An Internet correspondent, Ardis, with my agreement started a serialised story of our correspondence on her site, It began like this:

I have never understood why it is that we periodically encounter certain individuals with whom we instantly know we have shared some bit of history in the past. I have; however, learned to relish those reunions and to cling to them for as long as I am allowed. I think of them in terms of "spiritual loans"...brief reunions with a loved one I once knew, either as a friend, a sibling, or perhaps, even a lover. It matters not which it was, but that it was, and that I am comforted in knowing that no matter how limited our union may be at this time, that some day, once again, we may turn round a corner, or back unknowingly into a stranger, and there that familiar face will be smiling out at me from yet another disguise.

And so it was with Ian. We are still learning where, and when, and how it was that we knew each other, but instinctively, we knew through the ease of the conversation, through the understanding of what the other felt, through the appreciation of being able to share a personal thought that we were positive no other could comprehend without thinking us having gone mad.

It is like that with friends, other souls who have been a genuine part of us. They never really leave us, in spirit. We carry always that trace of them, that whisper of their memory, hidden deep within us, waiting until we are permitted to enjoy it again for another momentous occasion.
It was boredom, or so I thought, that led me to Ian again. A late Friday night that sent me to the Internet in search of some enjoyment of beauty in a gallery of photographs, or poetry, or some heady subject that I had always intended find the time to pursue.
At his website, his interests, the flow of his words, the content of the images that he sought to project to the world were uncannily similar to my own. I was looking for a job, some new spark of excitement that might permit me to utilize more of the creative talents I felt I needed desperately to develop. "What a team we would be," I remember thinking. "What couldn't I offer to a company such as this whose own thought processes so clearly reflected my own."