Escape | Seamus Cummings ’22

Escape

Seamus Cummings ’22

There is no better time in my life than when I am alone. The calm peacefulness of thoughts in my head keeps me at ease with the people around me. I stay quiet and humble, carefully thinking about the entire universe. When I was a child, kids made fun of me for reading my favorite comic books at recess. Every day I would bring in a new one to show my fake friends whom I truly did not care for. But there was something about me that looked for the acceptance of my peers. I would bring one in; kids would laugh at me, and then I would return home depleted and alone. Every day I did this as a child: sat in my bed after school and imagined a life with a mother and a father. What it would be like to have a family where the person caring for me was not getting funded by the government. But I didn’t know that as a child. All I knew was being alone. After 5th grade, everything started to make sense to me. I would never see my Mom and Dad again. As I looked for them and their love, I found myself. I found that I was the only one who can validate my belonging in this world because if not me who else? It is me, myself, and I in this life.

Now, sitting here in my old, beaten down 1992 Dodge Dakota, which I earned after I helped my teacher build his house a couple months ago, I have realized something. If I don’t get the hell out of Fairbanks, Alaska, I am going to die here, jumping off a bridge. I’ve fought with the same people, gone to the same school for 12 years, and now–18 and a free man–I’m out. I hate it here.

So I started my car, rolled out of Kelly’s Diner, and headed for a place I had only ever seen pictures of: Los Angeles, California. In my head, I planned all of the things I would need to do to survive: sleep in my car, steal from small shops, and somehow make a living. I would only steal for a little bit, just until I got my first pay from someone, anyone. I took a right and headed for the highway.

It was dark out as the sun sets early in the winter in Alaska. My headlights weren’t that great as my car is twenty years old this year. I drove slowly as there was a little sleet coming down. I pulled up to the only light in the direct center of town and waited for it to turn green. It felt like an eternity as I sat there. I just wanted to leave everything behind. I stared at the light, counting the seconds. Just as it turned green, I pressed my foot on the gas pedal. What I didn’t know on that cold December night was that the Green light was the last thing I would ever see. A drunken man driving his new 2012 GMC Sierra ran a red light with no headlights on and rammed directly into my door in the middle of the road. As the cars collided, I took my last breath and let everything go. I died in the car almost instantly. I think now of my dreams in heaven, of the warm air of freedom. But I guess some things are never meant to be.