Now that I am dead, Where was I? The intoxicating effect of freedom hit me so hard that I forgot where I was. That was the moment when I looked around myself and saw something I always wanted to see. I was standing at a door with a nameplate titled Raymond. Wondering if this was my Raymond, I knocked on the door. The nameplate with Raymond on it generated a feeling in me that was the same as the feeling a boy gets when he sees his father in a carnival after being lost for a while. He forgets what is happening around him, the vendor shouting the discounted price of his favourite ice-cream is noise to him, the other kids enjoying a game of hula hoops are just obstacles to his path towards his father, he probably wants to grab that hoop and throw it at the person he loves the most and stomp his complete authority on him and he does just that. He just rushes towards his father and wants to take home his prize as soon as possible. He has won this battle. Raymond had that effect on me. I always used to ask Raymond to tell about the place he used to live. He would point towards the yellow coloured ball in the sky and said that is where he lived. As a person still in his single digit years, I would laugh and mock him for this, it was hard for me to believe that anyone can live inside the sun, it wasn’t easy living on this planet when the sun shone right above in the sky, some ’n’ thousand light years away from us, how can my friend live there, survive and come visit me everyday without a single miss. As I grew older, I got acquainted with a bully named science, who ragged me to the point where I realised that my best friend was nothing but the rays of the sun. Though even after being bullied it did not affect our friendship at all, the only disappointment I had to face was that now I knew that I can never visit Raymond’s place. Everyday Raymond left, I doubted my credentials as a friend. There was this friend of mine who travelled through the space everyday just to come and meet me while on the other hand I, who loathed the presence of that friend when it was the peak summer season, forget visiting my friends place. On one side there was this friend who went with me to every trip that I went to in my life, saved me from cold every time and on the other there was a selfish person who just would look for a shade in summers to try and protect himself from Raymond. Was I a good friend? Why is it that my love for Raymond was seasonal? I always asked myself these questions. How can I repay my friend Raymond? I always wondered. That name plate was the answer to all my questions that I ever asked about being a good friend. How can I do something for Raymond and be there for him like he has been there for me? The answer was right there, by being dead.
