Letters in Email

I was trying to remember the last time I saw Carson. It was 2005, and he spent the summer and fall taking classes in my school while he was on temporary leave from the Ivy League school he usually attended. He met up in the computer labs, took some drives, and talked a lot. Overall there was a good vibe. He gave me his email, but I lost it the same day because the paper with it fell out of my wallet. My last email to him (and first after our meetup) was sent January 31, 2006.

Wanting to be in touch, I went to his school's web site and searched for his name. I forgot to click "people" and instead ended up searching the whole site. I got a headline that read "[his first name and last name] dies." I thought, "oh no... he's done it!" and I clicked into the article. It was about a guy with the same name who graduated in 1957, and had died unexpectedly and recently. I quickly wrote an email to Carson telling him how happy I was the HE was okay. The last thing I ever wrote to him was, "I am so happy you're alive!"

He never wrote me back.

Now when you search for his name on the college web site, you can find two articles: the death of my friend, and the death of a man with the same name from years before.