Well this is weird

[kickaha]

A friend of mine is apparently dead. I never met him in person, but we'd talked a lot online in the past few months. He was a raging asshole on the surface, but had one of the softest hearts I've ever met. He'd lost his job, started experimenting with various pharmaceuticals, and frankly, I was getting kind of worried about him... at which point he rather dropped off the face of the earth.

That was two weeks ago.

Today on a board we both frequent, someone posted that he had passed away. No word on how, when, or anything else, just... that he's gone. People are scrambling for details, but none are to be had as of yet.

This is strange - I never saw a picture of him, to the best of my knowledge, even though we spent many hours talking about quite personal subjects. I never heard his voice, I only recently learned his real name.

And yet while I'm still really hoping I get to meet him someday, and this is just one of his crazy pranks gone out of control (again), something tells me he's truly gone. I hope I'm wrong.

Comments

[madpiratebippy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, two friends of mine from online forums were incommunicado after 9-11, until someone mentioned they'd seen their real names (which I didn't know until then) on the list of people who had died. They'd been on one of the planes to hit the towers.

The net lets us connect to people we otherwise would have never met. Connections with people can hurt, lots. You never realise just how close these friends can be until something happens- to you, and you discover the support network you have, or two them, and you realize that the person who animated the text on your screen was a much larger part of your life than you'd thought.

I hope it's a prank, I really do. If not, I'm sorry, and if there's something I can do for you, let me know.

Love,

Bippy