Bucket's Essay Draft: Holy Ghosts

PEOPLE I SAW AND TALKED WITH THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SEMESTER
January 5-9, 2018
-Maya. A Laurel from one of my mission areas.
-Anastasia. Childhood friend. A Giants fan. Last time I saw her was at a sleepover 15 years ago.
-Alex. Ate at his apartment almost daily my freshman year.
-Garrett. Went to a scout camp together when we were 12. Still looks 12.
-Hayden. My mission trainer.

Actually, Hayden was the first person I saw on campus. Messy hair jostled by bitter wind. wrinkled pants clutched his slim thighs. A massive grin spilled over flushed cheeks.

It had only been three weeks since I last saw him, but the reunion retained lush sweetness. Just before Christmas, I planted myself on packed snow and cheered as massive oak doors revealed him and his radiant bride. No holiday jingle offered the same savor as watching their first dance. I gazed at others to see more familiar faces, whose tears also flicked to the ground to freeze.

This was Alma's joy. The moment where he sees his old friends, the Sons of Mosiah, return to Zarahemla after a tumultuous, 14-year absence. I was experience the same pure reunion. Alma and I shared a glance that Emmanuel Levinas describes eloquently. 

"To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity."

I was surrounded by heavenly Others. Infinite apparitions swarmed me. Each being awoke a separate, pungent sentience. These encounters became like concrete statues. Inexplicable. Overwhelming. Permanent.

PEOPLE I SAW AND AVOIDED THIS LAST WEEK
October 28 - November 1, 2019
-Sarah. Went on some dates with her. Painful conversations.
-Professor Scott. Had him a year ago. Had a question. Forgot it.
-This guy I can't stop seeing. From World Religions, long ago. Always wears business casual.
-Athena. Current classmate. Walk past each other in the same corridor twice a week at 2:55.
-Hayden. My mission trainer.

10 feet away. Same hair. pants. No smile. Head down. rushed steps. My mind alters between saying hello and checking my phone. Contorted, panicked thoughts. My jaw sags ajar, waiting for a command. A ramshackle "hey..." ejects itself into the stony air. 

He walks away, unfazed. Relief and regret, two unlikely friends, begin homemaking in the pit of my stomach.

They are everywhere. ghostly specters. I want to drop my backpack and say "CAN'T YOU SEE YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE?" As they impassively float by. My connections to them resembles bondage more than bond. Time, still undefeated, has spewed rust and heaved weight to my memories like never before. Now these cretins silently wail their siren songs as I reel through campus, haunting me with jilted taunts. "Remember me? Do you care? Do I care?" I wonder why it was so difficult for Nephi and his brothers to get the brass plates from Laban. Couldn't they have pretended to not see each other? They could have nabbed those suckers on the first try. Works great.

But guilt, constantly present, bruises my circumventing heels. I have immense difficulty feeling the joy Alma the Younger had, and Levinas embraced. I don't discover infinity the Other's eyes now; I confront an awkward conversation. Unneeded minutes spent on conjuring emotions. I spent two years talking to strangers, I am worried I'll spend as much time avoiding memories.

When did I learn about awkwardness? Could it be too many experiences when a familiar face brightens at something in my direction, and me return the warmth, only to discover the real cause, a closer friend, right behind me? Perhaps seeing old friends has become a glorified name game, scraping a barrel of discarded knowledge solely to reinforce how small the world is. Sometimes I wonder if I bought too many relationships, and now I have to dispose of expired ones from the fridge. Or maybe too many of these reunions have been met by unimpressed countenances, extinguishing the light in their eyes so I could leave sooner.

For some time I have seen my old friends disintegrate to stoic ghosts. I have grappled with the distance between I and the Other. 10 feet becomes light-years when the timing fails me. "Sorry, can't talk. I'm supposed to see you in class, not the library." "Excuse me, I'm buying cookies from the vending machine. You aren't supposed to glance over here." My life appears too burdensome for memories. My journals have become a filing cabinet, and putting all that on a flash drive? Too difficult. Negligence appears more comfortable.

But one moment keeps future joyous reunions on life support. Five minutes which altered everything.

I was horribly late for class. The somber March sun casts flecks of light through the cloud cover. Spindly legs launch me through the courtyard.
"Richard!" 
From nowhere, a small, bundled woman blocks my path. Caked in bronze, I can hardly recognize her. 
-Ashley. Sang in a choir together. Great friend. She dances competitively now. 
We strike a conversation. I walk with her. She smiles. I do too. We meet up weeks later. Date. Marry. We smile some more.

I cannot avoid these apparitions forever. They look too much like angels.

PEOPLE I SAW AND MADE MYSELF TALK WITH THIS LAST WEEK
-Kami. Served in Texas with me. Not Facebook friends.
-Devon. Worked with him as an intramural referee. Future car salesman.  
-Jessica. In a current class. Spent most of the talk figuring out who I was. Smiled in the end.
-Professor Boston. Refused to call me Buckets. Knows me as "The student not named Buckets."
-Hayden. My mission trainer.