Short Stories

Calliope & Diane

All I could remember was the cold. 

My fingers curled in the tattered gloves, their scratchy wool digging into the splinters and cuts across my palms. It was an interesting feeling - the brisk winter chill and the burning heat of a fresh wound. 

The blanket across my shoulders was the same wool, same itchy texture digging into my neck. The chair dug into my lower back, built for someone a shorter build than myself, but I couldn't name anyone. 

All I could remember was the cold - and now this, itchy feeling that I didn't belong in these blankets, these gloves, these seats. 

I was in a room, a study of sorts. Three bookshelves littered with trinkets instead of knowledge stood behind a cluttered desk like guards of history. The desk itself, a pine wood with darker varnish, was crowded with multiple empty mugs, stacks of papers, and a lone picture frame but the image was hidden by a large computer. 

My brows bunched together. I could name the things I was seeing, understand what I was looking at; that bookshelves contained history, the computer contained knowledge, and the varnish was newly applied - the smell of it still clung to the room. 

But beyond stumbling out of the woods, upon this quaint village and being ushered into this study by kind, yet startled, locals I had no memory of before. 

Like a bookshelf for trinkets - I was only pieces of something more, but bare, like the knowledge had been snatched. 

They'd called me "ma'am" in the meantime, while the elder was rushing around and calling local communities asking if they had anyone missing matching who I was. But the towering mass of a man, he'd introduced himself as Thiago Jameson, had been gone for an hour so far. 

The tea sitting on the coffee table next to me had gone cold but I hadn't had a desire to drink it when he'd given it to me anyway. Maybe I wasn't a tea drinker - maybe I wasn't a lot of things, but all I could remember was the cold. 

I took off the blanket, embracing the chill. It was the only thing I knew, the only thing familiar, and right now I was clutching that. I was in an unknown room. 

I heard Thiago before I saw him, his thundering footsteps vibrated the floorboards beneath my bare, scratched feet. My toes curled under at the sensation, I stilled in wait. The footsteps stopped outside the door and he waited for a moment, for something, before he slowly opened the door, ducking under the doorway to completely enter the study. 

He was larger than life, his black, curling hair just brushing the top of the ceiling, and broad shouldered, I could tell from how he twisted his body upon entering. His dark eyes were soft but guarded as he looked upon me. 

My toes were curled, I was still in wait, a part of me guarded as well. I could feel those cold walls within my body, frozen as he entered the room. My memory may be gone, I thought quietly, but if I could remember what things were then I also knew, deep down, my body remembered things too. 

Like when to keep your cards close to your chest. 

Thiago smiled, his dimples creasing his dark skin. "How are you feeling?"

I didn't respond. 

"I understand you, um, you don't remember anything," Thiago wet his lips nervously. "But is there anything you can tell me? What's the last thing you remember?"

My hands curled tightly around the itchy, burning gloves. "The woods." My throat was hoarse, like I hadn't spoken in days. "It was cold." 

Thiago nodded slowly. "That's a start, we can work on that."