My Dead Friend

I had a dream about one of my dead friends. He was still alive and had aged appropriately, with gray flecks in his hair. He lived in a cabin on the side of a mountain and had come down to have a chat with me. I was trying to show him a new videogame that I knew he’d appreciate (he was a sci-fi buff, like me). The game was a fully interactive version of the original Star Trek series with an almost unlimited galaxy to explore. I was very excited about showing him this game, but it wouldn’t play correctly in my console.

My friend lay back on my sofa and talked about how he’d reconnected with his old girlfriend, the one with whom he was living when he committed suicide. I asked him how this was possible (in my dream she was responsible for his death).
“It’s simple,” he said. “You just start over. That’s all, you just start over.”
There wasn’t much else to the dream. But it was good to see my old friend. Even if it was only in a dream, it was good to see his face. I woke up thinking that I should give my son my old friend’s name. No, that's too much weight to put on a kid. A kid should have a name that serves him faithfully and doesn't pull him down.