Riddle: When are the Dead not dead without being The Undead?
Answer: When they never existed in the first place.
Some of you might remember my post a few weeks back about Les Barker passing away and how that affected me. In a strange twist of irony, that same day found another email in my inbox recanting the death of two people I knew… but never knew.
Members of my now-defunct BBS The Savage Land remember how much heartache we went through back in 1997 when two of our clan tragically passed away. It was a summer full of pain as we learnt the news of a weekend car crash which claimed the life of one guy and who’s girlfriend, incapable of seeing the light of life without him, took her own life the week after being released from the hospital. The Savage Land’s own “Romeo and Juliette” burst into flames just as Shakespeare’s lovers had.
I remember printing up all the messages in regards to their arrival on the board, interactions with the gang, tragic happenings, and eulogies. I remember hosting a memorial GT at Picasso’s and the pretty decent turnout we had that night. I remember holding all those posts with the intention of hand-delivering them to the girl’s parents, just as proof that they did have friends who were concerned and cared. I remember not being able to go through with it and simply storing the printouts. A part of me always wonders what would have happened if I had gone to her parents.
As we slowly began to accept the fact that they were gone and life had to go on, it was as though we “walked” around the BBS like lost souls. Something had gone from TSL and we didn’t know when/ how it would come back.
How are you supposed to live with yourself when you fight SO hard to keep someone from killing themselves… and fail. The guilt of failing them. The questions of what you could have said or done differently. Everything with no answers.
Fast forward to “today” and all of the ex-Savage Landers still vividly recall the time of M and Giggles and that fateful summer. Deep Feelings for 2 people we never got a chance to meet in Real Life but people who were real to us nonetheless. It is to those people I’m writing today.
The day I found out that Les Barker passed away was the day I found out that M and Giggles did not die when we thought they did. Can you imagine my elation at reading that? Having to accept the fact that Les was died and M and Giggles were NOT dead? How could this be? But then, you can imagine the questions, the hurt, the anger. All this at a time that I truly WAS hurting because of Les’ passing. The answer was no less painful. They did not die because they never lived.
Yes, my friends, they were electronic personas created by 2 fourteen year old kids one boring summer.
You know, I’ve had to put up with my share of lies and deceit in my life and it was hard to believe what I found out. But, further investigation seemed to indicate that this was all true. 6 years later, one of those guys decided to come clean. After they decided to “kill off” the characters, they logged in via another account (Barry) to see our reactions. When they realized and saw how we all felt, I do believe guilt kicked in. 6 years of carrying around guilt does strange things to a person. In this case, it was to ask for forgiveness and hope for redemption.
I’ll let you decide how you feel and react to this bit of news. For myself, I just wanted, nay needed, to know why. Although the reasons wouldn’t hold water with any adult, it does for 14 year old kids. Although all this is in the past, those events have had a big impact on me and my forays into the electronic world. I have never done anything of the sort although I know of some folks who’ve used fake aliases (as strange as that sounds). It’s a little difficult to accept the fact that we were duped so deeply but I think it’s also says quite a bit about the type of people we were and generally still are. Users who logged into TSL were treated like family.
We’re real. We’re people. We’ve got our opinions. But, We Care.
I struggled with revealing this story as, obviously, some of you reading this might not be as forgiving as myself. However, I felt that it had to be told. The truth is we didn’t fail them. There was nothing more we could have done. They were destined to die. That’s how they were “written”.
M and Giggles will always be the Romeo & Juliette of The Savage Land BBS. I buried them 6 years ago and although the sense of betrayal has eased off in the last few weeks, I am glad that they didn’t really exist. And I’m glad that one of those two kids finally grew up enough to admit what they had done.
Maybe there’s some hope after all…
