Part 14 (1/2)
Light1: As much as humans strive to be individuals, they have one universal weakness: the susceptibility to temptation As much as humans strive to be individuals, they have one universal weakness: the susceptibility to temptation
BandHClay: You played ht1: Like the two little eyes on a coconut, the perfect place to crack it open Eat enough coconuts and you know Like the two little eyes on a coconut, the perfect place to crack it open Eat enough coconuts and you know
BandHClay: You knew just how to do it, didn't you-how best to te? You knew just how to do it, didn't you-how best to teht1: With ould I tempt you? With ould I tempt you?
I stared at the screen Did he not think I would realize what he was doing? After several ? Have you been writing?
”When haven't I been?” I wanted to type in large, angry caps I wanted to yell through that chatthat I was like a e of four hours of sleep, Chinese takeout, coffee, and whatever happened to be in the office break rooive the story to Helen, and that the sooner hell was invented, the better
BandHClay: As though I could help it, as you very well know You know you could have written it all down and really subh I could help it, as you very well know You know you could have written it all down and really subht1: And languish in sub hell? Please and no thank you Besides, I told you: My story is ultiuish in sub hell? Please and no thank you Besides, I told you: My story is ultimately about you
BandHClay: I still don't understand! I still don't understand!
Light1: You will You will
I must have broken a sweat at the first appearance of the chat box It beaded now against ht1: Distribute the proposal for next week's
BandHClay: What makes you think I have a proposal? I need a synopsis for that, and to write a synopsis, I need to kno it ends What makes you think I have a proposal? I need a synopsis for that, and to write a synopsis, I need to kno it ends
Light1: Just give her what you have Helen will love it and ask for the full ive her what you have Helen will love it and ask for the full et it? There isn't a full et it? There isn't a full ht1: There will be There will be
19
The old woh the feathery curls of her hair Beneath the fake fur collar of her wool coat, her back curved up into a bu me of the woman at Vittorio's as she blew out the candle on her cake Over the tops of her gray boots, stockings a shade too tan bridged the distance to the hem of her skirt, the skin beneath as veined as pinkan elaborate nativity scene Aubrey had started Susanna's collection two years before we ift to her every year since
The woman's head swiveled on her bent neck as she looked from one Christmas tree to another, each of them crammed with ornaments like a chicken breast stuffed with bread cru in a fantasy rain of giant, s of the season” She plucked an ornament from a nearby tree: a rendition of a snoorthy of Dr Seuss
My happiest childhood memories were of Christmas, when a covert visit from Santa was the pinnacle of the season; before I learned that soifts than others, that visits froot ot reduced to paycheck bonuses, unpleasant gatherings, and a pile of trash left out on the curb on January 2
”And how I adore your nativity scenes Porcelain and pristine, so pretty” Separating the syllables of ”pretty” as e of the table, looking down at the nativity scene the price tag of which was quietly displayed on a corner of the stable: 2,499 She plunked the snow her, I could have sworn so moved behind the h elaborately painted wise h to see what he had on beneath his robes-”it never really happened that way The wise ather round, and Mary didn't wear blue She wasn't wearing , coht of a naked Mary offended even ious sense
”What? She was in labor” She dropped Joseph on his back in the usted, wanting one sacred thing-even if it was an aan feasts I would likely not take part in this year-to hold onto I had co but mostly to experience the holiday vicariously, to seek out the cos of a season that had once meant happiness
”Your Christmas ditties, the ones about the actual incident and not about dancing snow deer, or fat men in red, always ht have been any little old lady talking about her grandchildren, her white hair fluffing around her head like the spun fiberglass snow of the village display at the store's main entrance
”Had it not been for the identity of the baby, it would have been an otherwise unreht, and your polite 'Greensleeves' would have been an appropriate soundtrack, after all But it wasn't an ordinary baby It wasn't an unreht”
I felt, rather than heard, a suffocating silence close in aroundflash of a star careen toward its zenith
It wasn't silent at all! I was falling and see pulse filled h the taut skin of a dru in iant heart But then that thruht until I thought I couldn't stand it, feeling that if it stopped I ht die, as one dies with the last beat of a heart And then it was not a sound at all but a wave of energy, surging as an ocean crashi+ng upon a stony shore I was falling and see pulse filled h the taut skin of a dru in iant heart But then that thruht until I thought I couldn't stand it, feeling that if it stopped I ht die, as one dies with the last beat of a heart And then it was not a sound at all but a wave of energy, surging as an ocean crashi+ng upon a stony shore