Just as I was about to depart for London I opened a message from Mash informing me that a childhood friend died.
I’ve written about this person before; he was one of the other sick kids in school, and in Lessons in Taxidermy he shows up crawling through the springs of my hospital bed.
We were never particularly close because his house was on the other side of the forest, but there was definite kinship and secret camaraderie because we were abysmally different from the other children.
Later when we learned to hide our illnesses he became a popular metal kid while I was hanging with the outcasts and punks. We never talked much but we respected each other from a distance – and defended each other when appropriate.
I lost track of him seventeen years ago, but I often wondered where he was, if he had married or had children. The fact that he is gone, that his loved ones are bereaved, is extremely sad. On the train to the city I stared out at bucolic fields dusted in snow, thinking about home and the woods where we used to play.
This morning my nerves should be shattered but I am just sad. This seems like an appropriate emotion as the book is launched.