RIP Wall

We inhabit two worlds, those of us online.  We live and breathe in the real world and play and interact in the virtual.

Sometimes, certain people from your virtual world become very real to you, crossing over that invisible line between the here and now and bits and bytes.

Just got news that an acquaintance of mine online, his road name was Wall, died.  He didn't pass away from disease or of an accident, as so many bikers do.  He died with a gun to his head, and his own finger on the trigger.

I don't want to get into the metaphysical here, but between this real world and the virtual world, somehow Wall had lost himself.  His coke habit had become too much for his "real" family and friends to bear, so they left him.  In the virtual world, he was a salty, plain speaking fellow, who had a way of dropping pearls of wisdom around him like a farmer planting corn.  Not many of us who were his virtual friends knew about Wall's problems.  When he went silent online a while ago, most of us figured he got bored with the chit chatting of the forums and went to ride his scoot on the flat prairies of his Illinois home.

But, we just got the word.  And, the word was, as you know, bad.

To a guy that I only knew online, and who's beyond the reach of my words, my compassion, and my help now, what can I say?  Will the ache in my heart or the lump in my throat comfort you?  I don't think so.

But, just the same, as I get on the bike for the ride home, I'll pause for a minute, and put down the passenger footboards, and maybe, perhaps, you'll ride with me a while before taking that road that comes to all of us.

RIP Wall.