A Christmas Story

Under a bright winter’s moon, they sparkle, reflecting the stars shining in the night’s sky above. In the distance, tropical waves roll against a sandy shore, creeping ever closer toward them. Soon, the warm water will rise, wrapping its omnipresent hands around them, pulling them closer, deeper—swallowing them into the sea. Like the Alpha and the Omega, there is no beginning, no end. Like the sun, they will never burn out, not for a million years.

Upon their pile on the sandy beach they lay, indestructible, yet capable of destroying everything. Brought to virgin lands by working hands, they are no longer wanted elsewhere. Here’s where they’ll live—forever—never decaying. Until, that is, they slowly, silently find their way back into your lives. They won’t look the way you had first seen them underneath the Christmas tree, bright and shiny—whole. They’ll be tiny, microscopic, filling every inch of your lungs and gut, slowly dragging your body into the depths of the ocean from which they came.

Eventually, they will become part of you. 

Eventually, they will own you. Control you.

Perhaps they already have.

It was your choice, after all. You wanted a perfect Christmas. Next year, you’ll want the same. Birthdays are no different. Self-care Saturdays are to blame.

When you step inside Target, they wink at you from the shelves. It’s modern life, stacked carefully, hung tidily, looking like they belong. But once they fill every inch of your house and your garage, you dump them in the trash. They’re taken away, and as long as they’re out of sight, they’re out of mind.

But they’ll come back. They’ll seek vengeance. They already have.

It’s what we want, though. We all do it too. We buy the things and wrap the things and give the things and toss the things and eventually, we drink and eat and are the things.

They’re underneath your tree right now. And one day they’ll suffocate each other on a landfill heap.

But they’ll be back.

And they’ll survive to enjoy many more Christmases than you ever will.