So last week, right, I’m coming outta the dojang and who should I see but Bill Lee.

Lemme tell you ‘bout Bill. He’s a Chinese cat in his 50s, but though he’s closer to my parents’ generation he speaks just like you or me, because he was raised locally. He married a Puerto Rican woman so his Spanish is good and he has a reputation for being a killer cook, especially where Latin dishes were concerned.

So Bill was one of the first guys I met at the dojang, one of the first to teach me anything. Like me he was small, wiry and smoked, I remember.

Anyways I was a little surprised to see his hair had gone grey, but we greeted each other warmly and I asked him what he was up to. Said he came by to see the Sabumnim (Master). I knew Sabumnim wasn’t there but I sent Bill upstairs anyway, so he could say hi to some folks and leave a message. I didn’t bother mentioning this in my journal because there’s nothing special about running into people on the street, happens all the time.

Well yesterday I get to the dojang and there’s a picture of Bill on the door. Underneath it is his name and a date, July 30, 2003. That’s like two days ago.

Well what the fuck.

I enter the dojang and see my Sabumnim. “Sir, did something happen to Bill?” I ask, after bowing. “I mean I just saw him last week.”

My Sabumnim looks up, distracted. “Bill’s dead,” he says.

So two days ago Bill went into the hospital for an operation, I’m told he had colon cancer. Anyway during the surgery something went wrong and he lapsed into a coma. After that, he lapsed into the thing that comes after a coma.

Betty tells me I was one of the last people at the school to see Bill. He’d come by to see Sabumnim but they missed each other.

Today is my thirty-second birthday but I will be at the dojang at 3pm for the memorial. There’s birthdays and deathdays, and it’s eerie when there’s overlap.

Yesterday on the way out of the school I looked at Bill’s picture again. He’s smiling and wearing his red belt. He never did get his black belt. I always thought he’d come back someday and test for black. He must’ve got caught up with work.

I kept staring at the picture: A face, a name and a date. I know this is selfish of me to think, but one day there will be a picture (or a hologram) of me somewhere with my name and a date on the bottom.

The best and worst part is not knowing if it’s going to come at thirty-two or sixty-seven or one hundred and twenty-five. One hundred and twenty-five being when your pulmonary nanobots crap out and you crash your flying car into a Wi-Fi tower. Death will take all of us, every last one of you reading this post, every single person I saw at work today and on the subway. A bunch of skeletons on the train with different dates floating above their heads.

July 30th was an ordinary day for me. I got up early and went to work, not particularly happy about either situation. After work I trained at the dojang then came home to eat my pathetic little take-out dinner at the kitchen table and read Newsweek so I know what’s going on in the world outside of my miserable little apartment. Then I watched Conan, had a few dark laughs and went to bed.

Bill’s sword is still up at the dojang. I know ‘cause I saw it last week when I was going through the swords, they’ve got everybody’s name on them. I figured he would come back and get it someday. Bill put the sword back in the sheath sometime in 2001 and that was the last the sword ever saw of him.

R.I.P., Bill.