Merry Christmas
[A/N: This is a strange sort of vignette. I woke up early this morning, felt depressed, and wrote it. So, please don't kill me about this story, 'cause I think the insanity from the Prozac Unit is contagious.]
It's just a brief euphoria, it is.
Christmas.
Lasts for a few hours, and then goes away, like the mist you can never grasp.
I sweep a string of lights off the table, and stalk toward the kitchen.
Sara and Jordan were there, happy.
Jordan, because she was getting a ton of presents from our relatives, including some new idiot teenybopper CD.
Sara, because 'Santa came with lots of presents for me'.
I felt an incredible urge to rip all the Santas in the house to pieces when she said that. No, not because I wanted to hurt my sister.
Just because of what this idiot holiday represents.
You know, 'peace and love and joy and goodwill to all men', all that bull.
And I have to deal with all this anger and pain about the war. But I can't do anything about the freaking war.
Now . . . . even now, I hear David's screams in my head.
Now . . . . even now, I see the faces of the ones I've killed.
Now . . . . even now, I can feel the bloody pain, taste the coppery blood.
Now . . . . even now, there's no forgetting who or what I am.
It makes me want to cry.
But Xena doesn't cry. And now, on this day, I'm still Xena.
But then, I can't do anything to all the Santas. Because Sara and Jordan are still innocent.
Even though there's only two years between me and Jordan, I'm hundreds of years older.
"Rachel?" Jordan asks, and I turn.
"Yeah?"
She grins at me, her little-sister attitude gone. "Can we open the presents now?"
I laugh. My laughter sounds fake and unreal. It is fake and unreal to say the truth. "Wait for Mom, Jordan."
She laughs also. "So, what'd you get me?"
I shake my head. "Is that all you can think about?"
And for a few minutes, everything's really, truly, gloriously okay.
We open the presents and all.
Cassie got me a gift certificate for Foleys. Go figure.
But it's when Mom hands me the package, and says, 'This one's from Jake and Tom,' that's when I really freeze up.
Open it, Rachel. It's not like it's a bomb, you know.
I rip open the paper with trembling hands.
Tom got me some CD. I toss it aside.
And Jake got me . . . . . oh, he got me a sculpture.
Of a bear, no less.
I do a sort of laugh and a sob at the same time. A bear.
I open the cards.
I don't even bother to read Tom's. After all, it's not his card. Just a slug's card. A slug that I'm probably going to squish someday.
Jake's card. It's short. Just says, 'Hey, Rach. Thought you might like this sculpture.'
I laugh again, and sob at the same time.
He got me a freaking bear. Oh, sure, I know he didn't mean any harm in it. Just 'cause he knew I always morphed it.
He didn't know what it meant to me.
Today, today of all days, today, he has to remind me about the war?
I swallow a sob, and look up.
Good. Mom, Sara, and Jordan just think I'm crying 'cause I'm so happy.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
"So," Mom says. "Merry Christmas."
I laugh, wiping tears away, and say it. All the meaningless words that mean nothing to me.
So, cousin. Merry Christmas. Thanks for the sculpture.
Merry Christmas, all right.
Merry Christmas.
[A/N: Well? Liked it, loved it, hated it? Send any and all replies to me at anifuture@hotmail.com. And take a look at my webpage, at http://anifuture.hypermart.net.]