Far away.

Connected with someone who is no longer here.

Like a ten-year-old boy with glistening eyes, behind a pair of glasses, watching a movie, unaware of what was to come. Yet, somehow, sensing it. Because not everything can be explained.

Tonight is one of those moments, and music - my music - helps me go back.

No, not with a DeLorean. Because the flux capacitor doesn't exist. But the mind can do much, much more.

And those tears, inexplicable then, are full of meaning today.

My mind wanders, and memories resurface. The sound of the light switch here is different, yet it brings back the dull, dry click of my first-grade classroom. On days like this, the teacher would walk in and turn on the light. It came from a single globe light hanging in the center of the room; its yellow glow tried to dissolve the grayness of the walls and the atmosphere, without ever truly succeeding.

The school was old. It felt ancient to me - built fifty years earlier and seemingly frozen in time. The desks still had holes for inkwells, the teacher’s platform was raised, and in a corner, there was still a cane for corporal punishment. In 1985, of course, no teacher would have dreamed of using it without risking jail, but it was clear that at certain moments, they looked at it with far too much longing. They likely remembered its brutal efficacy from years before. Fortunately, times had changed.

Our teacher, Eva, would enter the room sternly, always at the exact same time. The moment she stepped into the classroom, we would all stand up in silence. Through an unchangeable ritual, she would wind her mechanical alarm clock, which she used to keep track of the passing hours. I remember it as old, gray, and anonymous - its ticking marked the infinite time between arrival and dismissal more than any school bell. As a six-year-old boy, I couldn't help but smile, looking down at my vivid blue, small, efficient, and punctual digital watch, with its LCD display.

After setting her alarm, she would glare at the class and tell the children sitting near the windows to put on their coats: the old glass panes let in every draft, and the winters were colder back then. That was the year of a historic blizzard, which I still remember vividly; the air was particularly biting. She was stern, yet worried. Perhaps she wanted us to be well. Perhaps she was afraid of catching something from us.

Eva was an austere woman. She inspired fear. She seemed very old to me, though she probably wasn't. She was simply an old-fashioned woman, far removed from the modern ways of our mothers. She was perfectly in theme with the school: ancient, severe, a residue of a bygone era. Her hair, tending toward gray, was tied back behind her head. Who knows, perhaps she was nostalgic for educational methods no longer permitted. Or perhaps she was simply sad, bent by life and experience.

While we were still standing, it was time for the morning prayer. Never sit down before - NEVER! The prayer was always the same. Every single morning. For six-year-old children, it was just a repetitive, boring chant to be recited by heart. For her, however, it was a psychological support. An anchor of hope.

My mind must have filtered out much of her severity, but I remember well (partly through my mother’s stories) that almost every morning, as soon as I arrived in class, I didn't feel well. I had nausea and stomach aches. I don’t remember if I was actually sick or if I was faking it to escape the teacher, but I remember she would send me to the janitors. They would prepare a warm drink for me and have me sit next to the electric heater - I can still see the glowing red of the heating element. I remember the scent of that warm, yellow, sugary chamomile. I had realized that this was the only way to soften the teacher’s heart. Perhaps my child’s body was psychosomatizing as a defense mechanism.

My mother remembers her as having a terrible attitude - not just as a teacher, but as a person. She says she wasn't just strict; she had violent outbursts, likely not limited to the psychological level. That was one of the reasons why, in an age where a teacher usually followed a class for all five years, she only stayed for the first. I’m not sure if she was relieved of her duties or if, as was common then, she was simply transferred to another school.

I remember that, even as a child, I couldn't stop thinking about her daughter being sick. Maybe I was defending myself from the idea that her behavior was pointlessly cruel. In my mind, her daughter was a child like us, but objectively, that was impossible. To this day, I don’t know how old she was, but she certainly couldn't have been a young girl. She was likely a teenager, or perhaps older. One day, I understood that this was why Eva was so afraid of us getting sick, making us wrap up if we sat near the windows. Because once, during an outburst, she said it: "If you get sick and make me sick, I risk making my daughter sick, and it would be a tragedy. Pray for her."

Only later did I realize that this was also why she worried about me not feeling well in the mornings: she had a gravely ill daughter and was terrified of the illnesses other children carried. So, she did show a flicker of something maternal after all.

Many years later, she was admitted to the hospital ward where my mother worked, and she died there. She was old, but she hadn't lost her temperament. My mother, recognizing her, tried to talk to her, reminding her that she had been my teacher. She remembered nothing of me. Scornfully, she replied: "Signora, I taught thousands of children; I certainly can't remember them all. Especially since the school took away the tools to keep them in line.". I wasn't a child who needed to be "kept in line" - perhaps that’s why she had forgotten me.

Normal people often go unnoticed. They live their lives, do their things, and try not to disturb anyone. When it seems the world is dominated by the malicious, I think they are just louder and more influential, but I like to believe the majority consists of positive people, focused on constructive things or, at the very least, on not bothering others. Silent, sometimes. Effective, always.

Even today, when I try to tell my mother that my memories of her are mostly defined by compassion for her sick daughter, her response is sibylline: "I'm glad you think that way. Sometimes, the mind protects us.". She is convinced her attitude didn't stem from the daughter's illness, but preceded it. She is certain. She sees the humidity; I see the mist.

I will probably never ask her for the details. I prefer to keep living in my cushioned memories, thinking of an old, gray school, in a cold, gray classroom, with a dim light that couldn't quite dampen the grayness of the room, and an old, gray, decaying teacher.

Eva was simply in theme with the entire school.

You loved video games and sometimes we played together on my computer. But often, the games I had didn't appeal to you, even though you were good at them. We did well at Bubble Bobble, less so at others, but we had fun. My Game Boy had become yours and you would lend it to me occasionally. But you wanted your own console, with your own games and, I knew well, you wanted it also to have opportunities to play with me.

We arrived at opening time, got out of the car and started running toward the store. I don't know which of us was more excited about what was about to happen, about what you were going to buy. We came out shortly after, with your Sega MegaDrive (the box was bigger than you, so I carried it for you, while our parents helped us load it into the car).

We got home and unpacked it, connecting it in your room, on the desk. The TV was too old, so I lent you mine, since I used the computer monitor and didn't watch TV in my room. Sonic was beautiful, with those tunes and that graphics, but you preferred Disney games and "the one with the princesses" - but Sonic was fine too, as long as we were together and I stayed in your room to play with you.

You spent so many hours, in those few months, in front of that console. With me, with our little cousins, with your little friends. But when I came and asked you to play a game of Sonic, you would light up.

Just as I lit up when I learned you were born, exactly 40 years ago, today. I was a child, but I remember everything clearly - from the night before, when I slept in bed with dad because mom was in the hospital, with you on the way. I was worried and he let me sleep with him, to help me feel calmer. When you came home, I remember you in the crib and me, sitting beside it, watching you sleep. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and already, even at almost 6 years old, I felt the responsibility to make sure you were okay. Every now and then you would move and I would be reassured, with your black hair and your smiling gaze, even as a newborn.

I wonder what you would be like today. You would turn 40 and, perhaps, your hair wouldn't all be black anymore but some gray streaks would be making more and more space, waiting for hair dye. I wonder if you would have had some small wrinkles, because your 40s often start to show the signs of the pains and thoughts of passing time. I wonder if you would have been as cheerful as you were then, still looking for reasons to spend time with me. I wonder where life would have taken you, just as it has taken me far from that house, from that store, from those moments. For sure, and I'm more than certain of this, we would never have been far apart - if not geographically, we would have talked often and would always have been present, one for the other.

Happy birthday, my little sister. Wherever you are, remember that there isn't a day when there isn't a thought for you, even after all these years.