I still remember Seymour. He had a lot of quirks, some better than others, but in the end, he was clearly devoted to his duties, be it principal, son, or friend. It was absolutely tragic when he died. I will never forget what happened on that fateful day...

He had invited me over to his house for what he referred to as an 'unforgettable luncheon'. I mean, he wasn't wrong, in hindsight. When I came in and he greeted me with his usual optimism, I sat at his dining room table as he went into his kitchen. After a while, I got curious, and I stepped in. He certainly looked nervous when I saw him with one leg out the window. He told me he was stretching his calves, or something, but I was concerned about the grey fumes coming from his oven. I assumed them to be smoke, and I questioned him. He had tried to lie his way out of it by telling me it was steam from the steamed clams that he was cooking. To tell the truth, I wasn't paying much thought to it at the time, so I sat back down and waited. A few minutes later, he emerged with a platter of hamburgers and fries. I was quite confused, to say the least.

"I thought we were having steamed clams?" I asked him.

"Oh, no, I said 'steamed hams'! That what I call hamburgers." He said, nervous. Those words echo in my head everyday. Why he didn't think to tell me what was wrong still confuses me.

"You call hamburgers 'steamed hams'?" I had sort of had it with his lying, which he was definitely infamous for, and interrogated him for an explanation.

"Yes! It's a regional dialect,"

"Uhuh. Er, what region?"

"Er... upstate New York?"

"Really... Well, I'm from Utica and I've never heard anyone use the phrase 'steamed hams',"

"Oh, not in Utica, no, it's an Albany expression,"

"I see,"

To tell the truth, he had sort of convinced me with his now-obvious lies, so I thought nothing of what kills me nowadays. So I began to eat the 'steamed hams' and, I could tell they tasted quite like Krusty Burgers. Now, of course, I know he just purchased fast food and disguised it as his own cooking. But then, I was naive, and couldn't put two and two together. I made the comparison anyway, and he just brushed it off. Something was off about his new vocabulary, in that hamburgers are obviously grilled and not steamed. I had essentially told him I knew he was lying. From here, things escalated extremely quickly. He began to stutter, and I could hear the crackling of fire from his kitchen. Eventually he stood up and went into the room. As he was about to enter, I chimed in about the obvious fire that I was seeing in his kitchen, and asked if anything was wrong (which of course, it was). But indeed, he stayed adamant that everything was, apparently, just fine. I had heard one last phrase as he stepped into the kitchen..."Aurora Borealis,"

He stepped into the kitchen, and he never came out. I couldn't wait any longer, and after around 5 minutes, I had to do something. I opened the door, and there were massive flares of fire all over the room. There was no sign of Seymour, but I could guess the damage had already been done to him. In a rush, I called the fire department, and they were over in minutes, thank god. Seymour's mother was safe at least, but Seymour was... yeah, he wasn't. I was scarred, absolutely. Of course I was. I had just seen my best friend walk into a fucking house fire!

I never got ever it. Or, at least, not until an entire year later. That year, life went on as normal, but I was dwelling on those last words that Seymour had said. Eventually, I decided to go on a bit of a... soulsearching journey. My destination was Alaska. I decided that the best way for me to say my last goodbye to Seymour was to, well, actually see the Northern Lights.

After a few days in the cold, I finally found the magical Aurora Borealis. I could hardly speak at the beauty of the show, but what I did say, I said with as much compassion as I humanly could:

"Well Seymour, we made it... despite your directions..."