The Peacock 84

 Carl gently hands me my backpack.  I'm sure I didn't forget it.  I always carry this with me.  It's become like a talisman, and I never tire of reading his words.  Yes, it's in the very bottom, the familiar texture of the book cover caresses my fingers in friendship.  It's a small diary, or sketchbook, worn black cover and filled with yellowing white pages, all scrawled to the very final page with the ink scribblings of my dead friend.  

"This is Kenny's diary."  Carl seems to be awaiting my next sentence.

"He started keeping it during his final year."  Carl still hasn't changed that look of silent expectancy.

"I didn't know he was keeping a diary.  Kenny never told me.  And neither did we find it when we were clearing his earthly possessions out of his bedroom."  Carl is clearly waiting for the next shoe to drop.  Why should I be surprised?

"During Kenny's final visitation with me, he told me where to look for his diary.  It was in a corner in the closet I had never thought of looking in.  There was a set of canvas pockets hanging in the far wall of his closet  He said it would be at the very bottom, the pocket second from the left.  And there it was."

Carl says, "You mean to tell me that only after he died, and had been appearing to you for a while, then Kenny revealed to you where he kept his diary?"

"You don't have to believe me, you know."

Carl is smiling.  "But I do believe you."

"You're not being merely ironical?"

"Not even remotely."  Carl gets up and goes to the desk.  He pulls open the middle drawer and pulls out a rather similar, but much older and more battered diary.  He returns to his chair with it, letting it rest on his knee. 

"Do you know how I found it?"

"How?"

"The night before my dad shot himself, I was sleeping in this room.  I had a dream.  This young man with brown hair and brown eyes, he looked rather like you, Christopher, appeared to me in a dream.  He told me to open that same drawer.  I had never rummaged through that desk before.  There was something about it that frightened me.  But this man insisted.  So, the next morning, I pulled open the drawer, and there it was.  Can you guess his name?"

"No."

Carl's smile flickers on his lip, vanishes, then reappears.  

"His name was Cosme."