifeline in a time of loneliness, the stories we wrote back and forth. It gave me something to look forward to, something naughty to indulge in. I haven't looked at those stories since i heard the news, you know. I can't bear to open the files. I don't want to look.
I mentioned you, my very dear friend, as if you were still alive, somewhere, still my very dear friend, rather than the boy I loved for a while and who died in his sleep when he was nineteen years old. I was angry for a long time afterwards, angry at the chance that had stranded your mind, wit, and depth of feeling in a body far too frail. Angry at the gods you merrily refused to believe in, for their caprice. Angry at what had taken you away from me and all of the other people who loved you.
Yet underneath of the anger is a sardonic acceptance, the knowledge that the best testament to your life is to live mine with a touch of the attitude you lived yours. You would have loved the wakes we held; you would have asked for your own share of the whiskey we were drinking that night, separated by countless miles.
On New Year's Eve, my only toast was "To absent friends." That was you, as well as all of the other people I've lost, to the loves scattered across continents and times.
So I wear the collar you gave me and speak of you as if you might still one day mail me a scenario to describe. Your funeral was standing-room-only, you know. I think you would have liked that, too.
So, then. I raise my glass to absent friends.
I raise my glass to you, David. My still very dear friend.
Love,
Kris
Though you were a coward, we haven't your courage now. The thought of you returning in a heavenly glow, your equations complete . . . We trust you, even if we can only sense you. We know you're one of us.from Sequel by Jane Miller
outside: beautiful!
doing: drinking water
to do: resurrection
words: Cryptonomicon
link: The Dark Backward
energy level (out of ten): 6
dream: I dream I am crossing the street with a girl i do not like. As we part, she calls, "I think you're a nice girl." i ignore her.
