Dear friends

Dear friends

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Dear friends pass away. Preoccupied and far away we miss their final thirty years of life.

I was made aware of another passing on of an old friend. A friend of a friend really but a friend never the less. We missed the death notice. Too busy with life were we to miss his suffering.

Now in dreams he returns to say his piece. In dreams a piece of him here and his philosophy as a ten year old there he presents his final performance with me in the audience to hear his summation.

How quickly we move on the path and over the hill through this life. Slow time. With two hands I rotate a circle on the ice covered opaque glass to peer past to childhood friends and at the same time to peer forward into the future of destiny without me and everyone I ever knew or experienced.

Carefully unwrap an antique vase or collectable from a secret hiding place in an old forgotten drawer. We are the antique and by the time the wrapping is removed we become the obituary. Say your piece while still alive and well though no one reads it or no one acknowledges your existence.

Dear friends may winter sunshine keep you warm and may soft gentle snows brilliantly muffle hostile sounds of enlightenment as your footsteps march solitary into the future.