Distant Memories [01.29.2006 – 07.19.2019] Written by Erik Amill The first time I heard the cover of "Mad World" by Gary Jules, I was making my way up Interstate 395 North toward Providence. I was making my way toward RISD. I was making my way to her. - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - "I miss you, Freddy." Her message was disturbingly brief. I ditch my plans for the night, hopped into my car and take off like a man possessed. She needs me. I try to keep myself from speeding but it's hard. The pouring rain echoes through the cabin of my restored '51 Studebaker Land Cruiser. The lights from the streetlamps dance across the car's matte finish… black as the night sky with touches of chrome. All the other drivers can see of me are the streaks of my white walls and the trail from my taillights as I pass them. The song plays in the background of my mind like a Mantra of Doom. The thumping of the wiper blades keeps me in the here and now enough to function yet my mind wanders back to the day she left. She made it into the Rhode Island School of Design ahead of me. She wanted to become a jeweler. The cross she made for me swings wildly as I swerve to avoid an SUV. Stay focused, Freddy boy, stay focused. It was raining back then, too… the night she told me she was leaving to college. We sat in this very car when she gave me the good news. A horn blast from a Mazda tells me to slow down. I have to slow down. She needs me. I nearly miss my turn as I make a right onto the highway. The car fishtails and stalls. Damn it. My heart and mind race… I need to slow down. Breathe deep… then exhale. Think back to that night. The last night we were together. "You'll come see me, right Freddy?" she said. "I'll be swamped with work. I might not get to call you for a while. You have to come up to see me, okay?" In that moment, she seemed so innocent. Her pale white skin… Her platinum blonde hair… Her ice blue eyes… Her soft voice… There is a rapping at my window. A passing driver saw my hazard lights and stopped to see if I was okay. I take a minute then I thank the kind lady. After she leaves, I start my car and continue my drive to Providence. I'm on my way, Alice. I'm on my way. - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - The highway grows quite the closer I get to Providence. I gun it, knowing full well there could be a cop somewhere close by. 70, 80, 90 miles per hour… The mass of metal I control screams across the wet pavement as the rain pounds harder against the windshield. I have to slow down. I try to lift my foot off the gas but my body won't let me. My knuckles are white as I grip the steering wheel harder still. If she were here, she would tell me to relax. She would tell me to relax and I'd listen. That's the kind of hold she has on me. I see the turn off ahead and, as if instinctively, my body relaxes a bit and I slow down. I look in the direction of the school and I can see thick black smoke lit orange and red by the fire fueling it. I don't know how but I know that is where I need to be. "I miss you, Freddy." Her message echoes in my mind. I blow through a traffic light as make my way through the twisting streets of the city. I navigate my way up the steep hills like I've lived here all my life. All I can hear is her message, her voice. The sounds of the world fade away until the only sound I know is the pouring rain, the quite words of the song and her. "All around me are familiar faces Worn out places… Worn out faces… Bright and early for their daily races Going nowhere… Going nowhere…" I go the wrong way up a One-way street to avoid the mess, following the crowds and the flashing lights. People were standing around watching the blaze consume the building that was once a small Victorian home. I park the car underneath a streetlight, out of the way of the rescue workers and out of the sight of the onlookers. "And their tears are filling up their glasses No expression… No expression… Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow No tomorrow… No tomorrow…" I step out of my car, spellbound by the flames. My body hurts from the trip. It takes me a moment to get moving again, the cold rain feels heavier somehow. I slowly make my way to the outside of the crowd. The rain hampers my movement. My clothes feel like lead, soaked through to the bone. I'm shivering. It doesn't matter. I have to find her. I call out her name as I swim through the thick groupings of people. I can see my breath but I can't hear anything. It's as if the world shut the sound off. I call out to her as I pass through the gawking masses, pushing in between students fresh from classes and the former occupants of the building still in their various bits of sleeping attire and slippers. People huddle together in clumps underneath umbrellas, bracing themselves against the cold updraft from the fire. Firefighters and EMTs go about their business treating the victims and fighting the blaze. I stop and turn back toward my car as the ancient wooden inferno collapses under its own weight. The crowd surges back as the embers fly at them, as if the building itself was lashing out against the public viewing of its demise. It is through this opening that I see her. She leans against my car, waiting for me. Her body glows under the streetlight, her ice blue eyes meet mine. I run to her but the rain slows me down and the wind pushes me back. It's as if the very force of nature herself is trying to stop me. I have to get to her. She needs me. After what seems like forever, I come up to my car. She stands upon my approach. The rain pours down her face. Her black bondage pants and dark red t-shirt are sopping wet. "Alice…" I start to speak but I can't seem to form words. She comes up to me and touches a finger to my lips. "Shh…" she says. I try to move but I can't do anything. She stands there for a second, quietly removing a choker from around her neck. From it dangles a small heart-shaped piece of garnet. Why can't I move? She takes my hand and places the choker in it, gently closing it as not to harm the precious cargo. I should do something. Why am I just standing here? She wraps herself around me, grasping me around my chest like a scared child. She seems smaller somehow. She begins to sob as she clutches me closer to her. I respond in kind, wrapping my arms around her. Protecting her from the world… She's so cold. In that moment, under the streetlamp, the world faded away. The rain, the cold, the fire, the people. All that was and ever will be was gone. "I didn't think you would come," she said through muffled tears. There was such sadness in her soft voice; it cut me to the quick. All I could do was listen. "I missed you, Freddy. You never came by to see me. I thought I did something wrong, I thought I hurt you. I didn't mean to, Freddy. Honest, I didn't." Her body shook with every word. She's missed me as much as I have her and I've ignored that, burying myself in work. Finally, I find my voice. "I'm sorry." She lifts her head from my chest and looks me dead in the eyes, tears streaming down her face like the rain pouring down around us. Her lip trembles while she searches my very essence for something long since lost. Her voice was soft but strong, so strong it echoed in the cold night air. "I know I can't have you forever… I just want you for tonight." She stretches herself up to kiss me when reality comes roaring back hard. In an instant, the world goes white. - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - I slowly come to. My head was swimming. My vision was blurry. All I can hear is her voice. Alice was singing along to that lilting tune… "And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad… The dreams in which I'm dying Are the best I've ever had. I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take… When people run in circles It's a very very --" She stops. She leans over me and touches a finger to my lips. "Shh…" she says. She kisses me gently on the forehead and slowly fades from view. As my sight grew clearer, I see that I'm a hospital. My body screams at me as I try to sit up. I call out for Alice but the words are garbled and choked. Moments later, a doctor comes in and takes the tube from my mouth. I try to sit up again but she comes in to hold me back. "A-Alice?" I utter through sharp pains and labored breath. I could swear it was her standing there. I blink my eyes enough to see clearly that it was just some young nurse making her rounds. The doctor gives me a rundown on what happened. A propane tank had ruptured in the fire. The blast was strong enough to shatter my car's windows and throw me hard against the hood. He tells me the force should have killed me. Tells me I'm lucky to be alive. He tells me I have been unconscious for a week. "Where's Alice?" I ask. The doc looked at me quizzically. "There was a girl with me; a blonde wearing black and red. I was talking to her just before…" The doc tells me I'm the only one the EMTs found. I wanted to find her, I wanted him to be wrong but the pain was too much. All I could do is sink back into my bed. As the nurse leaves my room, she turns the television to a local news station; setting the remote on a table near my bed. "Firefighters on the scene said the blaze started on the first floor. The fire that destroyed the old Victorian home was likely started by torch of a jeweler's kit found in the rubble. Investigators say it spread quickly through the room, engulfing the old home. The body of an unnamed female student was found in the rubble, the remains of a cellphone in her hands. The autopsy shows she died of smoke inhalation; the chemical fumes likely rendering her unconscious before help could arrive…" I had heard enough. I turned the TV off and laid there for a time. Before I even realized it, I felt tears roll down my cheeks. My heart sank. The girl they found didn't need to be named. I knew it was Alice. I was too late to save her. I was too late to see her. I was always too late. I closed my eyes and wept. I swore I saw her. She was there! She was right there with me! But she wasn't. She couldn't have been. Like the house, she was gone in a pillar of flames and ash and rain. And I was too late… "Melodramatic to the very end..." I felt a kiss on my forehead and a sound on the metal tray beside my bed. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. No doctors. No nurse. I was alone but I swear I heard her voice. It had to be her! It hurt to sit up but I scanned the room for something – anything - that could be from Alice. All I found on the metal tray beside the remote was a choker with a small heart-shaped piece of garnet and a note. I promise we'll see each other again. Love you always, Alice