Seeing is Not Believing
Literally Literary and The Writing Cooperative prompt
Let me be with the truth for a while before I get dissolved in the lies
Christmas Eve 1985, brave little Mike returned from the bathroom at 1.15 am and froze in his tracks. The man stood in the living room wearing a dark red coat and pants with a matching pointy hat. Mike’s eyes shifted towards the man’s huge belly and he started laughing seeing the shiny belt with tiny silver bells. The man’s hair and beard were like candy floss but white.
The man raised a finger to his lips and winked at Mike with a twinkle in his blue eyes. Then he placed a heavy hand on six-year-old Mike’s head and Mike felt a warmth spread through his body.
Mike straightened his hair and giggled. The man climbed out of the window and disappeared.
Mike stood there for a moment and then he saw it lying on the furry carpet; a tiny silver bell. He ran and picked it up, played with it for a while, and then went to sleep.
Mike woke up excited on Christmas morning and ran to check on the gifts, “Mom, you won’t believe who was here last night,” Mike said, tearing the red wrapping paper.
“Who?” his mother asked.
“Santa Claus, he came to give me these gifts.”
“Of course he did,” his mother replied smiling and went into the kitchen.
“Look Dad, he gave me a bell,”
“That’s fantastic,” Dad said.
After opening his gifts, Mike ran outside to deliver this exciting news to his neighbor Tim, who was around his age. “I met Santa last night,” Mike said, unable to contain his excitement.
“Wow,” Tim exclaimed as it was the coolest thing to ever happen to someone.
“Why didn’t I meet him last night?” Tim’s smile disappeared.
“You must have gone to sleep,” Mike said.
‘You were awake,” Tim said, getting jealous.
“Yeah, I had gone to the bathroom alone at night,” Mike said, emphasizing the last three words.
Tim’s jealousy rose. “Next year, I will meet him too,” he said.
Mike spent the next few days of the holiday bubbling with excitement. He couldn’t wait for the school to reopen.
“I met Santa on Christmas Eve,” Mike narrated the event to everyone on the first day of school. He paused at moments so that his audience could exclaim “Whoa” and “Wow”. He even told his teacher who gave him a warm smile. Mike was the happiest kid that year.
For the next few Christmases, Mike’s attempts to meet Santa were foiled by sleep. One Christmas morning, ten-year-old Mike went to talk to Tim. “Have you met Santa?” Mike asked.
“No, I remain awake every year, nobody ever came,” Tim said angrily.
“You must have been dozing off,” Mike said, his anger rising too.
Tim paused for a moment, then said, “No I didn’t doze off, you lied,”
“I never lie,” Mike said indignantly.
Mike was right, he never lied. Over the years, he had grown into an honest, kind, and imaginative kid.
After that day, Tim started giving the cold shoulder to Mike.
In the next couple of years, Mike saw his parents arguing a lot. His father would often come home late and remained angry or worried most of the time. There was neither a tree nor any gifts that Christmas.
Then one day in June, Mike stood stunned as men carried huge boxes from his empty house.
“We are shifting to a new house,” Mom had told him a few days ago along with other details.
Mike couldn’t control himself. “We can’t leave,” he shouted. His parents’ head turned.
“Mike, we discussed this,” Mom said.
“But how will Santa find me?” The words came out of his mouth before he could stop.
“Mike, I don’t have time for this nonsense,” Dad said, glaring at him.
“It’s not nonsense. I still have the bell, it must be in one of those boxes,” Mike said, realizing he had not seen that bell in years.
“You will soon be a teenager. Why can’t you behave like a normal boy?” Dad shouted. Dad’s cold words pierced Mike like a knife and he ran outside. Mom rushed after him to calm him down. After an hour, Mike sat red-eyed at the back of the car as they drove to the new house.
Mike still went to the same school, though now it was farther from his house.
Thirteen-year-old Mike lay on the ground; the pain in his moist knee indicated torn skin. His bag fell inches away from him. He got up to confront the boy, “Why did you push me?”
“Oh, I was just checking whether your fairy godmother would catch you or not?” the boy sneered. The rest of the class burst out laughing. Mike curled his fist and pounced on the boy, but the arrival of their teacher stopped him.
Mike’s anger refused to subside. After reaching home, he threw his bag and kicked a chair. “Mike, what’s wrong?” Mom asked.
“I had a fight at school. Everyone thinks I am mad because I saw Santa that night.” Mike kicked the chair again.
His mother’s expression changed to that of concern, “Mike you were six, you must have had a dream. Why can’t you let it go?”
Mike saw no point in arguing and went to his room. He didn’t even eat dinner. At night he got up to grab something from the refrigerator and halted at his parents’ voices coming from the living room.
“Do you think someone had broken in that night?” Mom said.
“Was something missing?” Dad asked.
“No.”
“Maybe the thief saw Mike and thought he might alert us.”
“Should we take him to some therapist if he believes it was real?” Mom said in a concerned voice.
Mike’s body went numb for a minute. He returned to his room and sat clutching his pillow. He couldn’t breathe. “They don’t believe me, they never did. They always thought of me as a stupid kid.” He mumbled. He hardly slept that night.
Mike woke up the next morning with a pain in his head as well as his knee. At breakfast, the concern on his parents’ faces irked him.
“Mike, your Dad and I were thinking maybe you should talk to someone, a Doctor?” Mom said in a low voice.
Mike snapped, “No need. I won’t be talking about this children stuff again. From now on I will behave like a normal kid,” he said, looking his father in the eye.
Something changed inside Mike that day. From that day, he distanced himself from anything that involved fantasy or imagination.
That Christmas, Mike tightly shut the doors and windows of his house. But Santa didn’t need windows. He came and blessed Mike with virtue like he did every year until Mike turned eighteen. Unfortunately, by that time Mike had stopped celebrating Christmas altogether.
Christmas Eve 2019, seven-year-old Sam balanced herself on her toes, one foot covered in a sock, another bare.
She clutched the other sock as she tried to hang it on the window. Attempt number four failed and Sam landed on the thick plush carpet. Bushy hair covered her face, and the sock landed on her head. She moved aside her hair and scurried to the door. But her father seemed busy with his annual cleaning.
Sam didn’t see any point in trying again and went to the window dejected. She stood there and saw the neighbors celebrating with the big tree, bright lights, and gift boxes. But what she liked the most were the big red socks. She had heard the kids talk at school about hanging these socks. Sam had never celebrated Christmas. She didn’t understand why her father hated Christmas so much.
Mike sat in the storeroom going through the old stuff and throwing away useless things. He followed this ritual every year. As he poured the contents of a dusty box, a tiny silver bell fell on the floor. Mike picked it up, the hidden memory felt unreal. Something stirred inside him, he got up and opened the door. “Hey, Sam.”
Sam heard the voice and quickly pulled the culprit sock on her feet, one eye fixed on the door.
As Mike entered the room, Sam sat cross-legged on the floor, feigning innocence.
“Hey Sam. Would you like to put a sock up the window. Maybe some decorations too?”
Sam inserted a finger in her ear, not sure whether she heard it correctly.
“Dad? You want to celebrate… Christmas?” she asked wide-eyed.
“Yeah, what’s the harm?” Mike said clutching the silver bell in his fist.
© Jaya V 2019
