He’s the kind of kid who, just looking at him, you know gets bullied by the older boys and takes it out on everyone who is either weaker than him or required to refrain from smacking him.
I have never tried to walk through a mall in the Christmas season dressed like a jolly old elf. You might as well dress up like a pork chop and walk into an alley full of starving dogs.
Things had improved after he was born. We both loved him with such fervor that it was impossible that some wouldn’t splash back on us.
I’m a holiday Christian at best and I’d never given much thought to demons. They were an adult version of the boogieman hiding in every kid’s closet.
The whole concept of some stranger making his way down our chimney - not that we had one - suggested burglary more readily than generosity. Any Santa who tried it would have gotten a bullet in his holly, jolly keister.
The body tries to stop the mind from killing itself, no matter the cost. It is only the lack of strength, the fatigue that lets the jumpers fall at last.
We half-eat cookies and drink the milk, we leave notes, all so kids will believe in something that isn’t true. Kids try their best to scientifically determine whether Santa's real and our whole culture feeds them false evidence. We dupe them.
There might have been prettier women in the room but, when she turned those babies on, fluttered her eyelashes, I was hers. It had taken me nearly fifteen years to extinguish their light. Now, when she looks at me, it's a vacuum. I had drained so muc...
