Flashback ahead!
Calle Varisco is the narrowest street in Venice and Sherlock Holmes favourite place: just 21 inches wide and 65 feet long, it was the perfect spot to hide and think. Spending summers and winters holidays with his grandfather meant not having restrictions of any kind, so the future consulting detective could go out at night and come back the morning after without someone shouting at him: usually, he would storm out after dinner with his grandfather telling him to have fun and be careful, to return home at breakfast with the old man asking if he discovered something new. A painting, a street, a music store, a scary mask, the odd shape of a window, a place with the "best Espresso in town", a guy who introduced him to absinthe, a new scarf found at Rialto's Market, a restaurant owner who taught him the correct recipe for pasta and beans or just a strange-looking pigeon, everything caught the boy's attention.
Sherlock was sixteen when he found out about Calle Varisco: it was a very hot summer morning, the humidity was unbearable and the strong smell of the back alleys was clouding his brain; he was strolling alone – as usual – not even looking at where he was going, his gaze focused on his feet, when suddenly it all went dark.
He lifted his chin and found himself trapped between two brick walls: he immediately remembered about his acute claustrophobia, the urgent need to run away and take deep breaths on a boat in the middle of the sea was blinding him, but he didn't move.
Instead, he leaned back and closed his eyes, discovering a whole new world: ironically, the darkness of the alley was shedding a bright light inside his brain and after a while the rooms of his mind palace started to spring up in his mind for the first time.
From that moment on, Sherlock spent at least two hours a day trapped inside that little calle, usually at night, to avoid tourists and melt into darkness.
Two years later, during a cold and dark winter evening, Sherlock's wandering in his mind palace was brutally interrupted by someone bumping into him.
- Oh, sh-…mi scusi, non l'avevo vista!
They couldn't see each other in the dark so the stranger's tentative hands reached Sherlock's arm and instinctively squeezed it.
- Mi scusi.
- You're American.
- What-… yes, I am. I'm so sorry, it's so dark in here, I didn't see you. What do we do know?
The girlie chuckle that followed echoed between the walls and Sherlock frowned, confused.
- Move?
- I'm…yes, yes, I'm going, I'll find another way to get to…well, my house. Again, so sorry.
Sherlock sighed and surrendered to good manners, that ones that his grandfather taught him to use with women, the ones he will soon forget and ignore.
- No, wait…it's me, it's my fault. Please.
He turned his back and led the way out of the little street, the woman following right behind him.
- There. All clear.
- Thanks…uhm?
- Sherlock.
- Aida. Hoffman.
- Like the opera?
- Yeah, I know, sounds weird. My mother is Italian, my father is American.
The girl smiled as they shook hands, then he quickly turned without saying a word, disappearing into the darkness again.
A few days later, on a freezing morning, Sherlock was sitting on the steps of a little bridge called Ponte delle Do Spade; he had two open books in front of him, placed on his knees: Machiavelli's Prince and Hobbes' Leviathan, both full of notes, scribbles and post-its.
To a careless passerby he looked like one of the many students trying to brush up for an early test; nobody could suspect that Sherlock was in fact improvising a deep philosophic analysis in his mind, comparing the two masterpieces of political science. For fun. And so deeply lost in his thoughts that he didn't realize he was muttering to himself, something about criminal virtues and criminal causes.
Aida was running late and as she passed by a deep, rich and somehow familiar voice talking in Latin reached her ears; she stopped and turned back, wondering if that mop of dark curly hair bowed over a book was actually the same guy she met two days before.
She walked to him, bending over his shoulder.
- Bellum omnium contra omnes.
Sherlock jumped and turned to her: a pair of bright green eyes staring at him.
- What?!
- Hobbes. My favorite – she pointed at the book.
- Yes, well. Thanks for letting me know.
- Are you Sherlock? – she smiled.
- And who are you?
He looked at her, annoyed and confused, glancing at his books every two seconds.
- Aida. We met the other day. Well, more like night.
Nothing. Sherlock had that look of utter impatience that later on John Watson would find both irritating and terrifying.
- I bumped into you?
Still nothing. He shook his head slightly and raised his eyebrows. Is this supposed to mean something to me?
- …Calle Varisco?
- Ah, yes. You.
- Yes, me.
Aida was a very tall and lean twenty-three year old with long ash-blonde hair always gathered up in a bun, a beautiful girl who happened to have a favourite philosopher; Sherlock was obviously immune to her sophisticated beauty and didn't know a thing about flirting. He narrowed his eyes at her.
- Your nose.
- What about it?
She brought her hand to her face, blushing.
- You don't like it. You think it's big and disproportionate to your facial features.
- What…how?
- Oh, nothing, it's what I do. I read people. It's annoying, and I'm rude, don't bother, I already know.
- Well…yes, you are, but you're also right. How did you do it?
- Those aren't corrective lenses. You think that wearing glasses will divert people's attention from your nose.
- That's-
- It doesn't work like that and you shouldn't be ashamed about it. It suits you.
With that, Sherlock returned to his book and left a blushing Aida gaping at him.
- Uhm…yeah. Thanks?
- It wasn't a compliment. I was just stating a fact.
He didn't look at her but she smiled and stood there in silence; when she realized Sherlock wasn't up for small talk, Aida straightened her coat and broke the awkward silence.
- Well. I'd better go. Do you know where I can find the department of Criminology?
Does this sounds plausible as Sherlock's past? I hope it does. Anyway, you should be able to find photos of the calle, the bridge and market of Rialto on Google. Just to have a visual aid of what I'm talking about. Brace yourself: more flashback to come!