Early Christmas Mourning
The days were getting shorter and the Morne family spent more and more time huddled inside their home beside the fire, its orange glow fighting to keep out the harsh reality of the white storm outside. There was a mother and father, whose story this was not, and a young boy named Christopher Morne, but who preferred Chris.
The TV was on, as it always was, showing the usual drab flow of blandness that became acceptable, and even enjoyable, at this time of year. Things that no one would ever be able to stomach on any other occasion but were met with responses like, “It’s Christmas, for god’s sake.”
But this Christmas had something that no other Christmas had had before, or rather, lacked something it had had before; someone who would brighten up Chris’s day, his grandmother.
The day started with presents, as it always did, and the mother and father did all they could to distract Chris away from the emptiness outside the window, the cold, white, blank abyss. They dazzled him with toys and video games and movies and even more toys. Toys that could speak and toys that couldn’t, games that you played with others and ones that left you all alone.
Then came the dinner: a turkey bigger than Chris’s head with glazed orange-brown skin that dripped as Chris’s mouth did; mountains of different kinds of potatoes, mashed with tons of butter, roasted to crispy brown perfection, and boiled with the thin layer of skin holding in soft, fluffy goodness.
All of this was hyped by parents who danced like children’s TV hosts with overly enthusiastic voices that said things like,
“I wonder what that next one is!”
Or,
“Wow, it’s really good isn’t it?”
But Chris still looked out at the snow smothering every non-white surface outside. After a few hours, when all the events of the day were beginning to wind down and he would be left to play with his new presents, he asked a question.
“Can I go play in the attic, Mummy?”
The parents looked at each other, unsure of how to respond until one of them did. “Why do you want to go up there, sweetie?”
“Because I want to play with Nana,” Chris replied with a face so innocent it could melt the blizzard.
And again his parents looked at one another, in a way that Chris didn’t understand. They were worried for him. They’d tried to explain how Nana wouldn’t be visiting anymore and that she was in a better place now. Chris had asked if he could visit her instead. They’d said no. And that was the end of that.
Then, on no particular day, Chris told them that he’d heard a noise from the attic. A bumping around from above the ceiling of his bedroom, through the little hatch door that sat above his bunkbed. He’d climbed out of bed in the middle of the night, clutching a nightlight and stumbled sleepily down the hallway in his pyjamas to his parents’ bedroom.
They’d checked the attic and nothing was there. Just a bird or something, one of them had said. Chris had asked what if the bird was stuck and couldn’t get out, but his parents calmed his concerns with a simple, “If there’s a way into somewhere, then there’s always a way out.”
A few nights after that, Chris heard more bumping from the attic. Just a bird, he thought, nothing to be afraid of. So he pushed up on the attic hatch that sat over his top bunk until it swung open. There was no harm in helping the bird find its way.
That was when Chris saw his Nana again, sitting in an old rocking chair that hadn’t been there before, covered in cobwebs. He couldn’t believe it, they’d said he couldn’t see her again and yet here she was, and he saw her as perfect as the last time they spoke.
They talked for hours about anything and everything until Chris was too tired to carry on and he lumbered back down the hatch and into bed. And every night after that he went and spent time with Nana, and that was how it was supposed to be.
When Christmas came around, Chris was worried that Nana wasn’t getting any food, wasn’t given any presents, and was locked away in the attic where there was nothing fun. He told his parents he wanted to play with Nana and, reluctantly, they agreed.
After he scurried away, they said such things to each other as, “Maybe he needs this. Maybe he needs a bit of time to move on,” and, “I’m not sure what to do, we’ve told him before. How do we make him understand?”
But Chris understood perfectly. He was talking to Nana.
He grabbed some of the leftover turkey, and a few toys, and scrambled up the stairs on all fours. The toys and turkey were hurled up to the top bunk and Chris followed them up the ladder. The hatch seemed to open of its own accord and he thanked it, as you were supposed to say thanks when doors were opened for you.
There, sitting in the same old rocking chair, was Nana.
“Ahh, Chris,” she started, seeing what he was carrying. “You didn’t have to.” Her voice was grey and croaky, even more than it was before. Her skin had thinned to a translucent grey where you could see the blues of her veins like oceans winding through her body. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, the way people did in rocking chairs.
“I got you turkey,” Chris offered with a smile across his face.
Nana snatched it with bony claws. And with a drooling mouth gobbled it up. “Thank you very much, Chris.”
“You’re welcome, Nana.”
Chris sat there with a smile on his face as he looked up at his Nana. He played with his new toy trains which didn’t speak, and a toy robot which did, telling her all about his day.
After a while, she asked a question that Chris had never heard before. She’d only ever asked nice questions and this one didn’t make Chris feel nice. “Chris, when are you going to let me go?” Her eyes looked as if they would drip but didn’t have the tears to do so.
“We’re having fun, Nana. Aren’t you having fun?” His eyes dripped with tears that he certainly didn’t lack. Christmas was supposed to be a happy time of celebration and fun, not of loss and tears.
She sighed. “Y-yes, dear, I am. B-but I was — ”
“If you’re having fun, then why would you want to go?” His question was earnest, but his words were barbed. His orange hair now appeared as flames over his head, the fires of Hell condemning her to this place.
Nana felt the cold wind forcing its way through the roof tiles and the wooden boards beneath. She felt hunger, insatiable hunger that ached her stomach like two titanic hands crushing it into a diamond. She felt… hollow, as the world passed her by and she was forced to remain. Because ghosts are memories, memories that haven’t yet been pushed into the past. Memories that refuse to not be the present.
Cobwebs wove their way down from the wood of the roof and across Nana’s wrinkled grey face, and spiders crawled about over wafer-thin flesh. But, as always, Chris didn’t seem to see them, as if the image of his Nana had to be preserved just the way it was and if reality didn’t conform with it then that was reality’s problem.
“Please, Chris, you have to understand. I’m gone.”
“How can you be gone if you’re still here?”
And she didn’t have an answer for that which wouldn’t lead to more questions. She considered lifting herself from her chair, maybe frighten him in some way. Shake the illusion he had painted over his eyes. Allow him to move on.
“Please, Chris,” she pleaded, her throat dry and almost heaving. Bony fingers reached out and Chris swatted them away as a god would their believer. Her body had no strength to heave herself up even if she tried.
Then there was only one hope, even if she knew it wouldn’t work. “HELP! HELP ME!” She called out for Chris’s parents, but no one came. Only Chris could hear her, and he held his hands over his ears from the sound.
When she ran out of the strength to utter syllables, Chris stood up with his toys. “That wasn’t very nice, Nana.”
“Please, Chris, please.”
He turned away from her defiantly and stamped his foot like his parents did when they were cross with him. “I’m not talking to you now, Nana. You can sit up here and think about what you’ve done.” He started to walk away back to the hatch, back to Christmas.
“Chris, don’t leave me! When you’re gone it’s like I’m just… stuck. I don’t feel. I don’t — ”
But Chris had already made up his mind and stomped away in his onesie pyjamas, the sounds of his feet on wood muffled by the soft plush boots they came with. With one singular movement he bounced down onto his bed and the hatch snapped shut behind him.
There were days, months later, that Chris could still hear the rocking chair banging against the floorboards of the attic above. Sounds that he couldn’t bring himself to answer. Nana had ruined Christmas for him and so Chris left her up there.
Christmas is a time to celebrate not only family, but also to celebrate the end of a year. The end of something and the beginning of something new. The journey out of the dark and into the light. From death to whatever might come afterwards.
To read more stories from December’s Dark & Holy Fiction Challenge visit and follow The Mad River Literary Journal and 13 Days Pub.
