Short Story: Buried Memories
The office was silent, save for the gentle tick of an antique clock and the measured breathing of a man wrestling with memories that refused to surface. Steven Matthews sat rigidly, his perfectly pressed suit a stark contrast to the internal turmoil that threatened to fracture his meticulously constructed existence.
Dr. Elena Rodriguez studied her patient—a successful professional in his late thirties, his exterior polished to a mirror shine, concealing depths of psychological complexity that even he couldn't fully comprehend. Years of therapeutic practice had taught her to read the spaces between words, to interpret the subtle tremors of a mind trying desperately to keep something buried.
"Tell me about your childhood, how was your experience with other children," she would prompt, and Steven would retreat into silence.
His discomfort around the word children was visceral, almost primal. In professional and recreational settings, he would unconsciously position himself at the maximum possible distance, his body language screaming a silent warning. Friends noticed but never commented, attributing it to professional detachment.
Nightmares plagued his sleep—fragmented, terrifying glimpses of something just beyond comprehension. Most nights all he saw was a golden thread, swinging from side to side in a dark space. He would wake drenched in cold sweat, his mind frantically trying to piece together scattered memories that seemed to dissolve like morning mist.
When Dr. Rodriguez suggested returning to his hometown, Steven felt a mixture of dread and desperate hope. "Sometimes," she explained, her voice soft yet firm, "confronting our past is the first step to understanding ourselves. You should be more afraid of perpetuating your illness than an uncomfortable truth."
The rationality behind that bothered him a little, but there was no confrontation, so he nodded and agreed to go during the weekend.
The small town greeted him like an unwelcome specter. Childhood acquaintances would acknowledge him with fearful glances, quickly averting their eyes. Neighbors watched from behind curtains, their hostile stares a silent accusation of something unspoken. Steven did not expect a warm welcome, but this was something else.
His childhood home remained unchanged—a time capsule preserved by his mother's meticulous care. Old posters clung to walls, childhood toys gathered dust on shelves. Yet no object triggered a memory. It was as if his past had been carefully scrubbed clean, leaving only an antiseptic emptiness. It felt like visiting the kid section of an IKEA. He saw an old teddy bear, that seemed less dirty and cleaned it, his mother gasp. “You used to play with him all the time, even took him with you to church”.
The toy meant nothing, so he took his mother word as a clue and guided himself out to the local church, he didn’t remember where it was, but his feet drew him like a magnet. The elderly priest welcomed him with a complex emotional cocktail—part recognition, part terror, part profound, inexplicable guilt. Steven's attention was immediately drawn to a dark stairway on the back of the church. Fragments of memory flickered—whispers, shadowy movements, a sense of profound unease.
"Do not return to the church," his mother had pleaded earlier. "The best thing you ever did was leave and start a new life." His father's ashamed, averted gaze spoke volumes.
The old man couldn’t hide his nerves, his voice trembled, Steven’s curiosity spiked, he paid attention to his robe, white like the snow, with gold and purple threads. A vision of the golden thread took over him. “You don’t remember me, right? You should better go, don’t you think about going down there.” The fact that the priest seemed to know was he was going through was both shocking and disturbing, but he gave away another clue... “down there”.
Steven pushed the old man aside and move towards the altar, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He looked back at the church, to the empty benches where people seated with a glance of hope. He felt moved by a distant memory, this wasn’t the first time he was up there. While Steven was grabbing back his jigsaw puzzle shaped memory, the priest kept talking to him. “Please, you must go… It’s for your own good”.
He felt a slight breeze on this left shoulder, he turned and saw a door closed. His feet moved him again, but this time taking shorter steps, with this feet real close to each other, Steven extended his hand to the side and walked slowly.
The old priest didn’t even think of a physical confrontation, he was too weak, he just looked up and started praying for what he knew was about to happen.
As soon as he opened the door and saw the basement stairs, Steven's constructed and vivid reality shattered. Violent and desperate visions came over him like a tornado, his head hurt, while he grabbed it in hopes to control the pain he saw the priest and heart him praying, he demanded answers from the trembling priest. "What happened down there?".
The old priest shed a tear, his response was cryptic: "I did it to protect you."
Far from pity, he walked away from him and began descending into the basement, Steven's memories started to crystallize with terrifying clarity. Flashes of steps from another time and a golden thread swinging, the dark background faded as the old priest's face come across behind the golden light—back and forth, erasing, reconstructing, manipulating.
Images assaulted him, of Jesus in a cross hanging above a bench in front of an old door, a small boy walking short steps and sitting shy at the end of a bed with his feet not being able to reach the floor. A robed figure entering a room. Noisy and distinctive footsteps back again. The closing of a heavy wooden door with creaky hinges. The fear consumed him, he cursed the nameless priest within the temple of God. His feet were not guiding him anymore, he kept on looking for any visual cue, he felt the steps of the priest behind him, but that didn’t stop him. Images came back of the little feet swinging from the bed, over and over, just like the golden thread the kept coming back and the sound of steps sounding louder and louder.
Steven finally reached the end of the passages and stared at an open doorway, the door was opened and the light from inside illuminated the cross he recognized from his memory, he came towards it and touched it with this hand; his head, his mind hurt. He looked inside the room, it was just like his memory, same window, same desk, the same bed with the blue linings. He heard the short steps once again, and went inside the room, as soon as he walked in, a migraine took over him, he tried to reach back out towards the aisle bench, but when he touched the wooden door between them, the fearful memory came to be. Not as clear as day, but as dark as night, with the most horrifying revelation, that the face emerging within the door frame—was his own face, as an adult.
"You worked here as a priest," he heard the old man said behind him, his voice a mixture of confession and condemnation. "And you did things to children. At least one that we know of..."
The truth crashed over Steven like a tsunami—he was not the victim he had believed himself to be. He was the perpetrator. His mouth moved before his thought, “but the teddy bear, I came here to play…”. As soon as the words came out, he realized, the toy wasn’t for him. He sat down at the bench, with Jesus looking down on him.
“The boy had spoken out. No one believed him. And then, he took his own life.” sentenced the old priest.
He collapsed to the wall, hitting the back of his head with the wood of the cross, Steven confronted a truth more devastating than any nightmare. The old priest reached out, offering a familiar solution. "I can make it go away again," he whispered. The old man took a golden watch, with a golden thread, and raised it between their faces, moving it from side to side. Steven stood silent.
The next Monday, Steven entered back into his therapist's office, closing the door in the same haunting manner as in his fragmented memory—a cyclical reminder that some traumas are never truly escaped.