The night was still except for the occasional car that slowed outside the house – not, David had to remember, because there was anything on the roof. When he switched off the light the room took on a surreptitious flicker, as if his surroundings were nervous. Surely he had no reason to be, although he could have imagined that the irritable buzz was adding an edge to the voices downstairs. He hid under the quilt and pretended he was about to sleep until the sham overtook him.
A change in the lighting roused him. He was pushing the quilt away from his face so as to greet the day that would take him home when he noticed that the illumination was too fitful to be sunlight. As it glared under the curtains again he heard uncoordinated movement through the window. The wind must have returned to play with the lit sign. He was hoping that it wouldn’t awaken his grandmother, or that she would at least know what was really there, when he realised with a shock that paralysed his breath how wrong he was. He hadn’t heard the wind. The clumsy noises outside were more solid and more localised. Light stained the wall above his bed, and an object blundered as if it was limbless against the front door.
If this hadn’t robbed David of the ability to move, the thought of his grandmother’s reaction would have. It was even worse than the prospect of looking himself. He hadn’t succeeded in breathing when he heard her say “Who’s that? Has he come back?”
David would have blocked his ears if he had been capable of lifting his fists from beside him. He must have breathed, but he was otherwise helpless. The pause in the next room was almost as ominous as the sounds that brought it to an end: the rumble of the window, another series of light but impatient thumps at the front door, his grandmother’s loose unsteady voice. “He’s here for me. He’s all lit up, his eyes are. The worm’s put him back together. I should have squashed the worm.”
“Stop wandering, for God’s sake,” said David’s grandfather. “I can’t take much more of this, I’m telling you.”
“Look how he’s been put back together,” she said with such a mixture of dismay and pleading that David was terrified it would compel him to obey. Instead his panic wakened him.
He was lying inert, his thoughts as tangled as the quilt, when he heard his grandmother insist “He was there.”
“Just get back in bed,” his grandfather told her.
David didn’t know how long he lay waiting for her to shut the window. After that there seemed to be nothing to hear once her bed acknowledged her with an outburst of creaking. He stayed uneasily alert until he managed to think of a way to make sense of events: he’d overheard her in his sleep and had dreamed the rest. Having resolved this let him feel manly enough to regain his slumber.
This time daylight found him. It seemed to render the night irrelevant, at least to him. He wasn’t sure about his grandmother, who looked uncertain of something. She insisted on cooking breakfast, rather more than aided by her husband. Once David and his mother had done their duty by their portions it was time to call a taxi. David manhandled the suitcase downstairs by himself and wheeled it to the car, past the decorations that appeared dusty with sunlight. His grandparents hugged him at the gate, and his grandmother repeated the gesture as if she’d already forgotten it. “Come and see us again soon,” she said without too much conviction, perhaps because she was distracted by glancing along the street and at the roof.
David thought he saw his chance to demonstrate how much of a man he was. “It wasn’t there, Granny. It was just a dream.”
Her face quivered, and her eyes. “What was, Davy? What are you talking about?”
He had a sudden awful sense of having miscalculated, but all he could do was answer. “There wasn’t anything out here last night.”
Her mouth was too nervous to hold onto a smile that might have been triumphant. “You heard him as well.”
“No,” David protested, but his mother grabbed his arm. “That’s enough,” she said in a tone he’d never heard her use before. “We’ll miss the train. Look after each other,” she blurted at her parents, and shoved David into the taxi. All the way through the streets full of lifeless decorations, and for some time on the train, she had no more to say to him than “Just leave me alone for a while.”
He thought she blamed him for frightening his grandmother. He remembered that two months later, when his grandmother died. At the funeral he imagined how heavy the box with her inside it must be on the shoulders of the four gloomy men. He succeeded in withholding his guilty tears, since his grandfather left crying to David’s mother. When David tried to sprinkle earth on the coffin in the hole, a fierce wind carried off his handful as if his grandmother had blown it away with an angry breath. Eventually all the cars paraded back to the house that was only his grandfather’s now, where a crowd of people David hadn’t met before ate the sandwiches his mother had made and kept telling him how grown-up he was. He felt required to pretend, and wished his mother hadn’t taken two days off from working at the nursery so that they could stay overnight. Once the guests left he felt more isolated still. His grandfather broke one of many silences by saying “You look as if you’d like to ask a question, Davy. Don’t be shy.”
David wasn’t sure he wanted to be heard, but he had to be polite and answer. “What happened to Granny?”
“People change when they get old, son. You’ll find that out, well, you have. She was still your grandmother really.”
Too much of this was more ominous than reassuring. David was loath to ask how she’d died, and almost to say, “I meant where’s she gone.”
“I can’t tell you that, son. All of us are going to have to wait and see.”
Perhaps David’s mother sensed this was the opposite of comforting, for she said “I think it’s like turning into a butterfly, David. Our body’s just the chrysalis we leave behind.”
He had to affect to be happy with that, despite the memory it threatened to revive, because he was afraid he might otherwise hear worse. He apparently convinced his mother, who turned to his grandfather. “I wish I’d seen Mummy one last time.”
“She looked like a doll.”
“No, while she was alive.”
“I don’t think you’d have liked it, Jane. Try and remember her how she used to be and I will. You will, won’t you, Davy?”
David didn’t want to imagine the consequences of giving or even thinking the wrong answer. “I’ll try,” he said.
This appeared to be less than was expected of him. He was desperate to change the subject, but all he could think of was how bare the house seemed without its Christmas finery. Rather than say so he enquired, “Where do all the decorations go?”
“They’ve gone as well, son. They were always Dora’s.”
David was beginning to feel that nothing was safe to ask or say. He could tell that the adults wanted him to leave them alone to talk. At least they oughtn’t to be arguing, not like his parents used to as soon as he was out of the way, making him think that the low hostile remarks he could never quite hear were blaming him for the trouble with the marriage. At least he wouldn’t be distracted by the buzzing and the insistent light while he tried to sleep or hear. The wind helped blur the voices below him, so that although he gathered that they were agreeing, he only suspected they were discussing him. Were they saying how he’d scared his grandmother to death? “I’m sorry,” he kept whispering like a prayer, which belatedly lulled him to sleep.
A siren wakened him – an ambulance. The pair of notes might have been crying “Davy” through the streets. He wondered if an ambulance had carried off his grandmother. The braying faded into the distance, leaving silence except for the wind. His mother and his grandfather must be in their beds, unless they had decided David was sufficiently grown-up to be left by himself in the house. He hoped not, because the wind sounded like a loose voice repeating his name. The noises on the stairs might be doing so as well, except that they were shuffling footsteps or, as he was able to make out before long, rather less than footsteps. Another sound was app
roaching. It was indeed a version of his name, pronounced by an exhalation that was just about a voice, by no means entirely like his grandmother’s but too much so. It and the slow determined unformed paces halted outside his room.
He couldn’t cry out for his mother, not because he wouldn’t be a man but for fear of drawing attention to himself. He was offstage, he tried to think. He only had to listen, he needn’t see more than the lurid light that flared across the carpet. Then his visitor set about opening the door.
It made a good deal of locating the doorknob, and attempting to take hold of it, and fumbling to turn it, so that David had far more time than he wanted to imagine what was there. If his grandmother had gone away, had whatever remained come to find him? Was something of her still inside her to move it, or was that a worm? The door shuddered and edged open, admitting a grotesquely festive glow, and David tried to shut his eyes. But he was even more afraid not to see the shape that floundered into the room.
He saw at once that she’d become what she was afraid of. She was draped with a necklace of fairy lights, and two guttering bulbs had taken the place of her eyes. Dim green light spilled like slimy water down her cheeks. She wore a long white dress, if the vague pale mass wasn’t part of her, for her face looked inflated to hollowness, close to bursting. Perhaps that was why her mouth was stretched so wide, but her grin was terrified. He had a sudden dreadful thought that both she and the worm were inside the shape.
It blundered forward and then fell against the door. Either it had very little control of its movements or it intended to trap him in the room. It lurched at him as if it was as helpless as he was, and David sprawled out of bed. He grabbed one of his shoes from the floor and hurled it at the swollen flickering mass. It was only a doll, he thought, because the grin didn’t falter. Perhaps it was less than a doll, since it vanished like a bubble. As his shoe struck the door the room went dark.
He might almost have believed that nothing had been there if he hadn’t heard more than his shoe drop to the floor. When he tore the curtains open he saw fairy lights strewn across the carpet. They weren’t what he was certain he’d heard slithering into some part of the room. All the same, once he’d put on his shoes he trampled the bulbs into fragments, and then he fell to his hands and knees. He was still crawling about the floor when his mother hurried in and peered unhappily at him. “Help me find it,” he pleaded. “We’ve got to kill the worm.”
Steve Martin
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI INDIAN GIVER
CAROLYN WANTED SO much to give Roger something nice for Christmas, but they didn't have much money, and they had to spend every last cent on candy for the baby. She walked down the icy streets and peered into shop windows.
"Roger is so proud of his shinbones. If only I could find some way to get money to buy shinbone polish."
Just then, a sign caught her eye. "Cuticles bought and sold." Many people had told Carolyn of her beautiful cuticles, and Roger was especially proud of them, but she thought, "This is the way I could buy Roger the shinbone polish!" And she rushed into the store.
Later at home, she waited anxiously as Roger came up the steps of their flat. He opened the door and wobbled over to the fireplace, suspiciously holding one arm behind his back.
"Merry Christmas!" they both said, almost simultaneously. Roger spoke. "Hey, Nutsy, I got you a little something for Christmas." "Me too," said Carolyn, and they exchanged packages.
Carolyn hurriedly opened her package, staring in disbelief. "Cuticle Frames?! But Roger, I sold my cuticles so I could afford to buy you some shinbone polish!"
"Shinbone polish!" said Roger, "I sold my shinbones to buy you the cuticle frames!" Roger wobbled over to her.
"Well, I'll be hog-tied," said Carolyn.
"You will? Oh, boy!" said Roger.
And it turned out to be a great Christmas after all.
John Everson
THE HUMANE WAY
“IT’S A SHAME it had to be this way,” Barbara said, slipping a thin sliver of white meat from the platter to her mouth. Al was a sucker for stuffing, but she had to admit, she loved the meat.
“It’s dry and tasteless without gravy,” he often complained, which she once took as a slur on her competence as head cook of the Ardmore household. Later she’d realize it was an avoidance based on more than tastebuds. At heart, Al was really a tunnel-visioned moralist.
“But what were we to do?” she continued, setting the last dish for Christmas dinner on the table. “This is the best meat we can afford.”
Mrs. Holzman from next door had joined them, now that her Fred was six months under-the-sod and her kids emigrated to Quebec. They didn’t enforce the one-child procreation laws there. Typical of the egocentric French. To hell with the rest of the world, we want to breed. Barbara’s own daughter, Amy, was still at Gibson Virtual Tech, but that would be remedied in a moment.
The long, loaded platter fit perfectly on the table next to the ornate blue china gravy bowl. She was most proud of her setting this evening. The tablecloth was a finely woven pattern of silver threaded ivy. The china plates had waves of blue-stalked wheat on their edges. And the silverware gleamed invitingly, thanks to the warm yellow glow of the candelabra. They didn’t make utensils like that anymore; delicate filigrees of blooming flowers exploded up the shafts of each piece.
It was all hand-me-down treasures from Grandma. Barbara’s four siblings had gotten the house and cars and insurance money, but she was happy to keep her grandma’s kitchen things. They reminded her of the crowded family feasts when her parents were alive. They made dinner an extra sensual experience and Barbara saved them for special.
“Have you called Amy, yet?” Al asked, already pulling the heaping mountains of mashed potatoes towards him. The man couldn’t wait when food was at issue.
She shook her head and walked over to the stairs, punched the well-fingered white button there. “Dinner,” she called.
“Mom,” whined a disembodied shrill voice from the tiny speaker. “Why must you always bother me like this! I’m at college!” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “and I’m with Doug.”
“Amy, it’s Christmas. You have no classes today. Quit fooling around and come to dinner!”
“But mom…”
“No buts! This is a family day. Now let’s go. I want your feet. The real ones, not the virtuals. Under the table. Now.”
She punched the button a second time, breaking the connection, and returned to the table. She stood there a moment, taking it all in. Wondering what she might have missed. With Mrs. Holzman there, she wanted this Christmas dinner to be extra special. A feast of celebration to take the old woman’s mind off her missing kids and husband.
A whoosh of air from behind her, a blur of purple lips and plastic yellow headgear and Amy plopped into the seat across from her father. “Merry Christmas everyone,” she chirped, cocking her head up to smirk at her mother. “Did I miss the presents? I feel like I’ve been away at college for sooo long.”
“Spare the sarcasm, Amy,” Al growled. “You know a virtual diploma is just as good as one from an ivy-grower. Those places are too crowded and we can’t afford to send you away. You haven’t exactly slaved away to pay for it yourself. Now lose the connection.”
Frowning, Amy flipped up the lenses and pulled off the headpiece to reveal a crop of flouncing black hair and soft brown eyes. It wasn’t exactly how she portrayed herself in virt to Doug at Gibson, but she’d probably never meet him fleshwise, anyway. Hell, his piercing baby blues and shock blond hair probably had the help of some virt touchup of his own, she was sure.
“You know, I could get a job as a netbabe and make lots of money for real college,” she threatened.
Al’s baldspot colored at the thought of his daughter offering virtsex to strangers because he couldn’t afford to send her to an ivy-grower college. “No daughter of mine…”
Barbara broke in and shooshed them both. “Enough you two. It’s Christmas and time to give thanks fo
r all we do have. Now join hands and let’s say grace. Al?”
He picked up her lead and began, his heavy voice weighting each word with import. That was one of the reasons Barbara had first dated him – when he spoke, well, it could just give you chills. How could kids today duplicate that on headgear? When anyone could be, well, anyone?
Al took Barbara’s hand on his left and Mrs. Holzman’s on his right. Amy slapped Mrs. Holzman five before clasping her thin, well-veined claws. The old woman couldn’t help but grin.
“Father, thank you today for this feast in your memory,” Al’s basso-rich voice began. “May we treasure each bite as if it were manna from your heaven. May we always be blessed as we are today with a warm hearth, a healthy body and our family all around us. May the love we seek be true and our ends ease our spirits gently back to you. And thank you Lord, in your wisdom, for sparing us our children.”
Barbara gave him a look sharper than the carving knife she held to divvy up the roast. Al had already filled his plate with potatoes, stuffing and beans.
“How is school going, dear?” asked Mrs. Holzman, ladeling milky brown gravy over her potatoes. Barbara cooked them with the skins on, letting them swim and soften in butter and chives before mashing them. Amy loved them that way. So much so that the current dollop of potatoes threatened to eclipse the rest of her plate.
“Save room for the rest of your dinner,” her mom laughed, and answered the older woman herself. “We’re so proud of her! Amy got a 3.6 average last semester. She aced Virtual Morality and even got an A in her Offline Sociology class.”
Mrs. Holzman nodded encouragingly.
Al muttered, “What do you expect when she was raised with a computer in the crib?”
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 9
