verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
•
It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Gdansk, Poland
2015
Spring was slow to arrive in Eastern Europe. The morning air clung to the kind of cold that burned your lungs on the first breath, dry and sharp.
He didn't mind it though; in fact it was part of the reason he had gone so far east. The longer he could chase the cold, the less likely it was that his appearance would draw any unwanted attention. Mismatched layers and leather gloves would start to raise suspicions the warmer it got.
The frigid air was familiar too, in a way he couldn't place. It was simply something he knew to be true, but be couldn't remember why it was.
Much like how he knew he could speak the language of this city, but he couldn't recall learning.
How he knew he had been a soldier, but he couldn't remember when, or why, or whose side he had been on.
How he knew his name was James Buchanan Barnes, because he had read it, not because he remembered being called it.
His mind was a mess of fractured gulfs, flashes of images interspersed with unattached memories of sounds, sensations – disjointed and senseless, most of the time. Unpleasant for the majority. That was another truth he knew; he knew he had done terrible things. He knew he was a monster.
That was part of the reason he hadn't allowed himself to remain near the familiar. In the days and weeks following his abandonment of his mission, there had been too much tugging at his splintered mind. Visuals and facts, memories of recent moments of lucidity and past ones that he couldn't make sense of. The wreckage in DC, the Smithsonian, even the rusted fire escape he had ventured to climb on an aimless journey to Brooklyn – he knew all of it should connect, but he couldn't force the pieces together. It was like he was being shown photographs of faces, and he was expected to know the names of the visages staring back at him. He was supposed to remember how he knew them, but he couldn't. He couldn't place them; the man with the swollen, bruised face. The wiry kid with newspaper in his shoes. A girl with greasy hands and an easy smile. Uniforms and gunfire and metal tags warm against his skin beneath his shirt. Falling. Screams and blood and pain. Soft hair and a kind voice. Snow and trees, cold hands clasping his face and grey, tearful eyes gazing into his own. None of it made sense, and in the end, it had been easier to run. To put distance between himself and places that triggered those memories.
He found he knew how to disappear; deep-rooted instincts drove him to places that were easy to hide in. Places he could blend in and become part of the crowd. Grotty, crumbling corners of the world where people didn't look too closely but were still in plain sight. Places that could be left in an instant, connected to another labyrinth that he could vanish into when he got the feeling that he needed to stay one step ahead of whatever was behind him. He couldn't explain how he knew to do it, but he did.
He could survive, and that was all he could manage right now.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
