June 4, 2003

My mind considers thoughts of friendship, up late, offering soft words through capricious technology. Of Gilgamesh so loving Enkidu that he would forsake all responsibility and ease in an effort to discover the riddle of death. Selfish in the face of certain destruction? Yes. But there is a more important lesson -- one of sacrifice and loss of self in order to touch another. “From the days of old there is no permanence. The sleeping and the dead, how alike they are, they are like a painted death. What is there between the master and the servant when both have fulfilled their doom.” Gilgamesh finds only briefly for what he searches. He must return home with only the knowledge of his journey: no permanence -- only voices of friends and family for a short time, even at night, under the covers with only the phone.