Old Memories
A Short Story By Amina Abdulsalam
Old Memories
(i)
It is a sunny day outside, and the apples are just ripe enough to be picked. The grass feels soft and ticklish beneath your feet, but you are already used to it.
The view is breathtaking this early in the morning, and you take a moment to appreciate the beautiful mountains hidden partially by the morning fog.
However, something makes you stop in your tracks.
For the first time in a thousand years, you feel somebody enter inside your temple.
You stop plucking fruits from your apple tree and drop your basket onto the ground. The old, but familiar swarm of warmth fills your body, and you can feel yourself glowing in the dim sunlight, right in the garden of your small cottage in the big green meadow.
You remain still for what feels like an hour, just floating in bliss before you finally come back to your senses.
You pick up your basket with your trembling hands and dust off the apples. The warm feeling is slowly fading away, and you know that your temple is empty again. But… but who had visited your temple? And why?
(ii)
The next morning, you pack a loaf of freshly baked bread, a tub of honey and some strawberries and cream. You also pluck some ripe apples from your little tree. You’re going to your temple, even if it means walking for hours and hours on end. You are a deity after all, and a bit of walking won’t make you tired. Then again, there is always the option of divine travel, but you’re more about the journey than the destination anyways.
Your last temple, just like your humble abode, is far away from any form of human civilization. You used to have plenty scattered all across the land, but one by one they all started to crumble into dust and forgotten secrets. There is only one left, and it’s the smallest of them all. It’s also the first one ever built for you.
Your journey is quite straightforward, and you know the path to take. Unfortunately, you will have to pass through some inhabited towns, but it doesn’t really worry you. Humans are narrow-minded creatures, and they only see what they choose to see. Even if you tried to prove your divinity to them, they would come up with some sort of logical explanation for it. They don’t understand that logic has nothing to do with the grand scheme of things.
But you digress.
(iii)
When you arrive at your temple, the sun has started to kiss the horizon and the sky is a wonderful mixture of raspberry-pink and honey-yellow and apricot-orange.
Your temple is a crumbling building hidden away from the grasp of modern society. It sits relatively low on a large mountain ridge, and whoever has visited you must have travelled for at least a day before arriving there.
It’s been centuries since you last visited here, and vines of ivy have grown in and around the building, along with the slow-but-steady creepers and the dandelion weeds. You don’t particularly mind this, and it looks more beautiful in your eye. An old relic, preserved in time for eternity.
When you set your basket down outside and step into it with your bare feet, you instantly feel… refreshed. Like you’ve just had a fresh breath of air after breathing in pungent fumes for all of your life. You wonder why you haven’t bothered to come here before, even though it feels familiar.
There is nothing very remarkable about it, save for the small bell flower resting in your dusty altar. Its petals are a crisp shade of blue, and it is still alive, although its petals are starting to wilt.
Constancy and longevity.
Whoever left you this gift is certainly knowledgeable about the ancient language of flowers.
“Is that you?”
You startle and turn around. There is a girl standing at the mouth of your temple. Her skin is a beautiful shade of sun-kissed tan, and this momentarily distracts you.
“Hello,” you say. You don’t know what to do. You haven’t interacted with anybody in centuries, especially not a mortal.
“You’re the owner of the temple, aren’t you?” she asks. You wonder how she knows who you are.
“Yes. I own the building now,” you reply. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either. Well, it’s not as if she needs to know.
The temple goes silent for a minute, and you find yourself studying her curiously. She isn’t particularly beautiful, but her face has a certain elegance to it that stands out from her plain, brown dress that has clearly seen better days.
“What’s your name?” She asks.
You don’t answer her question. “Why did you come to the temple?”
She shrugs. “I was just walkin’ around and I found it here. I’m from Blackburn.”
You nod absently even though you have no idea where Blackburn is. “That’s nice.”
“Who’s it for?”
“What?”
“Who was the temple built for?”
Your heart pangs slightly in your chest. “It belongs to a long-forgotten deity.”
“Well, I don’t want them to be forgotten. I want to remember them,” she insists. This time, the clench is much harder.
“That is very kind of you. Excuse me please,” you say, trying your best to hide the cracks in your voice. Before she can answer, you push past her and walk out of the temple.
This girl, this mere mortal feels pity for you. And you cannot blame her for it. You are forgotten and ancient and-
“Excuse me miss?” You turn around to see the girl standing behind you. The colored sunlight turns her skin into a beautiful, rich color. She reminds you of something familiar. Something like… home.
“I’m sorry if I made you mad. I didn’t mean anythin’ by it.” Her voice has a sort of southern accent to it, but it sounds hauntingly familiar for some reason.
“It’s alright. I was just… thinking,” you finish lamely. She doesn’t question you, but instead sighs and sits down on the grass next to your feet.
“I was just curious about here ‘cause I’ve always seen it from town, but my momma never wanted me to go check it out. She said it was haunted an’ stuff.” She scoffs at that. “I always knew it wasn’t, but I wanted to check it out myself.”
You crack a small grin at that. “This place definitely isn’t haunted, but should you really be talking to strangers by yourself? It’s quite- “
“Dangerous, I know already,” she cuts in. “I mean, if you wanted to do something to me then you would have done it a while ago.”
“Fair enough.” You say. You sit down next to her on the grass and remember your basket of food just a few feet away from where the two of you are sitting.
“Are you hungry?” You ask. She looks at you strangely before nodding.
(iv)
As the two of you tuck into a filling meal of bread and honey with the strawberries, neither of you talk. The sunset slowly turns into a deep shade of pink, before finally giving way into an inky blackness with small, twinkling pinpricks.
When you are sated, you stand up and pack up your basket.
“I really liked being with you,” the girl says. You are about to answer her before you realize that you don’t even know her name.
“What’s your name?”
“Cynara.”
You smile slightly. “Beautiful name you have there. Thistly plant, is it not?’
She gapes at you. “How did you know?’
“I’m well-versed in many ancient languages.” Over the lonely years, you had nothing better to do with your time and had decided to learn some. Besides, learning dead languages felt special, for some reason. They belonged to you and you alone, and nobody could take them away from you.
“What’s your name, stranger?” Cynara asks curiously.
“Fluxa.”
“I’ve never heard of that name before. Sounds pretty too,” Cynara grins, flashing her teeth. You spot a quick flash of hurt in her eyes, but it quickly disappears.
“Well now you have.”
(v)
“How did you get the temple?” Cynara asks, a small smile gracing her face.
The two of you have spent the last hour talking to each other, and you’ve missed this sort of interactions with your brethren. Now, you don’t know where any of them are. That is, if they’re even still around.
“Well, I do not have any legal form of ownership, but I found it a few years ago and just decided to call it mine.” Another lie spills effortlessly from your lips. It hurts that you have to lie to her.
“That’s cool. How come I’ve never seen you around?”
“I travelled from somewhere far away to get here.”
“Why?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
She hesitates before she answers. “I suppose not.”
You smile at her naivety, but you don’t correct her. It’s not as if she’ll remember later, anyways.
“Isn’t your mother worried about you?”
“Not really.” You wonder if she’s lying, but it’s not your place to judge her. You have no right to, anyways.
“Look, the moon is in the middle of the sky,” she quickly says. You look up and see the full moon in all its glory, riding across the midnight blue sky like a glowing chariot.
“It’s beautiful,” you smile.
Cynara is quiet for a moment before she speaks up again. “Fluxa. You need to come home.”
You look at her strangely. “What do you mean, Cynara?”
“You can’t keep on running away from your problems. You need to come back home. To me.”
“Who is us?”
To your surprise and dismay, she starts to cry. “Come on Fluxa. Stop pretending that you don’t know who I am.”
“I’m sorry Cynara, but I believe you have the wrong person.” Your mind is stirring uneasily, as if a dam is about to break. You don’t know why.
“I know who you are. Your name is Fluxa, and you are the deity of the temple. And you’ve pushed us all to the back of your mind because you’re too scared to live!”
Before you can speak up again, the dam in your mind breaks.
The memories come back flooding into your mind, and suddenly you remember everything. Everything you tried so hard to keep away.
Your name is Fluxa, and you are the deity of disregard. You are the deity of forgetfulness, of old memories that never return, of broken toys hidden away, of the moment your eyes fall shut and you forget everything around you as you fall into a deep slumber.
Your name is Fluxa, and you are the deity of memory. But you cannot keep your own for yourself. Because the price, the burden is too much to bear.
You look back at Cynara and recognize her fully. She looks familiar because she is your sister.
“Fluxa!” She cries in relief, reaching forward to hug you. You flinch back and turn away from her. You can’t face her anymore.
“Fluxa?” She calls out, hesitantly.
“Please leave me alone.” You say. The memories are rushing back into your head and nonono-
The reason for the war had been stupid. Somebody had slept with the other’s wife, and it soon escalated into fights and battles and soon there were war cries being yelled into the night.
You remember the bloodshed and the war and the everything. You remember how the skies were torn asunder with the grief of the gods. You remember how you spilled the blood of your own brother without remorse, you remember thrusting the sword into his chest, you remember everything.
You remember how your side won the war, but at a great cost. You remember feeling the empty hole in your heart that ached to be filled but just couldn’t.
You remember the curse that your brother laid upon you as he was slain.
And as I die, your memories shall die every night with your love and your power and your mind. You will be as dead as I am.
“Fluxa, you can’t leave me again!” Cynara’s voice is desperate, and you know that she’s grasping at straws now. “I’ve been looking for you for centuries and now I’ve found you and-”
“There’s no point, Cyn,” you smile sadly. “By morning I won’t remember anything again.”
“What?”
“I was cursed.”
Cynara’s face goes deathly pale. “What do you mean?”
“Brother Oddar cursed me as I slew him.” You remember exactly how it happened, and a sad smile comes to your face.
The battlefield was littered with dead bodies, so what was one more to join them?
The moment you sank your blade into his chest, it seemed as if time froze. Everything else ceased to exist save the two of you, with your sword buried deep into his chest.
He stared at you in disbelief, but somehow managed to crack a bloody grin. “I never should have under-estimated you, sister.”
And then he said that awful curse…
“I’m sorry Cyn. I won’t remember anything anymore when the sun rises.”
“Stop it. You’re lying, aren’t you?”
You shake your head softly.
Her lower lip starts to wobble, and her eyes fill up with tears. You wordlessly pull her close you and let her sob into your shoulder. You can’t do anything else to comfort her, so it’s the least you can do for her.
(vi)
You wait until Cyn falls asleep against your shoulder before you gently set her onto the grass. It breaks your heart that she cried herself to sleep, but the sun is rising and you must leave soon.
You make sure that she’s propped up comfortably against the temple wall before you start to gather your things.
Before you start the long journey home, you turn around and place a small kiss on her brow.
The journey back home is painful. Step by step, your mind starts to wash away until you arrive at your small cottage by sunrise.
All you remember is that the apple tree is blooming and there’s a good opportunity to bake some apple pie.
(vii)
It is a sunny day outside, and the apples are just ripe enough to be picked. The grass feels soft and ticklish beneath your feet, but you are already used to it.
The view is breath-taking this early in the morning, and you take a moment to appreciate the beautiful mountains hidden partially by the morning fog.
However, something makes you stop in your tracks.
For the first time in a thousand years, you feel somebody enter inside your temple.
