Back to REM

The Volkswagen drifted along the winding path through the hills, emitting a polite beep as it turned a corner. Neil Young’s muffled voice crooned through the car stereo, “just like children sleepin’, we could dream this night away…” My eyes slowly edged open, adjusting to the light streaming in through the window. The warmth of the April sun coated my skin, making me feel drowsy and content and at peace. Justine was in the driver’s seat, following the path the motorbikers we’d met a few stops back had drawn out for us on the map.

“Just a couple minutes out from Asciano!” she called out.

I rested my head against the back door again, watching as the red poppies and cypress trees passed by in double time, bathed in golden light. It was our fourth month in Italy, and I wanted this feeling, here, forever….

As the song faded out, and the last chords on Neil’s guitar were strummed, the grating sound of “Radar” broke through my deep sleep. My eyes, still shifting rapidly beneath their lids, snapped open. 7:30 AM. I was late. A jolt of panic shot through my body, propelling me out of bed and into the kitchen. Cursing, I peered into the fridge through still-bleary eyes. Out of creamer. Begrudgingly, I poured myself a glass of cold brew out of the can and braced myself for the bitterness as I retreated back to my room.

By eight, I was pacing by the bus stop, muscles tensed in the September morning chill. Upon the 8:05’s eventual arrival, I swiped my card, the wrong way at first, and smiled apologetically at the driver. She stared back blankly, tapping her fingers against

the steering wheel. The bus pulled away from the curb as I unsteadily navigated my way down the aisle and collapsed into an empty spot. Same blue seats. Same yellow rope. Same people buried in textbooks and cell phones. I looked down at my phone’s lock screen, lit up with a recent message. Do you want to go out tonight? it asked. I assumed the suggestion would be to the same sports bar where I’d squandered fifteen dollars on a pitcher last weekend (and many weekends before that). It was like this town had been suspended over the eight months since I’d left it. Maybe I’d been sucked into a time warp.

By five, I was clocking out and ready to collapse. By six, I was unloading my body back onto my bed. As my head hit the pillow, I felt myself go under, submerged into the space between reality and the world of my subconscious. I drifted off, my mind navigating its way back into the realm it had basked in nearly eleven hours earlier.

The Volkswagen drifted along the winding path through the hills. Neil Young’s voice, once again, roused me out of my slumber. I straightened up in the backseat, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I strained to see out the front windshield at the road ahead. I yawned and shifted my gaze to the poppies passing by in the right-hand window…. My eyes snapped back to the driver’s seat, apparently deserted. The car was being guided along seemingly of its own accord. Alarms went off in my brain, and I instinctively unbuckled my seatbelt and pushed open the back right door, tumbling out just in time before the driverless vehicle plummeted off the country road. I stood, in shock, in the middle of the dirt path, struggling to catch my breath in the thin, shimmering air.

Neil’s voice was long gone; without it, the silence crept in on me. The birds still chirped and the wind still rustled in the olive trees, but now that our rental had nose-dived down the side of the hill and was out of commission, I noticed that the background hum of an engine had vanished. There wasn’t a single car or motorbike in sight for miles. So much for hitchhiking. I would have to find my way to the next town over on foot.

I trudged along the side of the highway for what felt like hours. My head was spinning, and the hands on my watch were spinning quicker. I looked down at the grass beneath my feet. It was taking on a new appearance, the matter rearranging itself before my eyes. It became unyielding, the dirt hardening into cobblestone. This must be Asciano, I thought. But as I glanced up at my surroundings, I registered that I had somehow ended up back home, back in Bologna, one hundred kilometers from where I’d started. Huh. Oh well. I began making the familiar journey back to my apartment.

The sound of my heart echoed, bouncing off of the graffitied walls, as I clocked the vacantness of the street. Was today a holiday? A Sunday? I racked my brain trying to remember what day it was. It couldn’t have been—the bars and restaurants that lined the road had left their doors wide open, the smell of fresh tortelloni and tagliatelle pouring out and brushing under my nose, the notes of Mina’s “Città vuota” spilling from a radio propped up on the bar. But behind the bar, there stood no

bartender; inside the trattoria, no waiter; and at the tables, no patrons. The once-bustling Via del Pratello was devoid of life. I picked up my pace.

When I arrived at my building, I scrambled up the stairwell to the third floor and struggled with the always-unlocked doorknob, which now refused to budge. I fumbled with my key, before finally twisting it in the lock and closing the door behind me. Stepping into the hallway, I sighed with relief, seeing the Jägermeisterlined pantry shelves and the ever-full drying racks for the laundry. I knew this. This was safe. I called out to my flatmates. Crickets. I knocked on Marc’s door, on Delia’s, then on Daan’s. The silence welcomed me home. I crumpled onto the tiled floor, and it dropped out from under me, falling, falling, falling….

There was a knock at the door.

I shot up in my bed, heart racing, head pounding. I checked the time. 7:30 PM. Tasia poked her head in.

“Hey,” she said. “When did you want to leave?”

“Oh,” I blinked. “Uh, I’ll just get dressed.”

She closed the door. I ran my fingers through my hair, took a sip of water to slow my breathing, and pulled my white dress over my head. Just a dream. Just a dream.

I heard a knock at my door again.

“Yeah, one sec,” I yelled back. “Do you need something?”

There was no response. She must have gone back upstairs. I grabbed my bag and left my room, closing the door behind me.

Fifteen minutes later, my roommates and I were making our way down the sidewalks through the outskirts of Kerrytown. The early evening had brought slightly warmer temperatures, and I relished in the last remnants of summer—the cicadas buzzing in the trees, a golden retriever barking hello! through a fence, the way you could almost see the particles of the shimmering golden hour air, our new neighbor mowing his lawn. Julia waved and greeted him as we walked past. I couldn’t quite make out his face, but I figured it must be someone she knew.

We stopped in a tucked-away park outside of the city, takeout and three-dollar Trader Joe’s wine in tow. Jo set her speaker on the edge of the blanket, the beginning strings of Jon Brion’s “Thanksgiving in Sacramento” providing the soundtrack to our dinner, and poured the red into Solo cups. The slim crescent moon, barely new, was rising into the pink sky.

I heard my name. It was close, yet distant, muffled, as if there was a wall between me and the speaker. I glanced up, but the only people in my vicinity were the three that I had arrived with, who were happily chatting and sorting out whose order was whose.

“Did you hear that?” I asked, shifting my eyes towards Tasia.

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know. It just sounded like someone said my name.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones here.”

She squinted at me, a question forming behind her gaze. Jo and Julia looked up, peering at me from behind paper boxes and plastic cups, their conversation now at a standstill.

There was a knock at the door.

WRITER JAYDE EMERY GRAPHIC DESIGNER LIZA MILLER