Christmas

Snowflakes poured down like ash as I trudged along the alleyway, slipping between the streetlights. I caught myself trying to hold onto the snow and dust motes glistening beneath, my hands frantically swooping around as if light were something I could fit into my pockets. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful? 

A row of townhouses flanked the perimeter of the alleyway, standing tall and brash. The windows loomed over me, eyeing me as they begrudgingly dangled the warmth beyond their walls like berries that were too high for me to reach. From one window, I could see into a kitchen, where two adults leaned close to each other, their heads resting atop each other and their hands intertwined. Through another, I saw two children scampering around a Christmas tree adorned with glowing orbs, torn paper crumbled in the wake of their frantic footsteps. A fireplace was visible through another, smoke escaping through the chimney. Laughter and innocence drifted down the stairwells and seeped past the red bricks, lying littered like leftovers on the icy, slick ground. They melted too fast for me to relish. And so, I kept on walking, my head held low, somberly on Christmas

I struggled to find any meaning in Christmas, for it reminded me of how much my life had felt like a rehearsal to fit in. Clearly, the performance had failed, for here was Christmas pounding my soul. Christmas just didn’t seem like a holiday. It felt like a storm. My world felt small. There was no one to call. So even though I could hear a distant loudspeaker cheering a local band, even though I could hear bells jingling in the distance, all I felt was an aching quiet. 

I escaped the alleyway and found myself confronting an empty playground, the rusty swings and merry-go-round creaked metallically against the bellow of gushing winds. I placed one leg on the merry-go-round and kicked off with the other, watching the world spin as I threw my head back and shut my eyes with a sigh. I felt ecstatic for even feeling voraciously dizzy was better than feeling nothing at all. 

When I finally opened my eyes, something hovering on the swings caught my eye. With each slowing spin, I squinted harder, trying to pin down the outline, but the more I tried to bring it into focus, the more it quivered and wobbled, like it wanted to be left alone. As I finally came to a slow stop, I knew that there was someone on the swings. Being the only other person in this playground, I felt compelled to reach out. 

Its outline grew more defined as I approached, yet never entirely solid. The figure sat stiffly on the swing; its scrawny frame and posture seemed erratic and impatient. The air around it seemed heavier. It felt wrong. A car zoomed past the playground, its engine whirring off in the distance. But for a moment, when its headlights settled on the figure, I saw how hollow and translucent the outline truly was. Almost like smoke. I rubbed my eyes before speaking. “Hello, are you-” I began, but never finished as the figure slowly turned its head towards me. Only the head. Not the body. I was mortified. 

The rest of its body, facing the other way, was pallid, devoid of any color and skin but made of vapor, like breath on a cold glass. It spread out like some invasive vine.  Its limbs were elongated, hazy, and devoid of any clear protrusions, fiddling with the eddies of drifting white ash that hummed with a sound that reminded me of weeping children. Its face was burning, burning with violence as red as molten lava. The fire sank inward, folded onto itself, and never rose. A mouth streaked with a shade of black darker than I’d ever seen cracked open in webs of thin fissures, throbbing uncannily like they were frozen in the middle of a scream. I searched for its eyes. For some kind of human familiarity. I found none. Yet when I felt its gaze cleave its way into me, deeper than anyone ever had, I knew who this creature was. This was Christmas.

“You’ve been walking for a while,” it said, though its mouth never moved. The voice, instead, boomed and echoed all around me, and it felt dissonantly stitched together like hundreds of Church bells ringing in unison. “I am Christmas. You are right about that,” its voice boomed again. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. Frost curled up from the ground below, rooting my body to the spot like a tree. 

“I just want to go home,” I cried, a single tear trickling down my pale face. 

“As do all things,” Christmas nodded, its head tilting at an unusual angle. “It is unfortunate that this city has not accepted you yet. Must be strange to be so far from your home and have no way to go back.” Its voice was suddenly mellower, as if it felt sorry for me. Black grout poured out of its limbs and plummeted onto the snow, fizzling with froth. “I can offer you your heart’s desire. What you may call home. Send you back to a moment from your past for an hour,” it said. 

Home. What was home? Was it an address? Was home where my childhood and dreams were? It couldn’t be the place I grew up in. No, I had realized that long ago. The house I grew up in was just a coffin stuffed with memories of a person I no longer was. When I moved to the States, I’d tried to carve out a different slice of myself for everyone, to build a home closer to where I was. In a life built entirely on top of the conviction that loneliness was the inevitable truth of my existence, I did not know what home meant to me anymore. Suddenly, I felt an unbearable shame drown me for I realized I was curious to know what Christmas thought home meant to me. I wanted this fiend to give me a place I could call home. When Christmas’s horrific smile broadened, I understood that it would want something in exchange. It was always an exchange with it. Never a gift. “What do you want?” I hissed.

Christmas stood up, its body finally faced the right way as it inched closer to me while I remained frozen. “Warmth,” it grumbled as the edges of its limbs solidified into a finger-like icicle and pressed into my forehead. I was flooded by memories. Bright, fragile, overbearing, weightless. A living room was glowing with the shimmer of a Christmas tree, my hands were sticky with sugar, the smell of cookies wafted in the air, and a television murmured in front of me. My head rested against her shoulders, her hands wrapped around mine, our feet playfully rubbing against each other under a blanket, apple cider in our cups. “I will let you go there again for an hour. Your home,” Christmas’s voice jarred me back to the present. I saw its ash brush against my coat. “What happens to the warmth I give you?” I squealed. 

“They keep me burning, of course,” Christmas said. So, this was not a bargain. This was a demand, just like the one made every year by millions around the globe. Christmas fed on pieces of our memories: nostalgia, grief, and longing. Until it became enormous and hollow. Until it became a monster. Until the bells rang every time it grew hungrier, greedier. And yet, I could not resist because I was curious to feel like I was home. I knew I was about to make a terrible choice, but I couldn’t resist in my weakness. I was foolish when I nodded. “It’s a deal.” The fire in Christmas’s face flared brighter and redder. “You may go,” it ordained. 

The playground began to loosen around me. The swings and their metallic frames melted. Then the ground disappeared. For a brief, panicked moment, I thought I, too, might disappear. That without the warmth I had given it, I would cease to exist. Fortunately, the world decided to reassemble again.

Here it was in front of me. Home. The road curved gently into a driveway, exactly as I had last seen it. A maple tree grew in the front yard next to a crooked mailbox and porch lights that glowed softly and patiently in yellows and blues. Snow lay thinly, disturbed by shallow footprints. Someone had been here. I had been here. I walked closer to the front door. It was unchanged. There was the rusted patch on the green door. There was the handle, bearing the same faded grey polish. A circular hoop hung at the center of the door, and just as I was about to ring it, I shuddered. 

Shouldn’t I be feeling something? 

This was my home, after all. This was supposed to be the place where I belonged; a sanctuary that my body recognized even when my mind felt heavy. But I felt nothing. Only an emptiness so deep that it reverberated with the darkness of an abyss. It swallowed all sound around me, revoking nothing but shallow familiarity. I felt abandoned and alone. No memory rushed into my mind uninvited. I felt no grief. I felt no longing. And I felt no nostalgia. I stumbled backwards and then raced across the street, hoping to catch a larger glimpse of this house. Suddenly, the sound of my boots on the pavement began to feel wrong. The color of the sky felt wrong. The angles of the roof – wrong. The shape of the house – wrong, wrong, wrong!

A decaying sense of knowledge overwhelmed me because I knew I no longer belonged here. I caught my reflection in a dirty, melted pool of snow near the curb. It was the reflection of a stranger. I understood, then, what Christmas had stolen from me. I turned and walked away from the house, carrying the quiet of Christmas with me.