this is one story that i am not making up. i will start off by saying that joe is alive and fine, so you don't have to worry.

last night i was on the T going into the city to meet up with nat, when i got a call from him asking if i knew where joe was because he wasn't at work and wasn't answering his phone or anything. i said no, and so immediately we realized we had to go to his house because obviously he was dead.

the T was terribly slow. listening to eliott smith didn't help.

eventually i got to central and started the walk over to phil's. i was listening to astronauts, which really was the wrong song for this too. it's all spacey and builds and builds and doesn't let your mind move on to things other than having another dead friend; your best friend. you start figuring out the first 10 people you'll call; phil to say you can't work for a couple of days - surely joe would count as a death in the family? i mean i lived with him for 3 years.

thinking... i talked to him last night he was with friends from high school what had they been doing where did they go? they were probably making a bunch of noise, having fun, and someone told them to be quiet and they wouldn't so they came in and shot joe and his friends. why did i let him live by himself? what was he thinking moving to inman? i told him that is where people get shot, and now i have another dead friend. but surely if something like that happened they would have contacted his parents... surely kara would have heard and told me. so if something had happened someone would know. he doesn't go out running without any ID like i do...

i turn the corner onto his street and expect the amusement park of flashing lights and sirens but there is nothing. i call nat; he was just there the lights are off and nobody answered the door. well, we have to break in to check just because. nat asks how and well, i have keys so it's not tough.

we knock on his door but no answer. we walk in. nothing in the bathroom (where i feared), kitchen, living room. his bedroom is upstairs, we take a deep breath before going up. we don't know where light switches are, so we stumble around a bit but then lights are on and there are no bloodied bodies lying around, their cold eyes judging.

Things are pulled taut, Toph, pulled taut! There is no give! No give! Everything is too tight, brother, everything is just right there, like that [clenching fists], see that? Tight, taut [jerking fists apart, miming the testing of a knot in a short piece of rope]! Everything is pulled taut!

-- dave eggers

this is never going away... freaking out sunday mornings when you hear a loud airplane flying low... wondering who has died every time the phone rings from ohio... waiting until every shoe finally drops...

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