Plague Stories

I've been awake for a long time. Around twenty-nine hours straight I figure, without any certainty, as I browse the internet looking for anything that could rouse some interest from me. If there's a better way to spend my weekends, I have never discovered it. My endless series of clicks and thoughtless nudging of the mouse's scroll wheel eventually bring me to the home page of YouTube, to the list of channels I've seen fit to subscribe to over the years. I move through it carelessly, certain nothing therein could possibly be of interest to me. But unexpectedly, when the scroll wheel stops, my eyes catch on to one particular channel name.

The name of the channel is 'xoLisBeth'. It belonged to my old friend, who I haven't thought about in nearly ten years. I click on it, and as I enter her channel I observe that her last upload was eleven years ago; an upload of a song by a somewhat obscure noise rock band we were both obsessed with.

Hearing that old song again brings memories flooding back. Upon examining the page I see that all the comments after a particular date are messages mourning her; people sending their condolences, or lamenting that they never got to know her, despite her having been a stranger on the internet. And of course they are; she died when we were still in school.

I return to her home page and look through the entirety of her uploads; an entire catalogue of music we loved. I stifle an intense wave of sobs, like unwelcome knocks on an ancient door, as my mind echoes one thought: "These were her favourite songs."

I decide to take a break from my computer, and for the next hour as I contemplate my old friend, I remember a surprising many things about her: how she was severely colourblind, all the bands she used to love, how she wanted to study to be a vetenarian when we left high school, and how she was never short on encouraging words to me and our other friends when times were tough at school or at home. I muse about the irony of a colourblind person bringing so much warmth and indeed colour to the lives of others.