wrote this while processing blue gene tyranny's death, a tad melodramatic but i like it
Dear Blue Gene,
I wanted to write to you because I found out you had passed away earlier this week. I never thought that I would know when you died, in fact it had never occurred to me really that you were alive. Nonetheless, waking up and checking twitter immediately that morning informed me of your death, and my heart staggered and crumbled slightly.
You were the first person to ever tell me that sometime, perhaps in this world or maybe another, we will meet each other again free of all circumstance, and things should be different. They might be. You had so many great ideas Blue. Jangling, lively melodies paired with contemplative lyrics. Your music resonates in its listeners ears like a conversation with friends at 3AM after a long night out. Pop philosophy in warmly lit rooms, drawn out of the mouths of 20-somethings by alcohol, THC, kratom, cocaine, ketamine. Paraphrasing big ideas they’d encountered in a post, in a tweet, in a movie, in a class, in another conversation. “Shelley Duvall was a lesbian”, “there are ten dimensions”, “the tech bubble will pop within the next year”, “Angela Davis is CIA”, “we are entering the age of Aquarius”. Was anyone ever so young and so determined to touch every possible object with the scrutinizing light of discussion?
I sing myself your music under my breath, while I’m walking to kill time and absorb the novel Midwestern winter sunlight. I am in one of the older neighborhoods of the city, where they are tearing down out-of-use warehouses and empty schools, to build apartments. I stroll on the sidewalk, to avoid construction, between humble front yards, and tree lawns which protect my body from the roar of the road. I stare at the tunnel the tops and sides of the trees make over the sidewalk, between the houses and the planting strips. The sidewalk partitions a forest. The trees on one side reach out to the trees on the other, trying to stay connected. Moving my gaze to the ornate, detailed stonework of the Victorian homes, to the gauged and tattooed couple I see daily walking their baby, to the black bulldog barking against the chainlink fence. I whisper, “I don’t know where we came from / I don’t know how we got here / I just turned my back and suddenly you were here”. I shift my gaze down to my feet, to my sneakers planting on the cracked and uneven grey pavement of the sidewalk. I look up, and I see a tow truck pass, lugging a demolished camper behind it. The camper is dark green and tan chrome. The front and back are shiny, but the middle is blackened, charred, and matte. The glossy ends sag toward the dilapidated center, as if being pulled in by some centrifuge. For the moment the tow truck and the obliterated camper pass me, it smells like smoke. Then, as quickly as it came, it went. It goes by, and I continue my walk.
Blue, I can’t help but wonder, how did you die? I know that’s not an easy question to answer. I’ve known six people who have died this year (besides you), and I can’t give a definitive reason for any one of them. I hope you weren’t alone, or afraid. I hope you felt that what you made on this Earth will live on without you, because it will.
One of my friends told me I should edit your Wikipedia to update that you’d died, because it’s been a week and the page says you’re still alive. I said, No, that’s too much work. In that way too, you can live forever online.
Love and, sincerity,
emilie