and you planted roots down by the sea

It's a molasses morning in the Wilk today and I am at a loss for work. Sure, I have a few letters to write, maybe a journal entry or two to scribble out, but when it comes right down to it, it's eight in the morning. On a Saturday. Which is beautiful and bright and new and fresh but I am in an empty Lab with no windows and only the whirr of the air conditioner to keep me company. I am happy to be alone---I'm just not entirely keen on being so lonely.

So I'm going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time I had a friend who was named after the Queen's horse, among other things. We only saw each other for less than a year a few times a week and for an hour or two a day, but when I did get the chance to be with him, it was brilliant. He had this honest wit about him that was delightfully refreshing and ridiculously laugh-inducing; I couldn't help but look forward to his every conversation with a smile. Occasionally, he'd wear a trenchcoat, the classic film-noir type and a little bit goth. He had sharp, angled eyebrows and green, green eyes; a Puck-like smile that induced you to whatever mischief he'd cooked up. He was, in short, charming.

I haven't heard from him in a very, very long time and I can't help but wonder what he's up to now. Does he still have that trenchcoat? Can he still make me laugh? Has he died his hair bright blue yet?

That wasn't much of a story-story, I know. But I guess the message is this: I miss him. And you know what else? What a strange thing, missing. One word to mean so many different things. I miss the dovecote and I miss the sea, I miss the walk through Fairfax park and the house on Tipahi. But even that kind of missing is separate from the longing of a Hippolite laugh or an afternoon in 11th year drama. There are so many visual or sensual memories I miss, but I'd give them all up just to experience the emotional again, to feel that sense of being simply by being with them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Three months, six days.