Winter

by Raven Taylor

  Both amazed and intrigued that my memory had leaked this tiny scrap of information I leapt from the bed and threw myself down at the desk so that I could record, in vivid detail, what I had just seen. I took great pains to write down every tiny thing; the lion and unicorn design on one of the cushions, the fleur de lese on the bolsters, the landscape with the river and the trees depicted in the tapestry, the small red lamps, one on either side that where fitted to the posts at the head with their red tasseled shades, everything. I even took the time to make a few crude sketches, leading to the discovery that I was an adequate artist. I was careful not to miss anything, all too aware that tiniest detail could be of great importance and terrified that I might forget all that I had seen if I did not record it. When I was done I sat back and puzzled over what I had learned. It had a been a luxury room. If this was my bed, in the place where I lived then it would suggest I was quite well off. Of course there was nothing at all to say that it was my bed, there were endless other possibilities; it could be a friends house, a hotel, somewhere I had visited once. It wasn't much, this little offering, but it was something and I received it gratefully and hoped that more would come until, like a jigsaw with infinite pieces, I would finally start to see a picture form.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  During my first breakfast the following morning I saw the girl I had noticed staring at me in the reading room. I was staring with little interest at the stale toast with the thin scrape of butter, lost in my own thoughts about red rooms with four poster beds and of shadowy figures smoking cigarettes, when I was suddenly disturbed. The loud slap made me jump, forcing me to cease my pondering and sit up straight.

  "It's you isn't it?" she inquired, pulling up a chair and sitting down opposite me. She tapped the newspaper that she had just slapped down on table and nodded her head enthusiastically.

  I glanced at the open pages and saw the shots the photographer had taken of me yesterday with the headline 'mystery over identity of man found lost in snow'.

  "Knew it was," she confirmed, her green Mohawk was now flat and fell comically to one side, "Noticed you yesterday when you were getting the grand tour then when I open the paper this morning there you are."

  I looked at her. She had a ring through the middle of her nose and her tattoos were too numerous to count. Fish and brightly coloured birds merged with Japanese text and fiery red flames in a wild and random design that left little actual skin showing.

  "It says you have absolutely no idea who you are or how you got out there. You're faking it right?" she leaned in closer as though we were a pair conspirators, "You can tell me, come on. You're hiding from the law or something like that right?"

  "Look," I said angrily, "If I was hiding from the law do you really think having my face in every newspaper would be the best way to remain anonymous?"

  "Well alright," she admitted, "Not the law, but you must have some other reason."

  I looked away, hoping she would understand that I did not wish to talk to her. I just wanted to be left with my thoughts. I wondered if Caroline would come today. That would certainly give me something to look forward too among all the tests and sessions with various doctors they had lined up for me.

  "I'm Ransley." it was clear that this forward, irritating girl was not going to give up.

  I wanted to tell her that was a stupid name but I kept my opinions quiet and resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to shake the hand she had stuck out across the table at me. The chains around her wrist jangled as she folded her large fingers around mine and shook my hand vigorously.

  "Winter," I muttered reluctantly.

  "Good to meet you Winter," she said and she stared at me with a strange look on her face as though mesmerised, still grasping my hand despite the fact the handshake had ended long ago.

  "I'm sorry," she said at last, shaking her head and loosening her grip, "it's just that you're so fucking beautiful."

  I was stunned by her forwardness. Irritated by her loud and bumbling mannerisms. It seemed wrong somehow for a lady to swear like that. I frowned. Where had that thought come from? What century did I think I was living in? Did this aversion to such language perhaps suggest I had been brought up with an emphasis on manners?

  "Well, see ya Winter."

  I watched her push back her chair and lumber away across the room towards the door.She had left the newspaper behind and I turned my attention back to it. The story was very simple and straight to the point, stating only the facts without trying to speculate on what the truth might be. At the bottom there was a number for anyone with any information to call. Was it possible that even as I stared at the article someone somewhere had sat down to breakfast and opened this paper only to spit out their coffee in surprise at seeing my face staring back at them. "My God!" I heard them exclaim, "Look who it is!" Then they snatched up the paper and rushed to the phone so they could dial the number. Then at any moment a nurse would come to find me and tell me that someone had come forward, that I could leave this dismal place and go back to where I belonged, where ever that might be. It was a cheering thought.

  I carefully tore out the piece deciding I would keep it in the notebook along with the scribbled notes and sketches. My breakfast was still untouched when I left the dining room and a glance at the clock told me that I had an hour before I was due in my first appointment and so I decided that I would go to the reading room. I told myself that if the annoying girl with the odd name was there then I would have no choice but to return to my room instead.

  ***

  "Ok, I could tell you about the poem I read this morning in the reading room." There wasn't really an awful lot else I could think of to talk about. I got the impression that this session was more of a general assessment than anything else; a means of letting them discover what exactly they were dealing with and how best to proceed from here. The over analytical eyes of my psychiatrist watched me intently from behind the half moon glasses, noting my every move, speculating on the meaning behind each expression, trying to establish perhaps if I was insane or suffering from any other kind of notable condition. I wondered if he was also trying to establish whether my memory loss was genuine. I was sure that Ransley would not be the only one to think there was a chance I was faking the whole thing.

  "Total amnesia," he had said when I first sat down on the couch in his room, "Usually the brains defence employed after some kind of trauma. I have some experience in treating patients with memory loss so you are in good hands."

  He had then went on to explain that today he just wanted to hear me talk and that it didn't matter what it was I said, I could talk about absolutely anything I wanted, and that was how we had arrived at the subject of the poem.

  The shelves in the reading room were full of modern fiction and as my eyes had scanned the endless dog eared volumes of cheap crime and romance novels I had felt repelled by each and every one. Evidently they were not to my taste, my brain seemed to have retained that information at least. Finding little else that would occupy my time I had settled on what appeared to be the only work that had not been written in the last ten years; it was a book of poems by Emily Dickinson. Leafing through the yellowing paper and inhaling the stale smell, my eyes scanned the titles hoping for something that might seem familiar. At last I stopped on a piece who's title grabbed my attention.

  "Because I could not stop for death." I said aloud, sitting back in one of the battered arm chairs.

  It did not seem familiar and I was certain I had not read the poem before but something in it struck a nerve in me, resonated with my soul and I found myself reading it over and over. I was not sure if I liked it. As I read it black images flashed in my mind. Dark and ugly images of death. Not really surprising given the nature of the poem. Yet I found the story it told fascinating.

  "Very good," said Doctor Kingston, "Tell me about it."

  "It's by Emily Dickinson."

  "Ah Dickinson," he said approvingly, "There, we have learned something
about you already; you have good taste."

  "Perhaps you know it then," I ventured, "Because I could not stop for death?"

  "Indeed I do," he confirmed, "I remember reading it when I was at school."

  I surprised myself when I began reciting it and found that I had every word committed to memory. Ironic really, that I could recite a whole piece of prose that I had only just read yet I could not even remember who I was.

  "Because I could not stop for Death,

  He kindly stopped for me;

  The carriage held but just ourselves

  And Immortality.

  We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

  And I had put away

  My labor, and my leisure too,

  For his civility.

  We passed the school, where children strove

  At recess, in the ring;

  We passed the fields of gazing grain,

  We passed the setting sun.

  Or rather, he passed us;

  The dews grew quivering and chill,

  For only gossamer my gown,

  My tippet only tulle.

  We paused before a house that seemed

  A swelling of the ground;

  The roof was scarcely visible,

  The cornice but a mound.

  Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each

  Feels shorter than the day

  I first surmised the horses' heads

  Were toward eternity."

  "Well," said Kingston after listening patiently, "There is nothing wrong with your ability to form new memories then. I take it you liked the poem?"

  "I'm not sure," I admitted, "It seemed familiar, but not the poem itself, more what the poem is about."

  "Death you mean?"

  "Yes," I could not stop the shudder that shook my body nor hold back the words that seemed to fall from my mouth without my willing them to, "Death. We all know it's coming. It comes to us all in the end but it's as the poem says, no body stops for death. Death stops for us. When it's our time to go we don't look at our watch, stop what we are doing and wait for him to come. No. He comes for us when we least expect it, cuts us down, in our prime."

  I did not know where these dark thoughts that suddenly consumed me had come from but all of a sudden it was the only thing I could think of and although I desperately wanted to stop talking before he certified me mad I could not. He didn't stop me either, he just sat and watched and listened and made notes.

  "Death has no respect for age nor for how good a person you are. You could be the most innocent and caring of young things but that still doesn't make you immune. Babies, children, sisters, brothers all end up in the same place. In the cold ground. Even the beautiful fragile creatures that you love more than life itself."

  Why was I crying? I put my head in my hands and wept and I had no idea what had caused this out pouring of grief.

  "Did you loose somebody Winter? Is that what this is all about? When someone we love is taken away from us it can be very hard, we all cope in different ways."

  "I didn't loose anybody," I suddenly felt angry for no reason as the brief hysteria passed and I glared at him.

  His hand was scribbling furiously, all this must have been terribly significant to him, no doubt he was already running my reactions through his scientific brain, analysing them, trying to understand what they meant. I focused my attention on the hand that gripped the expensive looking fountain pen. The inexplicable anger and sadness had already gone and left me feeling baffled and tired. Then I noticed that there was something on his wrist. It looked like numbers. A date. Just like the one I had saw on Caroline's neck.

  "Is the 6th of January next year an important date to you doctor?" I asked.

  "No," he said frowning at me, his writing hand momentarily suspended above the page, "Why do you ask?"

  "Err," my eyes shot back to his wrist but I could no longer see the numbers, they where hidden by his sleeve, "No reason."

  The hand began to fly across the page again but no matter how hard I tried to see below the sleeve of his shirt it did not offer me another glance of the text.

  "It may not feel like it," he said when he had finished writing, "But this session has been very productive. I think we'll end it here for now, you've done well.

  I desperately wanted him to share what his highly trained brain had picked out from our meeting but he let me leave the room without revealing what, if any, conclusions he had drawn.

  Later in the afternoon Detective Tipton visited. There had been a lot of interest in me since they’d released the photos but nobody had recognised me. They seemed exasperated by this, they could not understand how no one out there had come forward. It was unthinkable that no one had recognised me. From this they concluded that there must be a reason why the people who knew me weren’t coming forward, they said I had to face the possibility that it was the people closest to me that had hurt me.

  I turned this theory over in my head that night as I lay in bed wide awake. It made a strange kind of sense and set my mind to conjuring up all kinds of possibilities, none of which were pleasant. Maybe I was one of those people who is kept prisoner in a basement somewhere by their parents from childhood and never allowed to leave. Maybe there had been some big event that had led to my being able to escape and this is what had wiped my memory. It would certainly also explain the unnaturally pale colour of my skin. Maybe I had never seen daylight before? Soon I had myself entirely convinced of this and I was so disturbed that I knew there was little chance of sleep that night.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I was overwhelmed by a sense of disorientation. When I opened my eyes I found that I had absolutely no idea where I was. It was dark and I could not pick out anything of my surroundings though under my bare feet I could feel cold tiles and I could hear a slight unexplained buzzing noise. For a few moments I simply stood, trembling and afraid until my eyes finally began to adjust and I realised that I was still in Greenleaf Hospital. But what was I doing in this corridor?I thought for a few moments, struggling to recollect my last actions. I remembered going to bed and having trouble sleeping. Every time I dozed off I kept dreaming someone was in my room, trying to wake me, to tell me something important, but I kept swatting them away and telling them I was too tired to listen. Then when I eventually did wake up, sweating and tangled in the sheets, there was never anybody there. That was the last place I remembered being. In bed in my room. The realisation dawned on me that I must have been sleep walking. Was that how I had got out in the woods? Perhaps I was prone to this kind of behaviour.

  I shivered and realised that I was wearing nothing but my underwear. Wrapping my arms around my cold body I began to creep along the corridor and when I passed the reading room I was able to establish that I was on the first floor. How had I got here without any of the night shift staff noticing me? I was about to go back to bed when something caught my eye. In the far corner of the reading room there was a small glowing red circle. As I watched it began to move, a fiery orb that ascended and then hovered in the air seeming to burn brighter briefly before fading again. Frowning, I stepped into the doorway and when I looked harder I could just make out a shadowy figure sitting in the chair, smoking.

  "Winter is cold, Harsh, Merciless!" the voice echoed like an angry snapping wolf from some dark recess in my head and a blinding image shot across my mind of a shadowy figure sitting in a high backed chair, smoking, leering at me. I could not pick out any of the features but it appeared to be wearing a hat of some kind and the tip of the cigarette glowed as it flicked a few loose embers to the floor. It was a cruel presence. There was something deeply unpleasant about the way it spoke it and the way it concealed itself in the shadows so I could not quite see it. A cold shiver squirmed down my spine and even after the brief image departed I was left feeling uneasy and afraid.

  "Are you just going to stand there or are you coming in?" the voice was unmistakable as she hissed at me in a low whisper, even in this hushed form I reco
gnised that drawl from breakfast.

  "Ransley?" I questioned.

  "Yeah it's me," she confirmed, "You going to join me?"

  Reluctantly I stepped into the reading room, picked my way across the carpet and took a chair in the gloomy space opposite her. The blinds were shut over the window but now I was closer I could see her features illuminated slightly by the glow of the cigarette. She had something in her other hand too I noticed, a bottle maybe? In that moment I was overcome by de-ja-vu. Something about this scene was hauntingly familiar yet I could not quite place it.

  "Drink?" I recognised the bottle she held out instantly. The square glass structure, the black label with the white text. I took it without a word and sipped from the neck. I knew this taste. My body recognised it and seemed to welcome the burning glow that warmed my innards.

  "We used to drink this," I muttered to myself, handing the bottle back. I had the strangest sensation that I was travelling back in time.

  "Who did?"

  "I'm not sure," I admitted.

  She shrugged and stubbed out her cigarette before taking a long drink.