The Ghost of Christmas that Never Was

by fourth year Natalie Schott

Okay, so it's Christmas Eve.

It's Christmas Eve 2015. No, wait - 2008. Or maybe 1995. What does it really mean? Do we count the years because it's what we have to do? Because our lives are cut neatly into precise hours and hours of blocks of qualitative measure? Or do we count the years because if we don’t we will turn insane? Suddenly, we may feel the weight and reverberation of layers upon layers of memory and our brains might not be strong enough to handle it.

Right now, you are walking down a street called Anywhere, Anytown. You remember this street. You learned to ride a bike in that front yard of the house to the left. The one with the blue door and white shutters. Remember how your dog used to bark at you through the windows when you ran up the driveway coming home from school?

Except, you don’t think you had a dog. Did you ever learn how to ride a bike either? But if these aren’t your memories—then whose are they? You stuff your hands in your jacket pockets. Mostly to block out the bitter cold as you force yourself to blink away the snowflakes dusting your face.

Something in you aches not quite like the excitement buried deep in the pit of your stomach when you laid in bed on Christmas Eve long ago, the sense of magic permeating each molecule of air. You keep your head down on the ground as you pass by houses with windows thrown open wide to display the gentle fuzzy glow of decorated trees. Time is not a straight line. It is a coil. Time twists in and upon itself like how a velvet red ribbon stretches across a gift box and holds itself together in one wrapped bundle. One reason that you keep your head to the ground is because you are worried that you might look up to escape the blinding snow and see yourself, six years old, standing by the tree with a plate of cookies, in the window.

Sure, many things have changed. You are older now, somewhat wiser even if you don’t feel like that most days. Christmas has a melancholic touch to it now as you think less about presents and treats and toys and more about where to hide your grandparents’ coats so you can just spend an extra minute or two more with them before they drive home.

You look up at the sky and the stars are illuminated in only the way that winter and its brilliant starkness can reveal.

From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.