Martial is back

 

"Patterns in the Palouse" by Gary Hamburgh

I logged on late yesterday - it must have been after 11:30 pm my time - to catch a bit of DJ Butch Diavolo´s set at Club Erotes/The Den, before going on to listen to my brother-in-law DJ Andrey at the Week-End Club in Boystown.

When I had arrived at Erotes and had said my hello´s I took a look at my friendslist just to check who was online. And then I got a big shock that brought tears of both joy, surprise and anger to my eyes. I am not really sure what I would have done if I weren't talking to Andrey at the time, most probably I would have lost it and logged off...

With my heart beating hard I told Andrey, "Guess who is online, my brother Martial..." or something to that effect. My emotions were in a total uproar, I was happy, sad, angry and nervous all at the same time. I couldn´t think straight.

The thing is you see, my darling, beloved and crazy brother Martial suddenly dropped out of Second Life late in the summer of 2009 (if I remember correctly). I was at a total loss to what had happened to him and was imagining all sorts of awful fates that could have befallen him, like being hit by a bus or murdered by a crazy one-night stand or something equally horrendous.

Ars was as usual good to me then, he calmed me down and told me there were loads of other alternatives for something like this to happen, things that were perfectly reasonable and that did not entail Martial being dead or lying helpless in a coma. After a long while I decided to believe Ars, still hoping that Martial was going to show up again someday. And indeed, now the day had come.

The next thing I told Andrey was, "Well, I am not going to talk to him...". I don´t know what made me say that, but as always Andrey knows me extremely well. He contacted Martial anyway, and told him to talk to me. I will always be grateful to Andrey for that, because of course I did want to talk to Martial, and I also needed to talk with him.

So when I got Martials first IM I felt like my heart would burst with the love I had always had for him, and all the things I wanted to ask him, all the things I needed to tell him about all the awful things that had happened while he was away and how happy, so very happy, I was that he was back again.

We talked tentatively for awhile but I told him from the start that I was too tired to go into details this first time. We must do that at a later time. I just wanted to know if he was doing OK and if he was going to be back in SL again after tonight. He told me yes on both questions, and I felt the relief flushing over me. I told him I was happy he was well and so very happy he was back and that we would talk it through at another time, because the shock and joy of seeing him online and talking with him was quite enough for the.moment.

Before we ended the conversation he thanked me for talking to him, and I told him he was one lucky s-o-b because I really wanted to strangle him. To which he of course answered, "I know". Smartass! He knew I didn´t mean it and that his comment would make me laugh. That was so good, because with the laughter I felt some of my anguish and anger go away. Martial always could make me laugh.

I am so happy you are back in SL with me Martial!