Good morning.
Welcome to winter. We were promised snow early, but it looks like it skipped us. The sky is that perfectly dreary gray that washes out wonder and the demarkations in the landscape that usually grace us in early morning light. It’s fitting though, on the darkest day of the year.
Today I bring you part one of a Christmas piece—part fiction, mostly truth—in which the ghost of Christmas Past makes an appearance as he usually does this time of year. I hope you all are enjoying your holidays. I know it’s a complicated time for many. This string of memory is evidence of that.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
There was nothing to watch and it was nearly midnight. The presents were wrapped and placed under the tree. I was alone again, Harvey in bed hours ago, seemingly oblivious to the work that went into making Christmas morning a thing. The old ache had returned, and a memory surfaced. Eighth grade, the sky beautifully sunsetted in rosy pink and deep blue, a bitterly cold Christmas where I walked with my mom and we talked about the future, a new life possible now that my stepdad had taken off.
I pushed it away. It wasn’t a good one. My skin always prickled with that annual image the cold brought. The sad lump in my stomach as I walked and talked cheerfully, reaching for hope that life would get better now, in spite of the odd hole he had left in the house, a black place my mother sank into and slept through for the better part of the year, leaving dishes piled and floors unswept.
I turned to the window and stared out at all the city lights, stars for a new age, more brilliant than the retreating heavens. They wavered and blinked at me. Somewhere between ten and now, the windows had frosted, and a thin sparkle winked off the pine trees, lit by Christmas lights that should have been shut off hours ago.
I was thinking of the neighbors, the HOA rules that stated lights out at nine, when I saw the shadow of a man in the driveway. I sat lower into the couch cushions, hoping he hadn’t seen the shadow of my head hovering over the couch back through open blinds. He approached slowly, then made for the bushes, ugly sprawling things that had come with the house. They were evergreen, but half their branches were leafless. Harvey swore every year that he would pull them up, but we both knew it wasn’t true. One of the many little lies we kept between us, protected and nurtured so they lived on year after year.
“What the fu—,” I started to let out, but then I saw.
He was tearing at the lights, pulling them off the bushes violently. Now, lit in yellow twinkles, I could see he was wearing all black, a ski mask pulled over his face. The fear I had felt in my throat left, filled by anger instead. I jumped up and knocked loudly on the window.
“Hey!” I shouted. He glanced, then kept pulling viciously, breaking branches and ripping leaves off as the lights started to blink out.
I went to the door, stomping loudly, and ran out barefoot into the frostbitten night. The concrete patio was cold on my skin, but I didn’t even notice. The HOA goons were at it again.
“Not today asshole,” I said, sprinting on tip-toe down the steps and towards where he had been. But I was alone. A string of half broken lights lay across the sidewalk, the image blurred by my misty breath. I could feel the cold in my feet now, biting and radiating into my shin bones.
“Damn.”
I walked to the end of the drive, and looked up and down the street for any sign of him. The air was still, the street silent and orange-lit by old street lamps. I was shaky with fading adrenaline when I turned and saw a deer standing in the same ransacked bushes. It was a buck, his antlers tangled in the half dead Christmas lights. Not a man at all. I stared, trying to make sense of my mistake. The late hour was getting to me.
He let out a noise, strange, like a fast deflating balloon, and I jumped a little. For years mule deer had congregated in my front yard, but never had I heard them utter a sound. Until now. He was looking right at me, those strangely deep black marble eyes beckoning me to come and help untangle him from his trap. It wasn’t a smart thing when I approached slowly, making idiotic clicking noises to keep him calm and let him know I wasn’t a threat, but it worked.
When I was near, I could see the old wounds on him, thick scarring around his neck and legs, likely inflicted by other males, a result of the grinding competition brought on by the rut. His antlers were covered in the evening frost, the smell of pine wafting off of him. I paused before I touched the string of lights, and he lowered his head as if to say, yeah, please, get on with it.
I did get on with it, carefully setting him free one tangled line at a time. When I was done I laid the lights down gently and stepped away.
“Go on. You’re free.”
He stared at me, then lowered his head, bowing. I was taken by the magic of a wild animal seemingly thanking me. I reached my fingers out and touched the woody bone of his antlers for the first time, feeling gently at first, then grabbing full on. They radiated heat, like warmth from a winter fire, and when I let go, I saw there were flames in his eyes. I let a sound out, something high pitched and stunted, rocking back a step. Now I could see more than just flames danced there. I could make out a fireplace, the fake tree we put up every year, the dollar store stockings sagging, pregnant with cheap candy and toys.
He grunted, and raised his head in quick gesture, before turning towards the street. When he got to the end of the driveway, he turned back, and waited for me to follow.
To be continued…
Shaina, this really got under my skin as I read. I was expecting a good hook in this first part but this ran the gamet of emotions and sensations. An amazing cascade from the memories of old pains and more recent scabs that defy healing, thru fear that morphs into anger and rage, and then amazement and wonder, and discovery of a mutual respect and a need to care for a fellow being in distress without second thought. And there's an invitation at the end that requires a continued trust... All in the middle of dark and cold to take a path unknown. I don't know if I would even get past fear...
Wonderful writing!!! Thrilling description
Susan