Festive Reminders

Seasonal Flash Fiction

There’s less on the shelves this year.

Maybe it is something he’s only noticing now. Things change, right? Habits change. The dolls on the second shelf from the top stare out at him. Unnerving. As he inches down the aisle, he is all eyes. He doesn’t want to miss something important. The dolls. They’re all eyes too. What is it they don’t want to miss?

The decorations are looking pretty lame.

White cotton wool ‘snow’ turning grey. Maybe a little more light would help. No one has changed the batteries. Would anyone notice if he slipped into ‘Electrical’ and gathered up some AAAs? Sometimes it is easier to just sort it out yourself. It is his treat, after all. A treat to himself at this time of year. A bit of window shopping to remind himself how much he loved this season. Hey, fella, love. Keep it present tense. You love this festive season, despite the differences, and the crappy lights with the bulbs and batteries that need to be changed. You love Christmas. Say it out loud, no one will mind.

“I love Christmas”.

The echo catches him unawares, and the crack in his voice. He misses the piped music. There’s no one around to ask how it works. He’d press the buttons himself if he knew where they were.

“I love Christmas”. He said it again, setting off a voice-activated dragon, or is it a dinosaur? Hell, it could be one of those mutated ‘gators they used to talk about on the websites that talked up the conspiracy theories. They were all closed down before they ended up being proved right.

He kept a pouch of quarters. They came in useful for all sorts. Laundromats, that game of pool in the dive bar where the coke still fizzed when you popped the cap off, calling folk to hear adult voices on answer machine messages.

But this was Christmas. This was the toy department famous for its railway. Two quarters was all it took to set the Polar Express on its way. He started to reach into the folds of the cloak he had fashioned out of an old blanket. For the record, he didn’t care what folk thought it looked like, it kept him warm. What he did care about was hidden eyes seeing where he secured the important stuff. Stuff like his pouch of quarters and his dwindling stock of antibiotics. His eyes took in everything. Barbie and Ken still looked to be way more interested in one another than him. He’d taken a childish pleasure in positioning them like that, imagining a kid asking Mom and Dad why Ken isn’t wearing trousers. Ha, spirit of Christmas. Borderline Grinch. Remember that movie? Remember movies, those were the days.

The first quarter rolled out onto the floor and he wasted precious seconds finding it under the basket of unicorns. Second time, both coins slipped in, sweet as a nut. For a moment he thought it was broken. Then the music started and the familiar beam of the train light emerged from the tunnel. Tom Hanks’ voice brought tears to his eyes.

One thing about trains: it doesn't matter where they're going. What matters is deciding to get on.

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Jeez, he wanted to get on. Travel, far away from here. Wouldn’t that be something? For ten minutes he travelled. Ten precious minutes of memories and magic. Something else too, if he could put his finger on it. Hope, yeah, that was it. Ten minutes watching that train take the bends, lights flashing as it hurtled through imaginary villages, past snow-topped buildings. He peered in the windows of model houses at happy families gathered around trees surrounded by presents. Tears pricked his eyes at the memories. Thirteen years old, street-wise, and sharper than all the grown ups he’d run into, and it was Christmas that still touched his soul.

The telltale voices of authority alerted him. Security. Two of them. Shit. Not much time. No chance of retracing his steps. He kept low, pulling up his mask as he scampered down the aisle towards the monstrous spruce tree, still decked in the pale blue and pink that had been the fashion back then, before. He heard the shouts, muffled by protective equipment, as he burst out onto the deserted street. The flurry of white always made him think of festive seasons as he grew up in this town. But he knew. Everyone knew. The only thing falling from the sky on this or any other Christmas, was the fallout from the explosions two years ago that put an end to their celebrations for ever.

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