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Friday, December 10, 2010

Tea & Wine: A Christmas Carol

Christmas leapt upon me from out of a dark alley like a filthy street tough. What did it want? My money and my dignity. Left with little recourse, I surrendered both with only a whimper.

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting in the kitchen, a half-empty bottle of wine sits before me, backlit from the light off the stove. The only other light in the room comes from my laptop, upon which I am desperately seeking distraction and entertainment. In the end, I find myself scrolling page after page of pornography, the lewd and disgusting photos wash over me, provoking neither arousal nor interest in the least. On the other side of the kitchen my electric kettle whistles indignantly, growing louder and louder as I ignore its presence. I pour myself another glass of wine.
The clock strikes midnight, down the street I can hear a church bell chiming solemnly its twelve chimes, and I shut my laptop preparing to go to bed. I’m not even halfway up the stairs to my bedroom when I hear a knock at the door. No. It’s fucking Christmas and its past midnight. I’m not answering the fucking door. I find that the wine has made my head exceptionally heavy and its becoming increasingly difficult to carry an increasingly uncooperative body up the stairs. Again a knock at the door. The banging echoes inside my head and I have to sit down on the stairs or risk collapsing. “Go. The fuck. Away!” I shout at the door. The knocking ceases and the pain in my head begins to subside. Instead I hear what sounds like a key in the lock. And then I can hear the unmistakable creaking sound of my door opening. “What the fuck?” From my perch halfway up the stairs I can see the lights in the kitchen turn on followed by a rustling in the pantry and the sound of a man grumbling under his breath.
Feeling emboldened by the night’s alcohol consumption, I stumble heavily back down the stairs and towards the kitchen, entirely prepared to drunkenly fight this late night intruder. And just like any good television drama, I come around the corner to find the stranger half hidden behind the door of the refrigerator. He continues to curse more or less inaudibly as he rummages through the contents of my refrigerator. The contents which were, I can honestly admit, quite paltry and disappointing. Even my plans for Christmas Eve dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and soup had been foiled by a rather pathetic lack of both bread and soup. Apparently having realized this himself, my intruder abruptly stands up, slams shut the refrigerator door, and turns to look directly at me.
Leaning against a door jamb for stability and wielding an empty wine bottle, I feel rather more intimidating than in reality I am. Nonetheless, I am struck dumb the second I see the face of my intruder. For it is my face. Well except that the face staring back at me looks considerably younger, considerably healthier, and sports a fashionably trimmed beard. But the nose is the same, the eyes are the same blue, the mouth is curled into the same sarcastic grin and hides the same crooked teeth. Altogether he strikes a slightly younger, less impoverished doppelganger. “Merry Christmas,” he says cheerfully and extends a hand towards me. I’m not quite sure just how drunk I am at the moment so, without options, I extend my hand to shake. Instead he briskly grabs the empty wine bottle from my other hand. He makes the same face I make when I’m vaguely disappointed and says, “You couldn’t leave some for a brother?”
I’ve never before been so drunk that I’ve actually hallucinated before so I’m not really sure how to deal with this whole situation. So I just shake my head vigorously and reply, “Did you just say ‘brotha’?”
“I actually said ‘brother’ but the idea is the same, I suppose.” Putting the wine bottle down he walks away from me and into the pantry, where he continues to move things around, “Haven’t you got another bottle around here somewhere?”
“No, that was my only one.” At this point I feel like having an open and honest conversation with my doppelganger is the only rational option. “I didn’t want to spend my whole Christmas holiday completely trashed.”
“Bah!” he shouts, half annoyed and half sarcastic (just like me!). “That just won’t do at all. Come on. We’re hitting the town.” From the bowl on the counter he pulls out my car keys. From the closet by the door he pulls out my coat and tosses it to me.
“Wait. No. This is just too much. I’m not going out ‘hitting the town’ with my drunken hallucination in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve!”
Finally, that seemed to catch him off guard. “Your drunken hallucination? Is that what you think this is?” Not knowing how else to respond I stand there and nod dumbly. Shockingly he begins to laugh. In fact he laughs so hard he has to sit down to control himself. “No, my good man. This is not a hallucination, drunken or otherwise.” He gestures to the stool across from himself and, still dumb and mute, I sit down. “I’m your Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“You’re gonna have to run that one by me again.”
“Ghost of Christmas Past. You know the Christmas Carol? Dickens?”
“Duh.”
“Okay, well you don’t have to be snarky. Anyways, I’m your Ghost of Christmas Past and I’m here to teach you the meaning of Christmas. So grab your fucking coat, we’re going to the bar.”
Your author, full of Christmas cheer and Christmas sangria

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