The Word Cloud

A Christmas scene, please. 150 words maximum. Huge points go to anyone writing beautiful lovely sentences that make us want to curl up and purr. That means no cliches, lovely images, verbal inventiveness, and a total dedicaton to your craft. Lots of lovely points also go to anyone who makes us laugh, makes us cry, or shocks us with the sheer outrageousness of your imagination.

All clear? Flowers or fizz for the winner. As many entries as you like. And off you go!

The Cloud

Christ’s Mass

I plucked a crumb of mince pie from my sweater, and reached for my beaker of mulled wine. I surveyed the Christmas tree, a very inadequate specimen, adorned only with dangling Jesus decorations.

“Couldn’t you have used baubles and tinsel like everyone else?” I asked. Joshua tried, but failed, to suppress a smug expression.

“You do know why we celebrate Christmas, don’t you?”

There was a moment of contemplation from all the guests. Sayyid broke the silence.

“He wasn’t the son of God you know.”

Joshua started nodding, slowly but emphatically.

“Oh yes he was.”

Sayyid started shaking his head, in synchrony with Joshua’s nodding, neither wishing to succumb first. I breathed in the wine’s warming aromas, before rolling the spicy liquid around my mouth. Meanwhile, Arthur, an Atheist, moved a muscle.

“It’s all bollocks!”

I spat out my wine, and united the group in laughter.

Christmas Morning

Along the landing carpet; left foot on the red, right foot on the green… avoid the blue. All’s quiet. Outside, my feet leave islands of crushed emerald across legions of bejewelled and frosted spears. I touch graven marble, cold as sculpted death. ‘I’m scared, Nicole.’

A clamour of rooks lift, wings cloaked in night. They circle, black against the dawn, and settle on power lines; notes on a music score. We wish you a merry…

‘Too much to hope for, Nicole? Maybe this Christmas… Mum’s not been drinking so much… she’s off the pills, now. I wish Dad would come home. I wish you were here. I wish…’ Hot tears burn frozen cheeks. The house shouts its silence; curtained squares of light pixellate the upper floor with red and green. Mum isn’t sleeping, either, not today, not the anniversary of Nicole’s death. Today will be difficult; avoiding the blue, impossible.

The bitter cold is gone, as though dissolved in the rain that has come down with nightfall. I’m glad. I don’t mind the rain and the damp pavements.

A myriad of coloured lights reflect in the puddles, and snatches of “So this is Christmas” cheer me past the tinselled newsagent’s. Drizzle glistens in the light of the last lamppost and I watch my shadow lengthen as I leave the village behind. I trudge up the darkened slope, clutching my parcel. Then the white fairy pinpricks that sparkle on our wintry magnolia come into view. I hurry, anxious now for homely shelter on this rain-soaked eve of Christmastide.

My key slips into the Yale, but Lucy has the door open first, eyes questioning, expectant. “Did you – ”

“I got it.”

Her face relaxes. “How wonderful! Timmy will absolutely love it.” She holds out a warming glass of Amontillado, “Happy Christmas, darling.”

The Christmas lights in the shop window flutter red and green sparkles over the twilight-blue snow. She curls in on herself, immune to the seasonal magic, but not to the cold. The doorway smells of old urine, but provides some shelter from the evil wind. Spare change?
A look of contempt. Get a job, get a life.
She had a life, a family, a mother who loved her - but not enough to protect her from her predator father. Drunk, mauling, hurting: why, Daddy? Aren't I your princess? Please don't . . .
Running, crying, freezing, starving. Doesn't anybody care?
"Hello, little girl. Would you like to come home with me?"
Fuck off, pervert!
Her stomach hurts, and she daren't sleep. She clutches her pathetic kitchen knife, ready to fight back, but she can't fight the ice-monster cold. If she sleeps, she may never wake.
Cold, tired, miserable.
Spare change?

( I should kersplain: when I was on the travla sites, we quite often took in traumatised runaways - someone had to. The most common reason why they'd run away from home was abuse. There are supposed to be charities, eg 'Shelter', but they don't actually do anything other than line their own pockets and put up adverts that sound oh-so-caring. When I was homeless in the depths of winter and went to the Shelter offices, they said they don't actually provide homes, they just 'raise awareness'. I pointed out that they had very nice offices with plush carpets and the latest computers etc, and some very nice Mercs and Porsches in the carpark. "I bet you manage to provide nice homes for yourselves in the suburbs, eh?" They threatened to call the police! )

The strategically placed bulbs glimmer high and low creating warmth from the bitter shadows outside. The flickering candle light shines off polished silver that borders placemats for feasts.

Eyes widen and expressions transform as the spread is placed down. People taken over by their own calculating thoughts - how all in front can be managed carefully onto one plate, how the amount of food for five people can be squeezed into one stomach and still leave room for desert.

The bustle of familiar faces greets one another amongst the snaps of the crackers. The hats are unfolded and jokes are swapped over silent laughter and toasts, with faces ignoring the hopeful eyes in the corner, the dog waiting patiently for a scrap to be thrown.

Then I stumble back into the shadows when the curtains are drawn on my scene, and I wish I was that dog.

Santa sweated profusely through his beard. Dasher and Dancer plodded forward with their heads hanging as the sleigh’s steel skis screeched over steaming asphalt. Prancer and Vixen had both called it quits somewhere over Wellington and no one had seen Comet since Samoa. Cupid, Donner and Blitzen were trailing behind somewhere, and Rudolph’s nose had gone out. Not for the first time Santa questioned the wisdom of a fur-lined suit and why no one had thought to include wheels as an emergency measure for the sleigh was beyond him, after all they went through this every year.

Every single year, rebellion among the reindeer and a trip that left Santa with the worst kind of sweat rash imaginable and a headache that, were it a planet, would make Jupiter look like a second-rate asteroid.

For what? That’s what he wanted to know.

“Goddam the bloody Southern hemisphere,” he muttered.

The life of a snow flake.

Let’s start from the beginning – My name’s Fleck. The dense grey mass that overshadowed the sky was where I was born. I, like the rest of my family are close. We live happily in the big snow cloud until the dreadfulness of Christmas.

Yes, I understand that most of you adore and get yourselves over belated with the event, but in all seriousness us snowflakes hate it. It’s an over-extravagant nonsense and disregard for snowflake lives.

Snowflakes should bring joy and happiness to people, not the ‘oh its Christmas, let it snow- let it snow’ it’s a pure coincidence that you all celebrate Christmas when we’re trying to celebrate ‘the great sacrifice of white’.

Please this Christmas take your time and respect that we have a right to celebrate our religion, just as you are.

A snowflake is a life and is not just for Chirstmas!

Santa Regrets

Building regulation 325/4596a: Scaffolding and handrails to be erected to all chimneys.

The 2010 bill: exploitation of reindeer. Deliveries only between midnight 24.12.2010 and 2am 25.12.2010

Health and Safety: Restricts individual presents to 10kg.

Weight restrictions, sleighs: Santa 25stone. Sleigh 10stone. Net payload: maximum of 100kg.

Due to the number of mince pies eaten, chimney flue diameter must be >600mm.

H&S Reg 999/999. Due to litreage of sherry expected to be consumed, all roofs must be floodlit. Rope ladders, safety-wear and climbing tackle must be provided. Two metre high neon names may facilitate correct delivery.

A small charge will be made to cover, sleigh insurance, tax and MOT, reindeer vetinery insurance, public liability insurance, elf insurance, sleigh hire, health insurance, accident insurance, life insurance, anti-bacterial hand-wash and red nose-polish.

Due to penalty clauses, only addresses within a 100metre radius of Bethlemhem town centre will be guaranteed.

Sorry, kids.

Emily tip-toes across to the tree and piles the presents underneath. The Christmas lights cast a warm glow, and shifting shapes dance across anaglypta walls. Mulled wine stirs Emily's senses.

Christmas Eve - she adores it. So precious. Upstairs, infants sleep, swathed in swaddling dreams. Strawless duvets snuggle.

Emily scrunches present wrappings, and flips over hand-made tags: 'To dearest Katie...', 'To baby Alex...', '...with muchest love and hugs.' Her heart quickens, and her eyes well up.

A dark shadow slinks in through the doorway.

'Puss, puss...' Emily reaches out. The cat hisses. Claws flail her. Jagged tracts ooze red. The spell is broken, the dream gone: Emily's eyes, they seethe.

She wrenches out the carry-bag from inside her torn overcoat, and snatches the presents up from the ground. Silent night shivers through the window she broke getting in.

It's been over a year since the shuttles stopped coming.

The political situation had been getting ridiculous, but no-one seriously believed it would go so far. Then we received a transmission: "China has launched." We never received another signal from Earth.

We watched through our telescopes as the darkened hemisphere sparkled with megaton detonations.

The colony is far from self-sufficient. Our systems are high-tech, complex, dependent on the support that only Earth can supply. Mars waits outside the hab domes for our mechanisms to fail.

As Chief Engineer of the colony, everyone looks to me for answers. Time and again over the past year I and my team have managed to avert disaster with some cobbled-together hookup, only to have another emergency, and then another. That we have lasted for a year is nothing short of miraculous. Can we last another year? Not a chance.

Will the shuttles ever return? It doesn't seem likely, at least not in the foreseeable future. The dumb bastards have bombed themselves back to the stone age, if any of them survived at all. This will be our last Christmas.

My beautiful, doomed daughter stares out of the viewport. My wife is preparing a seasonal feast, as far as our rations will permit. After our meal, we will open such presents as we have managed to contrive. Beyond the plasglass of the viewport, white flakes of dry ice - frozen carbon dioxide - drift down to settle on the rust-red soil. My daughter turns to me, her face lit up with a delighted smile that hurts my heart.

"Look, Daddy! It's snowing!"

Somehow it was even colder than the night before. The fog drifted a cloud of crystals onto every branch of every tree, every thread of old web, every frozen blade of grass. As the first light came it revealed a shocked silver dawn.

In the fields there was silence, until through the softening mists came the feint trembling of distant church bells.

The robin stirred in the hedgerow. It shook the night from its wings and flew out over the canal. It went under the bridge and on over the ribbon of ice to where smoke curled from the narrowboat's chimney. The bird landed beside the chimney and waited. Soon the old man emerged from the cabin and cursed the cold. He smiled to see the bird. "Merry Christmas old friend," he said, and threw the crumbs of a mince pie.

The robin ate well. It always did.

A Family Christmas

Home-made streamers garland the ceilings. Coloured lights twinkle in silver baubles and reflect in excited eyes.

‘Me put the angel on top?’

I lift my younger son. He enthrones the angel in drunken splendour.

Larger small fingers spider towards tantalising expectation. ‘Can we go to bed now?’

I smile. ‘Wait until Daddy’s here. Morning won’t come any sooner.’

‘Can we play a game?’

I fetch snap cards, and deal. The door opens; fear I’ve denied all day churns my stomach. He’s ill… Please, God, it’s not serious. I follow Stephen into the other room. ‘What wrong, love?’

His heart thumps against mine. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you until after Christmas… I’ve fallen in love with someone else.’

Shutters clang in my mind. Searching my lost life I see only cracks; my non-existent future and see only magnolia hell.

‘Mummy… play….’

I turn a card. The ace of hearts… Snap.

A Number One Christmas:

On this day let there be no Killing In The Name Of. Let the (Mistletoe And) Wine flow, as I revel in the company of those who are Always On My Mind yet I never seem to spend enough time with.

We’ll remember Christmas past and the dear ones who’ve passed on. How Grandma would tell tales of skating on the lake, reminding us These Are The (best) Days Of Our Lives, before scolding Granddad for saying Somethin’ Stupid about the Queen’s Speech.

I look at you, my family, and though I doubt I say it enough, I Will Always Love (every one of) You. I’ll say as much, and my Brother will laugh, mocking my soppiness, and say this ain’t no Fairytale Of New York, Sis.

And, as I do every year, I’ll wish I could Stay Another Day, knowing A Moment Like This is priceless.

A HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Snow lay deep underground and stars fell from the sky while metaphors undulated softly. Tropes descended figuratively amid clusters of similes and, in the distance, parenthesis jostled together with full stops of great import; soon nouns and verbs rejoiced to the accompaniment of exotic clauses. “This is the longest paragraph of my life.” said Jack Baur as pathos competed manfully with bathos and all around sang choirs of hyperbole.

AN UNFORTUNATE CHRISTMAS PARTY CAROL

We’d wish you a merry Christmas,
We’d wish you a merry Christmas,
We’d wish you a merry Christmas,
If our heads were clear.

Bad tidings we bring,
To you from your kin,
More socks and a knitted jumper,
It’s just like last year!

Oh, bring us a cup to puke in,
Oh, bring us a cup to puke in,
Oh, bring us a cup to puke in,
And another can of beer.

Gran’s loading her plate,
But she’s already ate.
Her IBS will kill her,
Before she reaches the gate.

But she won’t go until she’s had some,
She won’t go until she’s had some,
She won’t go until she’s had some,
So bring more out dear.

Thank God we don’t have Christmas,
Thank God we don’t have Christmas,
Thank God we don’t have Christmas,
Again, ‘til next year.

==================================
Well, no one said it had to be a happy Christmas.

In the village Christmas was roaring. Children with new toys. Cars bursting with families arriving for dinner. But in the cottage old Alastair was alone. Soon, he would put his frozen dinner in the microwave, followed by a small Christmas pudding, perhaps a glass of sherry.

He flicked through the TV channels. There was a program with people appealing for their long-lost loved ones to get in touch. Suddenly, there was Bob- the brother he had not seen in 40 years. So much older, but there, live, appealing for Alastair to call the show.

Alastair dialled the number. They asked questions before finally putting him through.
"Alastair , is that really you?" Bob asked, a close-up revealing a tear.
"Yes," he replied. "Where's my share of the money you bastard?"
Bob's face fell. The phone line went dead. The programme cut to adverts. Alastair went to get his dinner.

Oops, missed a word. Trying again:

In the village Christmas was roaring. Children with new toys. Cars bursting with families arriving for dinner. But in the cottage old Alastair was alone. Soon, he would put his frozen dinner in the microwave, followed by a small Christmas pudding, perhaps have a glass of sherry.

He flicked through the TV channels. There was a program with people appealing for their long-lost loved ones to get in touch. Suddenly, there was Bob- the brother he had not seen in 40 years. So much older, but there, live, appealing for Alastair to call the show.

Alastair dialled the number. They asked questions before finally putting him through.
"Alastair , is that really you?" Bob asked, a close-up revealing a tear.
"Yes," he replied. "Where's my share of the money you bastard?"
Bob's face fell. The phone line went dead. The programme cut to adverts. Alastair went to get his dinner.

XMAS

I watched the twin suns of Apollo rise majestically above the burning horizon; creating turbulent golden flares that lit up the barren terrain of Andromeda Four; followed by showers of fiery rain that pounded against the craggy rocks and cremated the landscape.

I watched the eerie glow in the ice caverns of Narnia: frosty hydrogen stalagmites stretching upward to their stalactite partners in a surreal embrace; liquid helium dripping into clear rippling pools.

I watched a cluster of twinkling turquoise stars from the Evangelical galaxy; glistening against the harsh night sky, become greedily swallowed by the devil’s black hole.

I watched the sea green rings of Saturnus twirl like a ballerina’s tutu; silky, shimmering softness, that captured my soul.

But I couldn’t watch my precious Angelica hug the lop-eared bunny that Santa mailed from Terminal Nine - with all my love, from Daddy.

Maybe I could, next Christmas…

I guess we'll be skipping the January comp then?

Looks like it, W, although an adjudged winner for the December one would be nice. Maybe the good folk at Writers' Workshop have all disappeared like your bus passenger. Only a closer analogy would be: here we all are, enjoying endless happy chats on the bus - and the driver's disappeared!

Good King Wenceslas looked out onto Bond Street where the snow lay deep. He stepped from his limousine and ventured forth to seek a pressy for Queen Camipoos. “Page!” he commanded his skulking minion. “Send to Dominos for my lunch and if you get deep pan crisp and even again I will stuff it where the cold winter wind blows. Ah!” came a regal sigh as he peered into the jeweller’s window. “I spy a winsome diamond bracelet for Cami. What the…” exclaimed the ermine-clad shopper, beholding a revolting beggar shivering in the porch daring to try to sell His Highness a copy of the Big Issue. “Yonder peasant, cease to pollute this noble neighbourhood with your presence. Page!” he barked as he trod with care around the parasitical obstruction. “Don’t forget the email to Harrods. Must have all the grub and drinkies in ready for the Feast of Stephen.”

Never mind passengers... Entire buses disappear when I'm at the bus stop? Where do they go!