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+---- Thread: 2017-03-19: I Heard This From a Friend of a Friend (/showthread.php?tid=14817)
2017-03-19: I Heard This From a Friend of a Friend - robkelk - 01-01-2025
I Heard This From a Friend of a Friend
by Rob Kelk, from an suggestion by Bob Schroeck
by Rob Kelk, from an suggestion by Bob Schroeck
Route 117, between Saint-Faustin–Lac-Carré and Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, Canada
March 19, 2017
4:15 PM
He didn't like driving this road, even though it had been redesigned long ago. He especially didn't like driving it alone. Too many people hadn't reached the end of the road over the years. And wasn't that a wonderful thought to be driving back to school to, after spending a weekend skiing at Mont-Tremblant.
He'd been skiing in an attempt to take his mind off the fact that his girlfriend had dumped him. But it didn't work; everywhere he went, he saw someone who reminded him of her... on the ski slopes, in the restaurants, even the hitch-hiker walking backward along the side of the road.
Wait.
What was someone doing hitch-hiking in March, in Quebec? He couldn't let her freeze. He pulled over and let her catch up to him.
"Thank you," she said as she got in. "Are you going as far as Montréal?"
"I am," he replied in English. "Onto the island, too; I'm a student at Concordia."
"Concordia's only three Metro stops from my apartment!" She took her tuque off, and he got a good look at her. She was Asian, with long dark-chocolate-brown hair with a green headband. Her eyes were the same colour as her hair, and she was cute.
"Well, that isn't much of a detour for me. I think I can get you all the way home. My name's Henry."
"I'm Manami," she replied as she fastened her seat belt. "And you don't need to go out of your way, really."
"Oh, it's no trouble," Henry replied as he pulled back onto the road. "It's not like I have anything else to do when I get home."
"If you insist. I hang my hat at 3487 Park Avenue."
"I know where that is. Sandy and I used to get pizza at Alto before it burned down last November."
"Sandy?"
"My girlfriend. Or, rather, my ex-girlfriend. She found somebody else who's taking classes at McGill."
"Oh, that's a shame. Why would she dump you?"
Henry sighed deeply. "She said it's because she wanted to marry a lawyer."
"That's... a bit shallow of her, isn't it?"
"Hey! Sandy's a good person!"
Not actually knowing Sandy, Manami let that pass without comment. "What are you majoring in, Henry?"
"Fine Arts. I'm taking classes at MHSoC."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what that is."
"The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema," he replied as he negotiated a bend in the road. "It's only the oldest film-studies school in Canada."
She laughed quietly. "'Only', you say."
"We don't boast about it."
"Maybe you should. It's important to keep Quebec culture from being buried by Hollywood's movies."
"Yes! Exactly! It's a vital public service!"
"Car!"
He slowed down to match the speed of the traffic in front of him. "Thanks. I got a little impassioned there."
"It's important, and not just to you. You care about it."
"It is, and I do."
"Do you care about Sandy, too, Henry?"
Henry concentrated on driving so he wouldn't have to answer.
"I think that's answer enough. Have you told her what you just told me?"
"More than once," he admitted.
"Did you call her by name when you talked with her about it? You haven't used my name at all since I told it to you."
"Oh. Yeah. That's a bad habit of mine... Manami."
"I think people will care more about you if you show them you care about them, Henry. And the easiest way to do that is what a friend of mine in Philadelphia said was the first step in making friends: Say their names."
He thought for a moment, and realized that the people he liked the best were the ones who called him 'Henry' on a regular basis. "I think you're right, Manami. I'm sorry that I didn't do that until you pointed it out."
"Hey, being treated like I'm an interchangeable student won't kill me," she said with a small smile.
"Maybe not, but it is important enough that you pointed it out."
"There is that."
They drove on in silence for a long moment.
"Would you do me a favour, Henry? Make a movie about today. Even if it's just a student film."
"I suppose I could do that..." Then Henry has to slow down as he approached Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, because of traffic ahead... then he had to stop because of a police barricade where the road split into Route 117 and Autoroute 15. A moment later, the Sûreté officer at the barricade motioned him forward as the car in front of his pulled away. Rolling down his window, Henry asked in French, "What's happened?"
"A truck didn't make the lane change correctly; you can't get onto the Autoroute here. You'll have to stay on Norbert-Mortin and switch to the Autoroute at rue Principale, three kilometres down the road."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"No, but it could have been much worse. If you were here four minutes ago, he might have hit the two of you. Move along." And the police officer gestured to the next car on the road to pull forward.
As he increased speed, Henry said, "I would have been here four minutes ago if I hadn't stopped to pick you up, Manami."
There was no reply.
He took a quick look ... to see an empty seat with the seat belt still buckled.
Empty, that is, except for her tuque.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, Quebec
5:35 PM
"... and I couldn't see her anywhere and I know I didn't hear my car door open. Manami said she lived here, and she left her hat in my car." Henry handed the tuque to Honami.
"Manami... Mr. Stewart, she died over a year ago."
Henry looked shocked. "I swear she was there! Until she wasn't! The Sûreté officer saw her, too!"
Honami nodded in sympathy. "I believe you. This isn't the first time I've heard about something supernatural involving her. But all I can suggest is that you put this behind you and move on with your life."
Henry sighed deeply. "I suppose that's all I can do. Thank you, Ms. Ambler." And he walked back to his car and drove off.
Honami watched him leave, then headed upstairs to her apartment. "Kuroha Manami!" she shouted in Japanese. "Why did you perpetuate the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend?"
"He would have died if I hadn't!" Astral's resident ghost replied as she used her poltergeist ability to take her hat and hang it on a hook on the wall. "Besides, I needed the practice in letting normal people see me."
RE: 2017-03-19: I Heard This From a Friend of a Friend - robkelk - 01-01-2025
Why, yes, we are doing things other than just retconning the old stories...
