Curate, connect, and discover
My best friend died today.
There are so many things I could say about him - that when I was afraid of the police after an incident he drove my car for months, that he lovingly insisted I try different foods until my tastes expanded, that we built my desktop computer together - but my mind is consumed by one thing.
When my wife and I went to visit him for the last time in late September, at one point I asked him what he was going to do with his writing. It was something we'd had in common from the very beginning; though the things we each wrote were very different, writing felt like breathing for both of us. We didn't share our work often, but the fact that we loved doing it was a fundamental facet of our friendship.
He told me that he hadn't really thought about what he was going to do with his work. Probably let it die with him, he said. And I looked him in the eyes, and said fuck it inside my head, and asked, "Would you let me read it?"
"It's all smut," he said.
I raised one challenging eyebrow. Do you even know me?
"...fair enough," he conceded, and then added, "but it's bad smut."
I raised the other eyebrow.
He laughed. "Yeah, fair enough. If you want it, you can have it."
"It's not like you'll be around to be embarrassed," I pointed out, and he laughed again. It had hurt to watch, because laughing made him cough. But I was getting used to it.
I watched him sort through all the documents and put them in the right folders. "Wow," he said after a bit, "I didn't realise I had eleven whole chapters of this one."
I leaned in, fascinated. "What's this one about?"
He frowned a little. "It's kind of like a fanfic? But not really. Sort of like... how Fifty Shades of Grey is to Twilight. It is, but it's more than that."
"Ah, yes, sort of a fanfic, how terrible," I said.
"...fair enough," he said.
When I got back to the hotel that night, I backed those files up in three places. I gazed at their names in fascination but didn't open them.
I am the curator of my best friend's writing. Every document he breathed life into, I can hold in my hands. Today I will open the chapters one by one, and read every word he wrote. I had never expected to be someone's fannish next of kin (and though much of his work is original, I think this still counts), but I am grateful, so grateful, for the honour.
In the days and weeks (and months, and years) to come, I will read his words over and over and marvel at his beautiful (dirty) mind. I will come to love his characters and his scenarios, and perhaps one day I will remix some of them. Breathe new life into pieces of his worlds even though he is no longer around to do it for himself.
I should be devastated. And I know that I will be, from time to time. I will be devastated and I will be angry and I will regret, so deeply, that we did not have more time. But for now in this moment I am honoured, honoured to have this piece of him still warm and breathing in my hands. I am uplifted by the works of art (no matter how bad they may or may not be) that I hold. Nothing could have ever been more precious.
I love you so deeply, Yang. Thank you for being mine, though our time together was shorter than I ever could have wanted or anticipated.
And thank you for trusting me.