The warmth of memories on a cold night

Clonk… scrape, clonk… scrape…

Igor’s signature gait was slower than usual, as he dragged the corpse indoors, across the wooden floor, and then with a clattering rolled it down the stairs.
Master was down there, working on his masterpiece.

But the servant's thoughts were elsewhere, far from this ‘normal Tuesday night’ for him. The line of stitches near his cheek stretched a little as he remembered the colours of orange, red and yellow of a blanket.

It was frustrating. His memories always came in bits, sluggish apparitions. It had been that way ever since he’d awoken with 50,000 volts from his master's machine. Volts that needed to be reapplied regularly as he inevitably slowly lost charge.

Perhaps the colours had been from a picnic blanket? Another fragment of memory toyed with his mind, of a woman’s beautiful smile. She had laughed, for he’d made some funny joke. He had been handsome then, nowadays the women only screamed.

His ear itched. Which reminded Igor to apply the salve. Salve was an important maintenance treatment when not all your body parts were your own. It was something to do with the maligned sweat glands, or so his master had written into his notes.

Dipping his finger into the tin of salve, he daubed it onto his ear, then pulled out a shard of mirror to better see. His one good eye then frowned, and he peered through the gloomy reflection at his mouth. His lips were remarkably similar to those in the memory of a woman’s smile.

With a sigh, Igor stuffed the tin of salve back into his pocket and turned around to go back out into the night. There were three more bodies yet to be exhumed.

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