​

The town where she grew up, or the frozen memory that she was always coming back to, was sunny and warm all year. Yes, she would have to use gloves in the winter, but just because her hands were always cold. Her mom used to tell her that cold hands are a sign of a warm heart, so she was proudly wearing those red woollen gloves in a mild 15-degree winter, ready to share with whoever asked her that she indeed had a heart willing to set on fire, and she was just waiting for the spark.

​

Far away from that little village, flanked by the Mediterranean Sea, Lynae was also putting on her gloves. May was magical in that place, so close to the Arctic Circle. Days were getting longer and warmer; the sun was shining at 5 a.m. as if it were midday, and one could feel the city waking up from a long and dark winter. But she could not stop feeling cold. Her bed was cold at night; she could see her own breath and imagine she was smoking. In the morning, the sun's caress will make things easier, but the cold was inside her, so she kept using her old pair of gloves, convinced that the warmth would not abandon her if her fingers were covered.

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Many years later, in a not-so-mild, not-so-cold city, the Mediterranean girl is getting ready to start her day, just as the sun is setting. She’s listening to her favourite song and putting on lipstick before leaving her little, dark, and boring apartment. Her heart was set on fire one summer, and the spark had blue eyes and the ability to make her smile. She blindly followed him to his country, where they built a little house in the forest, went for long barefoot walks, and danced together under the moon. When the winter came, she discovered her hands were not cold anymore and realised it was time for her to pack her clothes and her favourite hand-made mug and move far from that magic-made creature that she thought she was in love with. If her hands were warm now, her heart must have been cold, and she did not want to live with a frozen heart on her chest. She looks one last time in the mirror: red lips, way too much mascara on, and the warmest hands she has ever had.

​

The sound of her heels on the cobblestones are thunder presaging the storm; her long and pale legs feel that with every step they are leading her to the wrong alley, and her gaze is fixed somewhere, in another time at another place where her heart was still beating. Something makes her stop. Not something, someone. On the side of that narrow street, she just turns to a crouched figure that seems to be waiting for her. A hand covered in a glove with holes on the tips of the fingers offers her a cigarette, and a silky voice asks her to light it. She finds a lighter in the tight pocket of her skirt and offers it to the woman in the shadows.

​

- I have been waiting for you—the silky voice says while lighting the cigarette and passing it back to her—I had dreams about you, a girl with freckles everywhere and an ice cream melting on your hand. Then I saw you in the woods, voraciously kissing his body, losing your mind over a yearning hearth. And then nothing. I kept waking up covered in sweat, and I knew I had to find you. Why am I not cold anymore? I keep getting rid of my clothes, taking cold showers, and opening every window at my house, and I cannot get rid of this heat.

Anthea looked at the other woman through the smoke of the cigarette. Greasy hair and dry lips, an oversized, too-colourful vintage jacket, and a pair of old gloves barely cover her hands. She wondered what her house looked like. A bunch of old newspapers on the floor and some coins scattered over them, a striped green and yellow ceramic mug half hidden behind her, gave her the feeling that those windows she was talking about might as well not exist. She got a chill. Who was this woman?

​

Lynae was staring defiantly, waiting for an answer. The woman in the short skirt kept the cigarette in her mouth, squinting her eyes. She looked almost her age, but her eyes were watery like old people in their last happy years. An old soul.

They stared at each other, feeling the time slowly slip away, almost listening to their breathing, which were carefully keeping in step with each other. All the women they have been through their lives were now dancing around them, carrying flowers, and laughing louder than they were ever allowed to. Their expressions changed once they started listening to their own old laughs; they got closer, bewitched by some strong ancestral power. The palms of her hands touching, the shared burdens, and the unhealed scars magically disappearing.

 

The Greek sun touching the skin of Lynae, the cold Norwegian breeze dancing around Anthea’s hair.

- I am not used to it, warmth and kindness both—said Linae finally.

- Neither am I — replied Anthea, while the tears of her old soul were finally freed from her almond-shaped eyes.