Changing the Frequency

2008 Daniel Verastiqui

They were seated at a private booth near the back of the diner, well away from the small crowd of mid-afternoon lunchers. The adjacent window showed a serene campus slumbering under a light snow. Students walked the white pathways with their backpacks slung over thick jackets, probably wondering to themselves why it should be snowing so late into May. It had been a mild winter, but a resolute one. If it kept up for a few more days, it would be the first recorded snowfall in June.

Mari Bennett looked out over the campus and felt a sliver of nostalgia creep into her spine. It had only been a few months since she graduated, but her home away from home for the last six years looked so distant, so hollow. It looked the same, smelled the same, but even on the short walk from the parking garage, Mari had felt something different in the air. For a brief moment before entering the diner, she grasped the idea that she was beyond th...