You lost your scarf in the park on Cromwell Street and I’ve been looking for it ever since. You might have left it on the bench where you first said the words. I hope I'll find it waving in the breeze, a flag signalling, 'Here I am, I've been here the whole time.'
It's not there today and I'm afraid someone might have picked it up. It feels like a betrayal to admit it but there are lots of benches in the park, they all look the same.
Your favourite place was the Pavilion Cafe, the one that overlooks the boating lake, where we would spend long Sunday mornings. You'd order two hot chocolates and those pastries that I can't remember the name of.
At least once a week I ask the lady who works in the cafe to look through their lost property box. At first she’d shake her head and apologise when she returned empty handed. She’d slide three chocolate digestives onto the plate with my hot chocolate.
These days she says, 'No, not today.'
Not today, or tomorrow or yesterday. I try to stop going there.
On Wednesday's I take a day off, searching is my full-time job now, and meet my sister for lunch.
'Are you still looking for—'
'Yes, the scarf,' I say it at exactly the same time she says,
'Love?'
Then there's silence.
'It's been eighteen months,' she says.
I know that. I've watched each one creep through the park, changing things without my permission.
Sometimes I still set the table for two, sometimes I still cook your favourite meals and sometimes I still call you. Your scarf is maroon and white striped. Made from alpaca wool. I wish I could pull what's left of you out from amongst the fibres.
Emma Challis is a writer from Essex and holds a BA in Creative Writing from Brunel University. Her short stories have featured in Flash Flood 2024 and in the anthology It’s Complicated (2017). Her poetry has featured in the chapbook Skin. She is shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize 2025 and was shortlisted for the 2024 Bridport Prize. She is currently working on her first novel.
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