Our Alma Mater Dear, We Sing This Song To Thee

“I remember…”

The words slipped out of Daniel Mercer’s mouth before he even realized he’d spoken them aloud.

He stood in the middle of the old quad with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his charcoal coat, watching autumn leaves skitter across the brick pathways of what was now officially called John Arthur University. Twenty years ago, when he had first arrived carrying two duffel bags, a secondhand typewriter, and enough anxiety to sink a battleship, it had still been John Arthur College.

Back then, the stone archways had seemed impossibly huge.

Now they seemed smaller somehow.

Or maybe he had simply grown older.

Students hurried past him laughing, backpacks slung over shoulders, earbuds in, coffee cups steaming in the cold evening air. Somewhere in the distance a marching band practiced badly and enthusiastically. The notes bounced across the campus exactly the way they always had.

Daniel smiled.

“I remember…”

A young couple glanced at him curiously before continuing on.

He chuckled under his breath and started walking.

The alumni committee had invited him back for Founders Weekend. Apparently becoming a moderately successful newspaper columnist qualified him as “distinguished alumni,” though Daniel still suspected they had simply run out of famous graduates willing to come.

The campus looked both different and exactly the same.

The library had been renovated.

The old student center café was now a technology commons.

The ancient bookstore that used to smell like dust and coffee had become a smoothie place with neon signs.

But the dormitories still stood like old friends.

Slater Hall.

Walden Hall.

Smythe.

Hotchner.

Dickinson.

Sweeney.

Daniel slowed as he approached Slater Hall.

The building looked almost comically small compared to the monster it had been in his freshman memories.

Freshman year.

Lord help him.

He could still remember move-in day with horrifying clarity.

His mother crying.

His father pretending not to cry.

His younger sister stealing his mini-fridge Pop-Tarts before he’d even unpacked them.

And then there were the roommates.

Dear heavens.

The roommates.

Slater Hall had operated on what Daniel still believed was a deeply flawed housing philosophy: put six teenage boys together in confined quarters and trust civilization to survive.

Somehow, it had.

Barely.

His roommate closest to the window had been Marcus Bell, a linebacker built like a refrigerator with the soul of a hyperactive Labrador retriever. Marcus snored like a chainsaw battling a bear.

Then there was Ethan Price, who played drums on every available surface at all hours of the day and night.

Connor Lewis survived almost entirely on instant ramen and energy drinks and once attempted to cook bacon using a clothing iron.

Trevor Mills had an apparently supernatural inability to whisper.

Even at two in the morning.

Especially at two in the morning.

And then there was Benny Rodriguez, who owned precisely one volume setting when playing video games: earthquake.

The quiet roommate was Andrew Whitaker.

Andrew had looked perpetually exhausted from the moment Daniel met him.

Tall, bespectacled, soft-spoken Andrew.

The only sane man in Slater Hall.

Daniel could still see him sitting at his desk wearing headphones while chaos exploded around him.

Marcus wrestling Trevor.

Connor nearly setting off the smoke alarm.

Ethan drumming with pencils on the radiator.

Benny screaming because someone named xXShadowWolfXx had defeated him online.

And Andrew calmly reading a philosophy book like a monk meditating through the apocalypse.

Daniel grinned to himself as he climbed the steps to Slater Hall.

The front doors were locked now unless you had student access, but the alumni weekend had propped them open for tours.

The smell hit him immediately.

Industrial cleaner.

Old heating pipes.

Laundry detergent.

Cheap pizza.

It was unbelievable how a building could smell exactly the same after two decades.

A current student passed carrying a laundry basket.

Daniel nearly laughed.

Freshman boys across generations apparently still waited until the last possible second to wash clothes.

He wandered down the hallway slowly.

Room 214.

His old room.

The door stood open now for visitors.

Inside, six new students had transformed the room into their own kingdom of clutter.

Different posters.

Different blankets.

Different faces.

But the same energy.

The same ridiculousness.

One student was trying unsuccessfully to tune a guitar while another argued loudly about fantasy football.

A third appeared to be eating cereal directly from the box.

Daniel leaned against the doorway smiling.

One of the students looked up.

“You alumni?”

“Unfortunately.”

The room laughed.

“Were dorms always this chaotic?” another student asked.

Daniel barked out a laugh.

“Oh, son. You have no idea.”

That launched twenty minutes of stories.

The Great Ramen Explosion of sophomore year.

The time Marcus accidentally shattered a ceiling fan with a Nerf football.

The infamous incident involving three traffic cones and the dean’s golf cart.

The students nearly cried laughing.

Daniel found himself laughing too.

Not polite chuckles.

Real laughter.

The kind that hurt your ribs.

Eventually he thanked them and moved on, though one of the students called after him.

“Hey!”

Daniel turned.

“What was the best part of college?”

The question hit him harder than expected.

He thought for a moment.

“The people,” he answered quietly. “Always the people.”

Outside again, the evening air had grown colder.

Campus lights glowed warm gold against the darkening sky.

Daniel crossed the quad toward Walden Hall.

Sophomore year.

The year he and Andrew escaped.

Not escaped each other.

Escaped everybody else.

By the end of freshman year they had become inseparable friends largely through mutual survival.

They studied together.

Complained together.

Pulled all-nighters together.

Once they even got food poisoning together after eating suspicious cafeteria tacos.

Nothing forged friendship like simultaneous gastrointestinal suffering.

Walden Hall had been quieter than Slater.

Not silent.

Nothing on a college campus was silent.

But quieter.

Daniel remembered the day they moved in.

Andrew standing in the empty room saying, “Do you hear that?”

Daniel had listened carefully.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Andrew whispered reverently.

They had nearly wept with joy.

Their room in Walden became legendary among their friends.

Not because it was wild.

Because it wasn’t.

It became the refuge.

The sanctuary.

People drifted in constantly.

Late-night conversations.

Study sessions.

Breakup recoveries.

Existential crises.

Andrew brewed terrible coffee while Daniel supplied terrible advice.

Together they somehow helped everyone.

Or at least listened.

Sometimes that was enough.

Daniel smiled as he passed beneath the old oak tree beside Walden Hall.

He remembered winter nights walking back through snow with Andrew while debating books and theology and whether pineapple belonged on pizza.

Andrew had defended pineapple pizza with the conviction of a man defending sacred doctrine.

Daniel still considered this a character flaw.

Then there were Open Dorm Nights.

Ah.

Open Dorm Nights.

The legendary social events of John Arthur College.

A glorious few hours when dorm visitation rules relaxed and students flooded between residence halls like migrating birds.

Daniel laughed aloud remembering them.

Those nights had felt electric.

The entire campus buzzing with excitement.

Guys from Slater and Walden heading toward Smythe Hall, Hotchner Hall, Dickinson Hall, and Sweeney Hall with enough nervous energy to power a small city.

Everyone pretended they were casually visiting friends.

Nobody believed anybody.

Especially when cologne clouds followed entire groups of freshmen across campus.

Daniel had his crushes.

Oh yes.

Emily from Smythe Hall with the dazzling laugh.

Rachel from Dickinson Hall who quoted poetry.

Claire from Sweeney Hall who beat him three straight times at chess and never let him forget it.

And then there was Olivia from Hotchner Hall.

Olivia Monroe.

Dark curls.

Sharp wit.

A smile that could probably restart stopped hearts.

Daniel had once walked directly into a lamppost because he was watching her wave goodbye.

Andrew laughed at him for a week.

Hotchner Hall itself had possessed a reputation unlike any other dorm on campus.

Officially it was just another women’s residence hall.

Unofficially it was Castle Dracula.

Nobody entirely remembered why.

Some claimed the gothic architecture inspired it.

Others blamed the perpetually pale residents.

But once the nickname stuck, it became immortal.

Which made the blood drives hilarious.

Daniel had donated blood twice in the Hotchner Hall lounge.

The first time he walked in, a girl wearing vampire fangs pointed dramatically at him and declared, “A volunteer Thrall approaches!”

The entire lounge burst into applause.

From then on, blood donors became Thralls.

There were handmade certificates.

Fake capes.

Someone once brought plastic bats.

College students would turn literally anything into a joke.

Daniel remembered sitting in those folding chairs after donating blood, drinking orange juice while Olivia sat beside him.

“You’re looking pale, Thrall,” she had teased.

“You’ve stolen my life essence.”

“Good. I needed caffeine.”

He’d laughed so hard juice nearly came out his nose.

God, he’d been young.

He missed that version of himself sometimes.

Not because life had been easier.

It hadn’t.

He’d been broke constantly.

Terrified about the future.

Overworked.

Sleep-deprived.

But emotions had felt enormous then.

Everything mattered so much.

Every friendship.

Every heartbreak.

Every Friday night.

Every conversation at two in the morning.

Daniel wandered toward the central lawn where alumni tents now stood decorated with banners and strings of lights.

Music floated through the air.

Someone handed him hot cider.

He thanked them absently, lost in memory.

There had been one Open Dorm Night everyone still talked about years later.

The Serenade Incident.

Andrew had started it.

Which surprised everyone because Andrew almost never started anything.

A bunch of them had gathered in Smythe Hall’s lounge with an old karaoke machine somebody borrowed from the theater department.

Most people sang terribly on purpose.

Then someone dared Daniel to sing.

“What song?” he’d asked.

A chorus erupted instantly.

“Can You Feel The Love Tonight!”

Daniel had groaned.

“Absolutely not.”

Five minutes later he was standing on a coffee table dramatically serenading an entire roomful of laughing women with all the theatrical intensity of a Broadway actor trapped in a Disney movie.

Andrew provided backup vocals.

Poorly.

Marcus used a lamp as a pretend microphone.

At one point Trevor attempted interpretive dance.

It was catastrophic.

Magnificent.

By the final chorus half the lounge was singing along.

Even Olivia.

Especially Olivia.

Daniel smiled into his cider.

Years later he could barely hear that song without thinking of crowded dorm lounges and terrible fluorescent lighting and Olivia laughing so hard tears ran down her cheeks.

There had also been the Halloween Open Dorm Night.

The Phantom costume.

Good Lord.

Daniel had been obsessed with old pulp heroes and classic theater back then.

He’d spent two weeks assembling the costume piece by piece.

Black cloak.

Wide-brimmed hat.

Domino mask.

Fake ring with a skull emblem.

He took the role absurdly seriously.

Andrew said he looked like a depressed magician.

Daniel insisted he looked mysterious.

The verdict from most students leaned toward “dramatic idiot.”

He embraced it fully.

That night students packed the dorms in every imaginable costume.

Pirates.

Cowboys.

Angels.

Movie monsters.

One guy somehow arrived dressed as a vending machine.

Daniel wandered between dorms staying completely in character as The Phantom.

Speaking in overly dramatic whispers.

Pointing accusingly at people.

Disappearing randomly into shadows.

At one point he climbed atop a lounge piano in Smythe Hall and played the opening notes of ominous organ music with theatrical flourish.

A resident assistant nearly died laughing.

But Olivia…

Olivia loved it.

She greeted him with a mock curtsy every time she saw him that night.

“Well met, mysterious vigilante.”

“The city remains under my protection.”

“You mean campus.”

“Crime fears me regardless.”

She grinned.

“Walk me back to Hotchner, Phantom.”

So he did.

Past glowing jack-o’-lanterns.

Past students laughing beneath orange lights.

Past fallen leaves crunching beneath their shoes.

Daniel remembered the cold air.

The sound of distant music.

The way Olivia’s costume wings brushed against his arm as they walked.

He remembered standing outside Hotchner Hall afterward awkwardly trying to think of something profound to say.

Instead he blurted, “I think my cape got caught in the door.”

Romantic excellence.

Truly.

She laughed for nearly thirty seconds.

Then kissed his cheek before disappearing inside Castle Dracula.

Daniel touched his face unconsciously even now at the memory.

Funny what stayed with you.

Not the exams.

Not the grades.

Not even most lectures.

It was moments.

Tiny moments.

Human moments.

The alumni reception eventually began inside the student union.

Daniel attended dutifully.

He shook hands.

Answered questions about journalism.

Pretended to enjoy panel discussions.

But the whole time his eyes kept drifting toward the windows overlooking campus.

Toward the dormitories glowing against the night.

Eventually he slipped away unnoticed.

Outside, the campus had grown quieter.

Students still moved about in clusters, but the frenzy of evening had softened into the gentler rhythm of late night.

Daniel found himself walking toward Hotchner Hall almost automatically.

Castle Dracula.

The building looked unchanged.

Tall gothic windows.

Stone exterior.

Warm lights glowing within.

He stopped outside the entrance.

Memory after memory crashed over him.

Late-night conversations.

Nervous visits.

Laughter in the lounge.

Orange juice after blood drives.

Olivia waving from an upstairs window.

“Danny?”

He froze.

Nobody had called him Danny in years.

Slowly he turned.

Olivia Monroe stood several feet away wearing a navy coat and holding an alumni program booklet.

Still dark curls.

Still sharp eyes.

Still devastating smile.

Daniel blinked twice.

“Well,” she said. “You still look dramatic standing outside Hotchner Hall.”

He laughed helplessly.

“Olivia.”

“For a second I thought maybe The Phantom had returned.”

“I left the cape at home.”

“A tragedy.”

They stared at each other for a moment before simultaneously stepping forward into a hug that felt both unfamiliar and astonishingly natural.

“You came back,” she said softly.

“So did you.”

Turns out Olivia taught literature now.

Not at John Arthur University, but nearby.

Turns out Andrew was a therapist in Chicago.

Marcus coached football.

Trevor hosted a sports radio show somehow despite never lowering his volume in twenty years.

Connor owned a restaurant.

Benny designed video games.

Life had scattered them everywhere.

Yet somehow this campus still connected them all invisibly.

Olivia and Daniel walked slowly through campus together talking for hours.

About careers.

Marriage.

Divorce.

Loss.

Success.

Failure.

All the complicated adult things college students never imagine properly.

Eventually they ended up sitting on a bench overlooking the quad.

The same bench where they’d once shared milkshakes at one in the morning because both vending machines were broken.

“You know what I miss most?” Olivia asked quietly.

Daniel looked at her.

“What?”

“The certainty that everyone would still be here tomorrow.”

He understood immediately.

College created a strange illusion.

That life existed entirely within those brick buildings and glowing hallways.

That your people would always remain exactly where you left them.

Then graduation came.

And everyone scattered like sparks.

“I remember…” Daniel murmured again.

Olivia smiled faintly.

“You always did get nostalgic.”

“I’m getting old.”

“You’re forty-two.”

“My knees disagree.”

She laughed softly.

For a while they simply watched students crossing the quad below.

A group hurried past carrying pizza boxes and arguing loudly.

One young man wore a ridiculous cape for no apparent reason.

Daniel pointed.

“The Phantom lives on.”

Olivia grinned.

“Poor campus.”

Silence settled comfortably between them.

Not awkward.

Not empty.

Just peaceful.

Finally Olivia nudged his shoulder gently.

“You know something?”

“What?”

“You were happiest here.”

Daniel considered arguing.

Then realized he couldn’t.

Not entirely.

College hadn’t been perfect.

Far from it.

There had been stress and loneliness and heartbreak and uncertainty.

But it had also been alive in a way nothing else ever quite replicated.

A thousand doors opening at once.

Friendships forming overnight.

Endless conversations.

Endless possibilities.

The strange beautiful chaos of becoming yourself.

“I think,” Daniel said slowly, “part of me never really left.”

Olivia looked toward the glowing dormitories.

“None of us did.”

The campus clock tower began chiming the hour.

Somewhere students cheered about something insignificant and urgent and wonderfully young.

Daniel smiled into the autumn night.

And remembered.