an open letter to china (or, more on the universe and everything)

yesterday, i spent about a half an hour looking up my friend david's last name in the maryland phone directory. david moved to taiwan last may, but his family lives in maryland. we emailed regularly for a while after he moved, but one day his email quit working, and i didn't hear from him for a few months.
then, a few saturdays ago, he called the bar and we all got to talk to him for a few minutes. he told me his new email address, but i guess i remembered it wrong, because when i got home and tried to email him, it didn't work.

anyway, yesterday, while i was getting ready for work i just couldn't stop thinking about david. i worried that another too many months--or, worse, years--could go by before he would get a hold of me again. david's just one of those kind of guys.
so, i decided to take matters into my own hands.

david has a REALLY unusual last name, so i decided i would just call all the numbers i could find until i found his dad. this required me to leave many strange voicemails, but i didn't care.

****

last night, i was reading the blog of another one of my friends, and saw that apparently he was thinking about david, too.
in fact, he wrote a letter to china, requesting the speedy return of our friend.

the letter went like this:
Dear China, You have my friend Dave. Please send him back. Thank you.
PS. He's the 6'5" american, he looks stoned, he likely is stoned, you let him teach small chinese children english (your bad), i doubt he'll be hard to find.

****

today, david's mom called the bar.
my boss answered.
i guess david got hit by a truck while he was driving his scooter-thing home from work. the rumor is that he shattered a disc in his spine, but his mother wasn't too sure. she said she was having a lot of trouble getting information out of the doctors over there. fortunately, david was at least stable enough for transport, and was already in the process of getting shipped back to maryland.
i guess he is due to arrive sometime late tonight.
she promised to call us tomorrow with news, as soon as the doctors here have a chance to assess the situation.

****

to: china
from: tiffany
re: you're in big trouble

dear china,
when my friend wrote to request the return our friend david, i am quite sure he didn't mean that we wanted him essentially med-evac'd back to the states.
under no circumstances were you to run him over with a truck.
seriously.
i, too, am often annoyed by people riding various types of bikes in places where i think only cars should be. but, still, i do not run them over.
if i find out that this rumor about the shattered disc is true, i will be kicking your ass.
yes, you, china!
the whole lot of you.

and i don't care if you know karate.
i doubt many of you have come across an angry red-head, so let me just warn you.
karate ain't got nothin' on me.

you'll be hearing from me soon!
unsincerely,
tiffany

****

when i called my friend, the one who wrote the first letter to china, to tell him what had happened, we couldn't get over the fact that we both spent a good part of yesterday thinking about david.

my friend thought maybe the universe was punishing him for being demanding or selfish, like the universe was saying 'oh, you want your friend back? well, here you go. have fun.'

i told him that i definitely don't think that's the case.
while i am a firm believer that karma can, indeed, be a bitch sometimes, in this case i think there was something else at play.
what exactly it was, i can't be sure.

i just know that our friend was in distress, and somehow he ended up in our thoughts.
it's not like we divined out of the sky that he was in danger, or that he was hurt or anything.
but he was certainly with us.

it could be coincidence, or it could be something more.
but, either way?
i think it's strangely beautiful.