But, back to the I get a follow (on twitter) from someone I don’t recognize, but don’t really think anything of it until I check out who it is.  Turns out it’s the Environmental Art Lead for Dead Space.  So he shows me a couple of things I missed and then I notice a name I think I recognize.  It’s the guy that lived in our group house for a couple of weeks, a friend of one of my roommates.

I do some additional research and well, he is the same artist that painted the triptych sitting in my bedroom, awaiting framing.  He painted them 13 years ago as a thank you for letting him stay.

And he did UI design for Dead Space.

Small world, indeed.

The memory comes not easily, but in tiny parcels, piecemeal, like the slow striptease of a lover.

I recall the November chill in the air, the warmth of the coat on my shoulders, and the reassuring weight of the the sword at my belt.

I remember thinking it was going to be an interesting night.

The night in question is one of those ideas from another era.  Let’s blindfold my roommate for his 21st birthday, take him to a public place, then draw live steel swords and then have a man dressed up as the pope stop the fight.

I’m really glad that we had the foresight to videotape it.

The humidity was a shock, having lived in California for my entire life.  I shed my jacket as soon as I got outside.

I took a cab in to the city, marveled at the Potomac at night and the Kennedy center reflected on the black river.  I still hold that the District is the most majestic in the evening, either lit up by fireworks or by conventional means.  DC, when I picture it, and describe it to others, is always in the evening.

I saw the the washington monument and the white house and a few executive buildings.  Later, I would find out that the cab driver took the long way around so that he could charge me more zones.

And thus began my college education.

I didn’t know what to expect.  I thought it was too late to explore the campus, (I’d learn later that nothing is too late) and all I had was my carry on bag with a day’s worth of clothes and the rest of my traveling cash.  My checked baggage had been lost along the way.

After getting my keys and finding my dorm room, I called them from a payphone in the hallway.

I let them know that I was alive and that I had arrived safely.

I was in Anderson Hall.  One of the oldest residence halls on campus, and it showed.  The walls were cinder block, with paint peeling away in many places.  The floors were cold, hard linoleum.  The convector worked at moving air, but whether or not it was supposed to be cold, I didn’t know.   I never had air conditioning before.

Rugged, dull grey curtains gave way to ancient, thin windows with cranks.  One wall had a long plank of wood attached to it.  I would find out later that it was a desk.

Bookshelves barely hung on to walls.  What passed for closets were areas between walls with horizontal poles where I could hang clothes.

My sheets were in the luggage that the airline lost, so I spent the first night in Washington, DC in my traveling clothes, my jacket bundled up into a makeshift pillow, on a bare mattress.

I was home.

Not that it was an impossible thing.  My parents were going to make sure that I went to college.  It was not an option in the fact that it was always assumed that I was going to go.  It was only a matter of where.

Even though we didn’t have enough money to repair a water heater, my parents were going to send me to a private college, not a state school.

That could have saved us some money, but I ended up applying to ridiculous colleges, like Georgetown.  I never really had my heart set on anywhere, so I employed the “shotgun” approach to my application process.  My SAT scores and high school transcript were enough to get me accepted everywhere.

I never had my heart set on anywhere.  Privately, what I was looking for was a way to make the financial burden easier on my parents.  My ultimate decision was American University, primarily because they offered me a good scholarship.

I joked that American was the furthest away from my parents I could get without leaving the country.

My parents said that they could take care of the rest and I had to believe them.

The next thing I know, I’m hopping a plane to Washington DC.

Well, more accurately, I’m late running through a San Diego airport terminal, to board a plane to Washington DC.  This occurred in 1993.  This is an alternate history America where they could open a door after it’s already been shut to let a last minute passenger in.

Even a brown one.

I guess that’s the allure and the danger of ten year reunions.  You never know who’s going to show up.  I guess ex lovers who were in the same graduating class as you are a given, but they really should put that down as one of the events.

I can see the pamphlet now.

Attendance would sky rocket, I’m sure.We parted in a complicated manner then, but I say hello anyway.  It’s not as how I imagined it to be.  I see the ring on your finger, the swell of your belly and I look around for him.

And me, well, I can’t tell you about what’s happened to me, because I don’t know.  You’re with child, and me, I’m still in the same place that I’ve been for the last ten years.

Oh, I may have lost weight and cut my hair, but I’m still me.

And is that a measure of how much I’ve stagnated?  During the idle times, between girlfriends, between lovers, I wondered “What if?”  What if things were different, but they weren’t and perhaps it’s best that way.

We were both too stubborn for our own good then.

I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe that we were good for each other once, and we can always have those good times in our memories.

Then your husband shows up and you introduce me as a friend from college.  Things certainly are different, and he couldn’t be more different from me.

Tall, ruggedly handsome, facial hair.

White.

There are just some ways I can’t compete.  We introduce each other but I forget his name quickly, more out of my nature than malice.  I have to keep looking for the name tag every time I want to ask him a question.  He’s a legal professional of some sort, and I assume you’re both doing well.

After appetizers and too expensive drinks the night ends quickly, with me flitting about from person to person.  Acquaintances quickly remade then just as quickly forgotten.  Old dorm neighbors and resident assistants and classmates of a life lived a decade ago.

And there you are, with him, like a rock throughout.  You leave early, but not before saying goodbye and kissing me on the cheek.  You turn quickly, before I can respond.  You remove your name tag and throw it away, not noticing as I watch you step back into your new life.

Then you’re gone.

The drinks and the rented space don’t last forever, and I start making my way outside.  On the way, I make promises with everyone to keep in touch, although I know I won’t.  Business cards fill my pockets, and images of people I once knew fill my camera.  Both to be filed away into folders both material and digital, never to be seen again.  I say my goodbyes and slip unnoticed down the stairwell towards the main doors.

I struggle through heavy wooden doors, out of air heavy with alcohol and old dreams, and step into the city night.  I feel the rain on my face as I walk towards the metro, waking me, step by step, drop by drop from the false weariness of too much beer and too little food.

Step by step, I walk back into my life.

Step by step, away from you and the might have been.