Fortress of Memories

   I was sitting in front of the winter cabin. The silvery moon slowly drowned under the thick clouds, taking his stars with him. The air had begun to grow warmer so that the thin layer of snow which usually fell over the night became muddy slush by sunrise. I looked at my palms and watched the orange firelight dance on its creases. My grandfather had once told me that the line which ran from the bottom of my hand up to my middle finger was my fate line. My fate line, I observed, was broken in the middle. 

  The woods were dark and cold, but for some reason, so inviting. Every groove and hollow in those trees were filled with the shape of my childhood laughter. Every whisper of wind on leaves were a familiar call to my ears. The trees spoke a poetic language that only I could understand. It was comforting to know that I had something in this world that I could cherish to be my own and mine alone. After a while, sleep began to tug at my eyelids so I made my way into the cabin.  

  I slipped under the sheets and into a world of dreams. In my dream, I was in a tunnel. The place was so dark that I could not make out any details in it apart from the bright light at the end of the tunnel. I tried to walk towards it, but I could not. My feet seemed to be glued to the path. Behind me, I noticed that a wave of tall shadows, darker than the pitch blackness of the tunnel itself was slowly creeping up on me. I could not say what particularly frightened me about them. After all, they were only shadows. But something about the leisure pace at which it moved, imitating a predator stalking its sure prey, seemed to unnerve me. I tugged at my feet, I pulled and I twisted, but it was of no use, I was as stuck as a rat in a mousetrap. When the shadow began to touch me, I woke up with a start. 

   It was late into the night. The planks which formed the wooden wall of the cabin quivered like feathers on a hat. Through the small gaps between them, I could see that the stars had come out again. They winked like sequins on the velvet shawl of night. My clothes were damp with sweat and I felt sore, so I rose out of bed. I fumbled for the half-molten candle on my nightstand and lit it. Comfortable with the atmosphere that I had created, I let my mind wander across the feeble boundaries between past and present. 

   I carefully examined, then selected a suitable memory to ponder upon. Precisely fifty-three years ago, I was seven years old. I was sitting in this exact position in this same cabin, except it seemed larger and sturdier then. I met my husband for the first time. He was a little boy with a mop of black hair and a pair of lively, hazelnut eyes. As I sat on the metal cot, enjoying its peculiar creaks and a picture book which had been given to me by my father, a strange boy emerged from the doorway. He tapped me on the shoulder then drew my attention to a gap in his gums. “My first tooth fell out.”, he announced proudly.

“My first tooth fell out last year.”, I smirked. 

His face contorted into a defeated frown, then smoothed out again. I had proven myself worthy of his friendship. “Do you wanna play?” He asked. I pretended to consider it deeply, then grudgingly accepted. As we walked into the crisp evening, we found our parents deep in conversation outside. I later came to know that our mothers were long-separated childhood friends. Fate had caused them to meet again in the middle of the woods years later.  

   My mother was waving her arms about as she talked. “…strange that we’ve spent so many weekends in the same woods and never come across each other a single time”

I picked up a muddy ball and tossed it to the boy. “My name is Alice”, I said. 

“Mine’s Poe.” 

“That’s a silly name.”

“Well, you’re a silly girl.”

We spent the rest of the evening running about the cabin and playing with a ball until Poe’s parents went back to their tent and us to our cabin. 

Presently, a draft slipped itself through the wooden window and blew the candle out, jolting me back to the present. I picked up a matchbox to relight it, but I thought better of it. In the corner of the room, was a small wooden table. There was a battery-powered lamp placed on it next to a single framed picture. I walked to it and flipped the switch on. It did not turn on. I ran my finger along the edge of the picture frame and my mind began to wander again.

 We were both at the cabin once more, this time eighteen years after we had first met. We were married now. Poe was sitting at the table with a large book and a tall stack of papers spread out before him. His pen swirled over a page, then paused, then swirled again, then paused, then the page was crumpled into a ball and thrown aside. 

“You’ve been doing that all day you know?” 

Poe looked up. “Doing what?”

“Writing stuff, then crumpling it up.”

“Oh.” he said as if he had just realised that himself. “I…I just can’t come up with a good story.”

I walked up to him then rested my arm on his shoulder. “Why don’t we take a walk? That usually helps you, right?” 

We walked out into the chilly evening. The snow crunched under our feet like golden leaves. Suddenly, I had a crazy idea. I walked ahead of Poe and stood behind a tree. 

“What are you…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a tennis ball sized snow ball made an icy explosion on his arm. He stared at me, startled. 

“Alice we’re not kids any…” Another snowball implanted itself on the front of his sweater. A grin formed on his face. 

“Well, if that’s how you’re going to be…” The third snowball attacked him.

“Stop talking!” I yelled, and a snowball flew into my face. We laughed like teenagers and spent the rest of the evening running around and pelting each other with handfuls of lumpy snow. Later, we had watery hot chocolate by a fire and slept until noon the next day.

Once again, I was cruelly dragged out of my memories by a knock on the door of my cabin. 

“Who is it?”, I called, 

“Mom it’s me.”, a voice answered. 

I sighed. “Come in.”

The door swung open, and my daughter rushed in. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold. Her dark hair, tied together in a sloppy braid rested on her shoulder. She had beautiful, hazelnut eyes which were dancing up and down in an attempt to adjust to the darkness. Once she spotted me, she ran up to me and gathered me in a hug. “Mom, I was so worried. I woke up in the middle of the night and you were just gone from your bed. I tried calling you but it kept saying that your phone was out of reach and then I drove here and... Mom you can’t just run off like that! Do you know how anxious I was? You should have left a note or something, I nearly called the police! Did you take your pills? Did you have anything to eat? Are you hurt?” 

I ran my hand over her head, “You look like your dad, Eva.”

“What? Mom! Are you even listening to me?” Eva looked at me, then at the picture I was clutching. Her face relaxed and her eyes became softer. “Let’s go home, mom.”, She said gently. I sighed. “Will you take me to his…place?”, I asked. I did not need to elaborate to her. She shuffled on her feet anxiously, but nodded her head. 

Eva slipped her arm through mine then walked with me from the cabin and into a small clearing in the woods. The moon, with its silver shine indicated my husband’s grave. I deposited a flower at his headstone and ran my fingers over the words ‘Poe Campbell.’

Eva rested her hand on my back. “He’s in heaven, mom.” 

I nodded. “He’s in heaven.”

We spent an hour sitting there. Eva did not say anything else, but I knew she wanted to go home. I picked myself up. “Let’s go home, darling.”

And so, the two of us walked into the wonderful night, very much strong in our own unique ways, and yet leaning on each other for support. I turned back to look at my cabin once more. It was still shaking slightly, but I knew it would not collapse. A breeze couldn’t knock down a fortress built from memories.