A Vanity Fair

I cried the night Princess Diana died. This was decidedly awkward. I was a soldier. I was armed. I sat behind the wheel of a blue six-pack truck, gun barrel against my thigh, heater blaring against the Arctic cold, and I wept like a child while I relieved somebody for chow. I was still a girl, after all, with Cinderella dreams, save the M-16, and Diana's death told me that even in fairy tales, fairy tales don't come true. I knew that I was crying as much for myself as I was for her. This Wallflower's song played in Iceland the night she died, as if it were written for the occasion, and I listened. I still listen...

"So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees
I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

Chorus:
Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

She said it's cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me

Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead
At the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end-it's just her window ledge

(chorus)

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me."

When I got back to my dorm room, there was a magazine I had bought a couple of days before with her face on the cover. It was a Vanity Fair, I believe. It was to be her last interview, and she'd said that she was just beginning to find happiness in her life. A careless store clerk had slashed right through her face with a box cutter while opening the shipment of magazines. I winced at the irony. I still run across the magazine from time to time when I'm going through my things, and it never ceases to stir regret in me.