Last edition, last article of the “My Story” series. Wow. Usually, articles in this series are about certain milestone events, overcoming adversity to get to the place I am. And I still have a few stories up my sleeve, like navigating the college process. However, to wrap my most popular series, instead of giving storytime advice or reaching some philosophical revelation, grab a cup of hot chocolate and enjoy random pieces of memories from my four years at Keystone. Hop on to the train of thought of a leaving senior.

Mornings. Mr. Nydegger’s room. Shoving squealing desks across the tiled floor. 

Snap. A red emergency light switches on as the robot comes to life. Click. The blue loading screen of a laptop illuminates my face. 

Seconds turn into minutes then… connection at last. Green lights flash on my laptop screen. I fish out the Xbox controller.

Enabling.

Not quite sober, the robot navigates through the line of desks into the taped rhombus in the center. Disabling. On a taped “X,” I gently place a red inflated ball. Enabling. The robot inhales the ball and drops it on a desk. Disabling.

Repeat. 8:25 AM and the chemistry students still have not arrived to class. 

Time to clean up.

The lab, fallen from its former greatness in the science building to the cramped former English room with lines of robots for all ages. 

A Dash robot comes to live with a childlike, “Howdy doo!” 

It blinks a tear as I ignore it, fixating on my Envi Sci reading. 

The Physics students file out, yet I remain seated. Yousuf too. 

Two students. Two whiteboards. Enough markers for at least one hour. 

We take to the board, drawing charts and pieces of code, solving calculus and physics problems, communicating with ink. 

@Evan “Buck” Buckley

No words. Just a ping, the orange-yellow banner appearing around the blue embed. 

Too many words packed in a single ping. “You online?”

“What’s up?”

“I miss you.”

A few minutes pass. 

@Maddie Buckley

“Yep, I’m right here.”

“Not much. I’m tired.”

“I miss you too.”

To think in a few days, all my interactions will become a series of orange-yellow banners around blue embeds. 

Back in the lab. A half-finished jigsaw puzzle waiting to feel complete in the silence. 

I glance at the half-finished frame and the clumps of pieces, searching for something that matches. 

Yet there are too many pieces, too huge piles, to make sense of the puzzle’s direction. I pick up a yellow piece amongst a purple pile. 

Somehow, in the grand scheme of life, the piece will fit.

And perhaps so will I.