Lost Tales of Kirev

First Steps

When I went on my first tour of my college, long before I had enough experience with the area to put together the puzzle pieces of information that the student guides haphazardly tossed our way, the one thing that burned itself into my memory was a particular hall. Let's call it Connor Hall. Specifically, I remembered the small outdoor amphitheater that was concealed between Connor's two C-shaped stories and an adjacent, modest hockey arena. Unique and isolated, it seemed like the perfect place to be. Not to do anything in particular, but just to exist. An oasis of sand-colored stone and solitude.

Three months into my freshman year, I had all but forgotten about the theater, but on a whim, I decided I wanted to find it again. I didn't know where it fit into my new, existent yet limited understanding of the campus map. I didn't even remember the name of the hall. But I was determined to rediscover the hidden amphitheater, to write about it. Backpack heavy on my shoulders with the extra weight of a precautionary jacket, I set off towards what I knew was Connor Hall but didn't know was the amphitheater, with the diminishing hope that I was remembering right and the knowledge that I could always ask someone nearby if I was wrong.

I've always been the type to figure things out ahead of time. Days before going anywhere or seeing anyone I didn't go to or see at least once a week, I would look up the address, ask my parents about the best place to park, and check online so I knew exactly how long the drive would take. On the road, a GPS would guide my every turn and 'continue straight', and a bolt of panic would hurtle down my spine if I ever accidentally swayed from its godly instructions. Before college, I never could have dreamed of walking through an entire college campus with only the slightest idea where I was going. And asking somebody for directions would have been out of the question, a moral failing.

When I climbed the steps of the hall and tugged open the door, I recognized the circular railing surrounding the stairs in the entryway and knew I was in the right place. The open air of the amphitheater was visible through the windows, but getting down to the stone seats was another question. Thankfully, I spotted someone who I assumed was a professor about to cross paths with me. I stopped him to ask about the theater, and with passionate fervor, he explained that the doors leading to the half of the amphitheater that hadn't been gobbled up by that shell of a former hockey arena were downstairs in the above-ground basement, but I would have to hold them open or they would lock behind me. Undeterred, I descended the stairs, pausing only briefly to admire the abstract painting on the intermediate landing. Excitement bubbling up, I pushed the sage-green doors open.

I gasped, audibly, as I entered. The yellow stone of the theater slowed to arch gracefully above my head before continuing on its way to form four tall, ascending rows of seats, like the steps of a pyramid. The stage itself was a patchwork of interlocking red stone tiles, and behind it was a large painting that struck me as a Picasso but couldn't possibly be something that valuable, somewhere so remote. On hulking stone blocks around the semicircle were a dozen Doric columns that held a roof over the upper landings, one of which, I realized as I walked down the center aisle, I could have reached from the first floor. Then I remembered the door.

My mind is a to-do list, constantly updating with newly acquired items. Things to say, places to go, tasks to accomplish: if they haven't made it onto my productivity app, they're in my head in order of recency. Fates know I'm not perfect, but I fight forgetfulness with mnemonics, usually consisting of me repeating a consistently strange set of words. Unload the dishwasher, ask Viktor what their favorite color is, feed the cats. Unload, favorite, cats. This is, of course, how I compensate for the fact that I am notoriously forgetful. At least, notorious to me. Most are never allowed to catch a glimpse of the Mach 1 hamster wheel anxiously spinning in the background, mental mice leaping on and flying off faster than I can keep track of them all. I miss things sometimes, and that sends that same thunderbolt of panic through me. But maybe I shouldn't worry so much.