Author:
Ken
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Date Posted: 23:12:25 03/23/03 Sun
Okay, I'm glad to see I haven't missed anything...
I have received two pieces of email from you guys. One from Curt and one from Jeff: I thought it would be cozy to respond to both here on the discussion board, but I may reserve some things for direct communications. I don't know yet...
Yes, you read right! I received an email from Curt. We were corresponding most productively shortly before my modem blew a gasket. Since I recognize that the friction between Curt and I has been the cause of a lot of discomfort for all of us, and since I accept at least half the blame for that, I felt it would be a cockle-warming exercise to respond to Curt's warm and wonderful email right here for everyone to partake:
Curt, I am so happy to hear that my last email affected you so positively and profoundly. I, too, feel like a weight has been lifted from me.
It's regrettable that we have wasted so much time, but I am not the type to waste more time on regret, and I know that you are not, either.
I don't think we can necessarily pick up where we left off, because we are not the same young men we were then, but I agree that a barrier has been razed. It will take some effort, but I am confident that we can put together some semblance of the deep camaraderie we once felt so strongly and displayed so proudly.
I hope you know I am proud to call you "friend," as I am proud to call all of you friends. I hope to hold up my end of that relationship better in the future, but I feel a partnership in this endeavor. And no, I don't think it's necessary to dwell on our past difficulties, although I think if we pursued them vigorously enough we would find they were largely without substance.
I am sorry we didn't make a connection when you were in town. I didn't know you were here, although even if I did I have been extraordinarily busy recently. Your mother may have told you we keep bumping into each other as she is on her morning walk and I am racing out to my car to go to work. "Late again," I always say, and she always laughs.
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Jeff,
Dear, sweet, goofball Jeff. For the last time, NO, I will not wear a Utili-Kilt to Vegas!
Only kidding, Jeff didn't ask me that, but you just know he was thinking it :-}
Mentiac or Valkusian? Hmmmmmmm. I suppose that Valkusian has more details upon which to build a bio, but there's plenty for Mentiac as well.
I don't know if John or Curt have any interest in this at all. My plan was to eventually write both bios and send copies to the corresponding alter-ego for editorial review. Mentiac's character will be fleshed out a bit more in some upcoming instalments, so I though I would do him first. Valkusian is kind of mysterious anyway, and the sequence of events surrounding his development are sufficiently complex I intend to do it last out of sheer laziness.
At any rate, you're right: I am hereby soliciting input from John and Curt. No pressure, no heartache. Whatever you've got over and above what you've already contributed, fire away!
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John,
You haven't sent me any emails at all, you self-involved twit!
Then again, my response to your grief over the death of your friend was crass and flip. I apologize, although that is small comfort, I'm sure, and very late.
I can't say I am uncomfortable with the subject of death, although I am certainly not comfortable. I suppose I am lucky to have had very few friends up and croak on me, and most of my dead relatives had it coming ;-)
Seriously, the only time I have even been to a funeral was my grandfather's funeral. He was a bitter old man, and I felt he had died on the inside long before his mortal coil gave up the ghost.
All the same, his funeral had a profound impact on me. He was retired Navy, and his Elks lodge arranged an Honor Guard ceremony replete with flag-draped casket and guns a-blazin'. It was enormously dignified, far more so than his pettiness on Earth seemed to have warranted.
I can tell you this: I absolutely had no desire to see his dead body. And if he were young, healthy, and virile, as was your friend, it would have been infinitely worse to see him laid out like some retired meat puppet. I can only imagine how traumatic and disturbing that must have been for you, and I hope you are less troubled by it now than you were then.
When my grandfather died, I hadn't the least moment's reflection on my own mortality. I was younger then, of course. Now, when people my age die, I feel it more profoundly. It seems closer. It's not fear of my own death. It's more a "there but for the grace of God" feeling (without the God part, of course.) Hard to put into words. But I gather you know what I mean.
The loss of such a close friend... I can imagine it, but I refuse to imagine it. The thought is so painful, the reality must have been unbearable. Again, you have my deepest, sincerest, and most shamefully delayed sympathies.
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Guys, I am kind of dazed these last few days. I don't necessarily want to discuss it, certainly not on this board, but I am pained, outraged, and sick to death over this fucking war.
I am functioning well enough. I am not a basket case like I was during Desert Storm. But I am not myself. I bounce back and forth between extreme anger and disgust, and more or less effective attempts at getting a grip on myself.
I feel out of touch with everyone I meet. They smile at me and I see blood on their teeth. I wish I could leave town and stay on a desert island until the madness passes.
But I have my friends. You three. I don't want to know what you think about George W. Bush and his war to end all peace, because it's easier for me to pretend you would all agree with me.
That aside, I know you all care for me, and empathize with my pain, even if you don't understand it. That feels good. It helps to keep me on track when I get to thinking the whole world has gone mad.
I love you, Curt. I love you, Jeff. I love you, John. You are the brothers I never had.
Peace.
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