My mother is sitting under the Christmas tree in black and white. Only the angel's shoes are red as he swings on the black and white Christmas tree.
I don't understand why an angel wears red shoes, and I don't know how my mother's life turned black and white until I turned away for a minute. I pick up red chalk, maybe I'll manage to color that little gray spot before it's swallowed up by a moment tomorrow.
I'm telling a girl who is deaf. He watches the number forming circles, making silent sounds. Our hands meet halfway, our fingers stop in the air before they can gather experience of each other. It's Christmas, I say, but he doesn't hear, but he still smiles. Her fingers dance in the air, a celebratory ballet, everything that is birth is in that strange movement, which I imagine is not so beautiful. The girl is brown-haired, of average height, plump, and has never been in a manger.
He had acquired his deafness, not inherited it, and had already forgotten the sound of the bell. Sometimes she cries when she remembers her mother singing the angel from Heaven.
But he is no longer able to recall the Christmas melody, it has become just a gray noise like his own voice. In the morning it still sounds like a sea breeze, in the evening it turns into a sonata in C minor, and today it speaks to me with the voice of angels. Or so he thinks, even though only inarticulate fragments of words come out of his throat. I lie that she sings beautifully and stroke her face.
I will tell my father who is dead. From somewhere above, he is watching my misfortune with the old top decoration. My daughter has grown up, she says, smoothing her hair. Unruly strands of black curl above his eyebrows, which are also deep black. Her autumn hairs were all lost in the passing away. The sound of the piano filtering through from the neighbor splits my lonely minutes in two. I believe in a God... I don't know if my father believed, he never said, I never asked. I stare at the moment I want to erase from my memories. My eyeballs hurt from watching, it hurts to breathe in this dense guilt. I stop telling stories, I hit the wall with my fist - I am a shaman, I throw out yesterday's sins hidden in silence, and I ask God to forgive us both. I pray for my father silently, I think it helps, or at least I think so. I want everyone to lay down on the bed and snooze peacefully until it clears up. Let my father come home for Christmas, and let me not see someone trashing our future together.
I'm telling a child. I tell him how his mother's body took him in and his imagination shaped him. He was born at Christmas, just like Jesus. They could have been twins, but they weren't, because Jesus was born much earlier, and Mary wasn't in labor with this child. In the evening, even the words in this strange story get tired, they hide in their pajamas and fall asleep. I count the lines as they multiply on the paper, while checking Facebook to see if they have been liked. I see this child as beautiful, others think he is overweight and not very smart. I relate to anyone who looks at him strangely. I buy him expensive toys for Christmas, he hates them all and doesn't want to sing the angel from Heaven. He thinks it's old-fashioned and boring. I don't think he'll get much in life, but I won't tell him that. I pray every night that you don't see me die. It's Christmas, anything can happen tonight.
I tell the lovers. I compose my feelings, I paint the silence with golden letters, they slowly dissolve and trickle down my bare legs.
The lovers hide under furry blankets, look at each other and laugh at something they don't tell me. They also discuss that there are no presents for Christmas because they are saving money this year, electricity and gas have become more expensive, and the people next door are at war. Lovers think they'll stay in love forever because they didn't do it the way others do it. At night, they open the roof and harvest the stars with outstretched hands. I can hear the silence as it ticks away, as the passing moments fall to the parquet floor and discreetly run out. Lovers watch the moon rise again and again, closing the roof only when that sun approaches. The messenger angel wraps the last minute in cellophane and unwraps it only when everyone is asleep. Lovers never wake up to the sound of cellophane.
I tell Jesus. I kneel beside the manger, waiting for the shepherds. The little one plays with his chubby fists, he doesn't cry because he's used to me being by his side. A generation will grow up under my tale - plastic pines save forests and can be bought in malls, we hear in the advertisements. The silence is too loud today, everyone who hears it becomes deaf. Hold my head in your palm, we'll survive this together! Instead of aspirin, I stir powdered stars in a glass of water. I believe in life and pray secretly when I'm afraid. That's when I look for that house. On the way, I look at the mountain, the church, on the walls of which the light of the setting sun gently creeps, the sleepy cemetery, and the trees reaching to the sky, on the branches of which the pigeons sit like musical scores. I have never felt this peace before. I think I'll grab the feeling and take it home to you for Christmas, just so it doesn't run out of my fingers on the way.
Featured Image: Pixabay
