Hello Old Friend


The call came as a surprise as we hadn't spoken in some years.

Hello my old friend, I hope everything is well…

Old friend.

She always called me that even when we were in high school together.

After college, at a friend's wedding we danced, and she asked why we never dated.

Dated?

We were always in competition for honor roll, and after high school went to opposite sides of the country.

Apparently, I still should have asked.

You were thinking about him.

Missing the hell out of him.

And as you said I was the only one who could understand.

When he left us, I felt the void also.

We used spend time fishing, sailing on his dad’s boat, floating in the ocean in the middle of nowhere.

Skateboarding, video games, and later just driving around with nowhere in particular to be.

Your right.

He should be here now, and both of us should be on his boat with him now.

We all should be driving up the coast together with the top-down listening to our music.

I never knew you two visited the same college and spent the week together touring schools.

Would it have been different if you followed him and didn’t go to the opposite side of the country?

To begin asking such questions is to enter dangerous territory.

I miss the hell out of him also.

I did know the true story.

I suspected it also when his circle of friends shifted.

Less time with me and the guys, and more with his new friends.

You shouldn’t’ feel that way.

I never told you that when he got back his mom called me, thought it would mean a lot if I reached out, and maybe we could start hanging out again.

I called him, and we were supposed to get together that Friday.

The found him on Thursday.

He was my friend also, but the space you are navigating between the both of you is of a different quality.

You are still between two worlds.

I understand, perhaps more than you know.

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Roppo Doji writes from the intersection of discipline, memory, and presence. His work explores the quiet spaces where lives touch:  the dojo at dawn, the silence between two people, the rituals that shape a path, and the moments that linger long after they’ve passed. 

His stories move through themes of impermanence, devotion, and the beauty of connections that cannot last but still transform us. 

With a voice marked by restraint, clarity, and emotional precision, he captures the gravity of lived experience and the subtle transmissions that occur in the spaces between words. 

Questions, comments, feedback, flames, introductions, and inquiries may be directed to him at: