Benjamin took a rag and folded it neatly in half to wipe
down the mirror which his shower had fogged up. This would be his third and
final attempt to get his necktie just right. When he got the tie adjusted to
his very particular liking, he stood back and looked at himself in the mirror.
To any other observer, this man with marginally good looks had groomed himself for
what could have been a job interview. He picked up the comb and carefully dragged
it once down the right side of his head, then twice on the left. Sufficiently
satisfied that every hair was perfectly in place he smiled at himself in the
mirror. It was such a subtle curl of his lips that the smile was practically
imperceptible to anyone but him. He shut the lights as he exited the bathroom.
The fireplace had been going for sometime leaving the rest
of the house warm and smelling of a forest of beech trees. Benjamin walked over
to the kitchen and checked on the food one more time to make sure all was in
order. The roast was partly done, ready to be brought up to the perfect
doneness at the perfect time. The sauce was heated to just the right
temperature. Glasses and drinks were chilled and the desert was all but put
together. Constructing the desert is going to be the most fun part of the meal,
Benjamin told himself. Walking over to the dining table, he made miniscule
adjustments to the flatware and silverware when he noticed a harsh glare coming
off his dish.
Not wanting to have to go through the trouble of changing
the dish, Benjamin turned off the lights over the dining table. It made it too
dark to see anything on the plate come dinner time so he went digging in the
pantry where he kept candles handy in the event of a power outage. He set two
candles in candleholders and put them on the center of the table. He rummaged
through one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out an old book of matches to
light the candles. They had never been lit so it took some time to melt the thin
layer of wax on the stiff wick before the flame found its balance atop each
candle. The entire house was bathed in the warm, soft light of the candles and
fireplace. Another smile briefly flashed on Benjamin’s face.
Though he wouldn’t consider himself much of a drinker,
Benjamin believed that, in moderation, the occasional scotch would ease the
anxiety that came with this particular time of year. Admittedly, he felt that
the sparse drinking he did made him appreciate the flavor even more. He poured
himself a drink and as he took a modest sip felt the gold liquid heat his
gullet all the way down to his empty stomach. The clock indicated that it was
early yet to make final preparations for dinner so he walked over to the window
to admire the gentle snowfall. The only cars in the street outside were parked
along the street allowing the entire area to be blanketed with snow. Then there
was a rustle just out of his view.
It was the shouts of children running the quiet street.
Maybe they yelled to be heard through the layers that protected their rosy
cheeks from the cold or maybe because it was just fun, Benjamin would never
know. A woman, presumably their mother, and the oldest of the children carried
wrapped boxes in both hands. The mother could barely see over her parcels, the
child could barely keep them from touching the ground. The other children, much
younger, squatted to the ground on the lookout for one another as they packed
the snow into uneven spheres to chuck at each other playfully until the mother
scolded them for falling behind. They laughed and caught up with the rest of
the family, still throwing the snowballs at each other.
Benjamin grew up on the west coast. There were no such
things as snow days and white Christmases for any of the children of his
neighborhood where most rites of passages were summertime rituals. But even
then, young Benjamin (or “Ben” as he was known then) wasn’t usually found with
other children. Most of the friends he made were either one of the many adults
who helped raise him or one of the few children he had grown up with who had
all moved away before Ben had started junior high. He never found them again
but a piece of him wishes he had put just a little more effort into looking. Instead
he nurses his drink and watches the small footprints retrace the steps of a
childhood he had never known.
RING! The phone screeched jolting Benjamin out of his fit of
nostalgia. He quickly made his way to the phone and laid the glass of scotch
beside it as he picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” he answered, “Oh! Hello! Are you on your--”
Only Benjamin was able to hear the other half of the
conversation.
“Oh… I see,” he responded. “I see.”
His words, along with his breath, slowed with each
subsequent sentence.
“No, not at all! That’s entirely ok,” He seemed to lose
gusto with each passing second he was on the phone.
“Yeah, no… I didn’t… I didn’t
go through any trouble at all.”
There was a beat followed by a hushed click on the other end
of the phone. The receiver seemed to grow heavier in Benjamin’s hand as he
finally hung up. He slowly took in a deep breath before drinking the rest of
his scotch and clearing the table of unused dishes and silverware. Blowing out
the candles he took them to the kitchen counter leaving a delicate trail of
smoke behind him. The sauce was taken off the stovetop, the roast out of the
oven and the fate of the desert was uncertain as he shut off the kitchen lights.
His shoulders seemed to grow heavier than the receiver as he made his way to the
fireplace to turn off the gas.
It wasn’t until he stepped away from the heat of the dying
fire on the hearth that he realized how clammy his palms had become, how hard
his heart was beating. He didn’t even know that he had loosened his tie in a
messy knot hanging off his neck by several inches. His feet dragged the rest of
him to the window. The streets were emptier than before with all their lonely
corners filled with even more snow. All the children’s footprints were buried
underneath it all, visible only to Benjamin if he really looked for it. Tired
of trying to retrace that snowball fight, he pulled the curtains shut and
meticulously tugged on them to ensure that the pleats were exactly where they
were supposed to be.
“The scotch must be getting to me,” he thought to himself as
he wandered into the bedroom. He took off his tie and folded it, laying it
neatly on the dresser by his bed. The door shut behind him but no one would
ever know that this year Benjamin would spend Christmas alone.
Some time passed and the wind howled for a bit before dying
down leaving several inches of snow outside burying those children’s footprints
for good. Had this been another moment of another day of another part of the
year when the snow and ice encased the lonely outside in its pristine shell, it
would have been easy for Benjamin to spend the rest of the night bundled up in
bed, insulated by so many reasons to stay inside. But it was Christmas and he
found himself feeling uncharacteristically spontaneous. Just outside his house,
he built a snowman with the craftsmanship of a small child and he couldn’t be
happier with it. He smiled his largest smile of the day, proud of the new
friend he had built himself. Looking around to see if anyone was watching he
squatted down to compact a bunch of snow into a ball and threw it up into air
letting it hit him with great gusto. He brushed the flecks of ice off his hair
as he walked back inside, admiring the patterns his footprints left in the
snow.
