Malafemmena

A Story by No BS

While they say you will never forget your first true love, mine will never remember me. Memory of your love can be evoked by so many different things- their familiar scent, the first song you danced to, their favorite food; but unfortunately my true love was never reminded of me. Maria was her name, my first true love, and you may be thinking that this love was only real from afar, that we never had anything and I must have only dreamed of her if she couldn’t remember me. But that’s the problem, it wasn’t a dream, it was just as real as a dream itself.

Maria was a merely a ghost, but not your usual ghost. She was born on Friday the 13^th, an unusual day for her kind. See, if a person is born on this fateful day and they die before finding what their soul needed, they will come back every night to seek what they miss. While living in Castellammare del Golfo, our paths crossed. Like any great love story, it was love at first sight. Sitting at my corner table in the Stanza Del Diletto, I saw this angelic, regal figure walk into the restaurant, who walked with the confidence of a runway model, but with the mystery of someone with something to hide. Our eyes crossed, and the attraction hit me like a speeding bullet. Her eyes were a captivating green, drawing me in with every second I lay my eyes on hers. With the light bouncing off of her softly curled black hair, she smiled slightly at me, showing off her smooth cheeks sprinkled sparsely with light freckles. We spent the rest of the evening together, continuing into the dead of night. As the early morning hours crept upon us, she became edgy, nervously ending our night. As she left she told me to be at the same place at the same time the following night. And this continued, every night I would meet Maria, spending the denouement of my day with her, always ending too early.

And every time, to my astonishment, it seemed like she didn’t remember who I was. At first I thought it was her way of preventing herself from having feelings for me, but after a while I realized she really indeed did not remember me. When I finally asked her if she remembered me and our previous night’s together, she confessed. Every day, when the sun starts to rise, she becomes a ghost, an apparition, and by the time the moon arrives and the sun goes to sleep, she obtains her humanity again but only until the return of the sun the next morning. And with each arrival of the sun, her memory is erased of the previous night. All she remembers…is herself…what she needs to find…and never me.

And so it went on. Every night I would meet her at Stanza Del Diletto, seeing my love as if it was the first time, and Maria seeing her love for the first time.

© 2017 No BS

Author's Note

This is the first short story I have written and I would really love to see what people think. I have worked it into a much longer version but I would first like to see what people think of the condensed version. Thank you!