What Winter Left

Text by Stella Blue Hadamer

Image by Alžbeta Szabová

It began with little things. Little, insignificant things. Errors of the mind I chalked up to a stressful day or a hazy night out. I forgot my keys, my charger, the book I had meant to return to a friend. I never thought much of it. I never thought much at all. 

It was February when I stepped through the double doors, back into the wicked sunshine. Snow protesting the weight of my boots, I hurried over the bridge. Red brick bled through the prints I left behind. Wind stung my nose, reminding me of something I had forgotten. 

"Sorry, what were you saying?" 

There was someone next to me. I didn't know her name. Her lips were blue with cold. "Hm?" I buried my chin further into my scarf.

"You were saying something." Her bare feet didn’t touch the snow. 

"Was I?" 

"Yeah you said something about it being the first time for-" 

Something pulled my gaze. A bird taking flight out of a nearby tree. Skeleton branches rattling in its wake. 

I stopped. Drowning in a sea of thick golden honey, I pulled on my consciousness until we broke the surface. Once free of sticky sweet darkness, my vision cleared. I had one leg over the railing. Of course, this scared me. 

It never made the news. Why would it? I am still here, alive, whole. Nothing else happened after that day. Nothing as material as cold metal in my hands, at least. 

Still, the edges are there. 

Blurry as they might be. 

My mind held together by jagged skylines and bits of cellophane. 

Time passed, as it tends to do. 

I still see it. In passing car windows, the heel of a boot disappearing around a corner, the heaviness of a stare lingering too long. I think it will follow me always, watching, reminding.