Interlude

I knew what I was going to write tonight.

For those that don't know (I don't exactly keep it well hidden), I'm a big fan of a game called Magic: The Gathering. Periodically, new sets of cards are released, and there's a big event called a "pre-release" where you get the first chance to build decks and compete with the new cards.

I went along to a pre-release today, and I had one of the best days of Magic of my life. Which is why I say that I knew what I was going to write tonight.

I was going to write about the tension-filled matches, the near-misses and whitewashes, the nail-biting finales. The >$67-worth of rares (plus tons of other exciting new cards) that I walked away with from 2 $30 entry fees. The sheer blind luck of getting a wildcard entry into a second tournament, and the absurdly lucky cards I opened in it. Playing the most exciting two turns of Magic I've ever *heard of*, let alone played (and the cheering crowd that surrounded it). The incredibly friendly people I met, the recommendations for things to see and do around Seattle, and the warm and friendly atmosphere. My growth as a player and my increased appreciation of the game. A really, *really* good day.

That was what I was going to write about. Then, as I was leaving the games shop, I heard that a childhood friend had fallen in a rock-climbing accident yesterday, and died of his injuries this morning.

News like that has a way of putting a damper on things.

As seems to be the pattern for news like this (and how I wish I wasn't in a position to know this), right now I feel pretty much nothing. True to form, it will probably hit me in a few days, and I'm not looking forward to that feeling of (selfish) bereavement and loneliness when I'm nearly five thousand miles from the friends and family I love.

How absurd that the death of someone I last spoke to nearly a decade ago can still have such an effect on me. How selfish and self-centred for me to be worrying about how I'm *going* to feel in a few days when the people who really knew and loved him are probably going through hell right now. Death sucks, you guys.

Frustratingly, email is my only reliable for of contact right now, and I don't have an address for the people I know who will have been most immediately affected. I've asked around on Twitter for an address, but I hope (even if they don't see this, which is likely) that they would know that they're in my thoughts.

I can't write anything about him right now that won't come across as empty platitudes. I don't know if I should even feel like I have a right to say anything, since it's been so long since I really knew him. I had honestly (this is one of those things people always say at times like this, but it's true) been thinking that I should get back in touch with him - it sounded like our lives had followed separate but similar paths, and that, having grown to near-adulthood, we'd have enough in common to be friends through choice, rather than colocation. Now we'll never know.

RIP Ben.