Neither Forwards nor Backwards 

by Eassah A 

September 21, 2024, 11:50 PM 

Home, Basement (Tired) 

I believe that ghosts are real. They haunt the empty halls of the University of Alberta’s North Campus. They haunt me with the lingering sights and sounds of the students who inhabited them during the day, students I’ll never know. 

They cause me to have strange hallucinations of lives I’ve never lived. 

And they are very much real. 

Last year, I had many encounters with them, but what stands out to me are the events that played out on one particular evening. 

I want this to be read with the mindset that I should’ve had that evening. I want you to read this, not dwell on it long, and move on. And if you find this unimportant text to be stuck with you after a while, I want you to try to move on and forget it. Lest you end up shackled to a laptop a year later, typing about it to achieve some catharsis. 

February 13, 2023, 5:24 PM 

Cameron Library, 4th Floor (Tired) 

This place is empty. It's dim. It's cold. Eerie. The low hum of the lights-- it's familiar. It fades in and out of view; it's tiring. It's lonely. The students here hours ago wouldn't think so. The chairs and whiteboards privy to serious conversations and idle chatter alike would object. And we’d both be right. Censeo ergo est, I suppose. 

February 13, 2023, 5:30 PM 

President’s Walk (Cold) 

Cold. Let’s see. Left. Right. Next to nothing. Just how I like it. Not sure where to start. I look at the statue of the two scholars, to my right. A bronze hand waves me in the direction of the health academy. Anything’s fine. It’s too dark and too cold for anyone to ruin this. 

February 13, 2023, 5:37 PM 

Edmonton Clinical Health Academy (Arrived) 

Colorful. The outside has always looked better at night. Inside is warm. Can think now, properly.

February 13, 2023, 5:38 PM 

Edmonton Clinical Health Academy (Warmed Up) 

I’ve always loved this building. As someone with aspirations of working in medicine, this building shone like the Pantheon if the Pantheon was built for tired students and panic attacks. Looking out the massive windows on the first floor and seeing the ‘Edmonton Medical Sciences District’ lightly dusted with snow, with lights of cars whizzing by, accompanied by traffic lights of candied stars, I can’t resist the urge to register for night courses of some kind. It’s beautiful. I walk through the halls, thinking about the tired and hectic days the students must spend here, the quiet nights spent in covert warfare with textbooks. I feel what it’s like to call this place on campus home. I feel I understand what it means to pursue medicine here. I feel Miz’s hand on my back. 

February 13, 2023, 5:50ish PM 

Edmonton Clinical Health Academy 

No, Miz is not real. But I know her. I know she came here on the best academic scholarships you could get. I know her passion for medicine was borne from curiosity about the immune system and microbes. I know she used to play a lot of basketball in high school, and had to set it aside to study. I know that when she underperforms academically she takes to it like a toddler being told ‘no’. And that she refuses to see that as a weakness. I know that despite her brilliance she never holds anyone to the same standard. Doesn't hold me to the same standard. 

Maybe I’m there too. 

On clinical rotation with Miz, being grossed out by cadavers, hands shaking as we locate certain tendons and muscles. Maybe I’m there on late night study benders when we catch the last train back home from Health Sciences Station, or join the basketball club to shake off the rust. Maybe I’m there when she gets matched to a top research institute, and reduces her acceptance letter to a near pulp with tears of joy. But I know I’m not. I’m not there, because we’re just peers. And she’s her and I’m just me. But still, she makes me happy. 

February 13, 2023, 6:11 PM 

8640 114 St NW (Dark) 

Where to next? I exhale. My breath fills the air like clouds in the sky. I stare down the street. Statue men are there. Well, why not just go the opposite direction? ETLC should still be open. 

February 13, 2023, 6:22 PM 

Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex (Dark) 

Usually when I do these, I leave people in their places. But Miz came with me, insisted. It’s OK. I’ll just have to remember to leave her on campus before I catch the last train.

February 13, 2023, 6:27 PM 

Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex (Dark) 

I trek up the main stairs and stare at the student area on the second floor. Some lunch containers are still strewn about the floor. There are crumpled papers with the dying breaths of equations and proofs on them, plastered on whiteboards and cork. The lights here are more fluorescent yellow than white when it's late. Seems disorganized. Lived in. I take a right to get to the Mechanical Engineering wing. It always feels like I’m sneaking around when I do this, like the universe knows I can’t tell my x from y or integral from derivative. So, to fool the universe, I think. About being lost in the numbers. About how a student here learns to think like an engineer. The practice problems that take hours to solve, the weary eyed study groups that shuffle to heat up some leftovers to power them through the night. About how beyond every obscure Greek letter and number, there are dreams of making a real impact in the world. I reach my favorite spot: the blue sofa overlooking the sea of gears and toolboxes in the MechE labs. And when I sit down, Oskar is already there. 

February 13, 2023, 6:40 PM 

Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex (Quiet) 

I think about Oskar over the hum of machines. He was always a weird one. Wore pajamas to school every day, and old man sandals to match. His genius was undeniable. In both art and mathematics he excelled, and despite my happiness for his decision to study Engineering, I was always sad I’d never see his art again. I loved the way he drew senior citizens and teachers. You could almost feel the tiredness through the pencil strokes. I thought we were always kind of similar. In the way we weren’t good with people, but got better at it as time passed. We never texted or called, but whenever we saw each other it was a good time. I didn’t need to try with Oskar, we just kind of clicked. 

Oskar is very much real, but he’s not here. 

Before I packed up for Edmonton we went out for food one last time. Once the meal was over we walked, like we had countless times before, back home together. And when we reached the street we parted ways at, we laughed and promised to see each other later. 

It should have been obvious what would happen. We never kept in touch outside in-person meetups. I shipped off to the UofA, and haven’t heard head nor tails of him since. 

February 13, 2023, 7:14 PM 

Engineering Teaching & Learning Complex (Quieter) 

I love that when it’s quiet there’s nothing to distract you from your thoughts. I also hate it for the same reason. 

I haul myself out of the sofa to buy a drink from the vending machine before heading to the train station. They’ve got ginger ale. Yasmin’s favorite. She loved to play basketball. I wonder if she still does now that she’s in Uni. She always beats herself up too much over the littlest things when it comes to studying, probably takes time away from her personal life. She’s a lot like Miz, I think. I realize. I’m no longer in the mood for anything to drink.

February 13, 2023, 7:14 PM 

University LRT Station, Platform (Cold, Quietest) 

Yasmin was the valedictorian at my high school. Good grades, gave the speech, all that stuff. Right now she’ll be studying Microbiology at the University of Toronto. I’d like to think that we were pretty close. We went thrifting together, studied, and shopped. I haven’t heard from her since her grand speech about 

trains and how we move through life like their street cars. We took pictures outside the graduation hall that I don’t have on my phone. Forgot to ask for them to be sent to me. Those will be the last reminders of me that she has. 

I look up at the screens hanging from the station roof. My train is in 26 minutes. DELAYED. No matter, I’ve got some things I don’t want to think about. 

February 13, 2023, 7:17 PM 

University LRT Station, Platform (Cold, Quietest) 

Why did I come up with Miz? Why think about Oskar now? It’s unfortunate that we fell apart, but isn’t that just how things go? When people aren’t meant to get along, they don’t. That’s why I walk around the empty campus, isn’t it? It’s more comforting to be alone here than with others. I’m simply not built for others. It’s axiomatic for some people, loneliness. This is just how it is. I glance once more at the screens. Looks like I’m still DELAYED. 

February 13, 2023, 7:24 PM 

University LRT Station, Platform (Cold, Quietest) 

A girl comes down the escalator steps. She looks weary from walking, like me. 

She’s got her headphones on, like me. 

She must have been studying late, or with friends. For a second I allow myself to entertain the possibility that she might have been walking around the empty campus to feel at home somehow, like me. 

When I do, I feel the ghosts of Yasmin and Oskar swell with anticipation. As if they were waiting for this, for me to forget them and start a new something with a new someone. Weren’t they supposed to stay in their places? So I could come back to the empty campus and see them whenever? The ghosts are being awfully pesky. A strange nervousness fills me, made worse by the approaching stranger. 

February 13, 2023, 7:34 PM 

University LRT Station, Platform (Coldest, Quietest) 

I am approached by the girl who came down the platform earlier. She asks me about which train to take to get to the MacEwan dorms, because she’s visiting a friend there. Yasmin and Oskar are on the verge of escaping, being free from me. I didn’t know what route she should take myself. I could’ve looked it up on my phone. We could have solved the problem together. I could’ve asked about her day. But she wasn’t wandering the empty campus like me. She wasn’t trying to feel at home like me. She didn’t have to deal with ghosts; it would never have worked with us. 

I told her I didn’t know. She nodded and turned away.

February 13, 2023, 7:40 PM 

University LRT Station, Platform (Coldest, Quietest) 

The train is arriving. The girl remains on the platform, staring quizzically at her phone. I step through the doors, feeling weightless. As the doors shut, it feels as if I can see Yasmin and Oskar there on the platform. 

Waiting for the day I’ll let them leave the campus.