The person I'd like to talk about is Ahmed, who was my best friend at primary school in Alexandria, in Egypt. We lived in the same street and walked to school together every morning for about six years.
We were inseparable back then. We played football on the beach after school, swapped comics, and invented a secret code for passing notes in class, which our teacher never managed to crack. His family had a small bakery, and his father used to give us warm bread on the way home.
We lost touch mainly because his family moved away when we were twelve. His father got work in Kuwait, and they left quite suddenly, within a few weeks. Back then neither of us had a mobile phone, and our families weren't in the habit of writing letters, so after one or two phone calls we just drifted apart. By the time social media came along, I didn't know his surname spelling in English, and there are thousands of Ahmeds online.
I'd love to contact him again for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm curious about who he's become. He was always drawing, so I wonder whether he became an artist or an architect. Secondly, he's connected to some of my happiest memories, and there are things only he would remember, like our secret code. And honestly, I think I owe him a thank-you. When my grandfather died, he was the one who sat with me on the steps of our building for hours without saying much. I didn't realise until I was older how kind that was for a ten-year-old. Recently I asked my mother to look for his family's old address, so perhaps I'll find him yet.