I sit down quietly on the couch, wondering what the hell is going on. I feel chilled and grab the well-loved throw off the back of the couch, wrapping it around myself. From under the couch comes a bump and a jolt as one of the cats decides the coast may be clear.

A fluttering of dust puffs out of the fireplace. I look wonderingly at it, wondering if yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he is coming out of my fireplace. There is a rustling sound which sends the cats back under the couch, and a splatting sound that is followed by a string of swear words so ripe it even makes me blush. I stand up, leaving the blanket on the couch, and as I peer under the brick edge of the chimney a sudden shower of black coal dust coats the room. I see something dark moving...moving...and BAM! I am hit by something solidly the size of a football, and moving at about that speed. I trip over the open box of Christmas cards I left on the floor and look up in time to see the football slam into the wall, leaving an enormous black puffball of coal dust.

"Jesus Christ!" shrieks the football. It slides gracefully down the wall before moving and, in one movement, shakes itself off and frees itself of coal. I see the football isn't actually a football, it's a small barn owl.

"What the hell? Is my house suddenly Mutual of Fucking Omaha? Is Marlin Perkins coming in, too?" I say in wonder, looking at the owl shaking its leg off.

"What are you talking about?" asks the barn owl in a gruff voice.

"You're an owl. An owl! What, they're so desperate for help they hire wildlife now?" I ask. "I suppose you're the Ghost of Christmas Present, or are you just here to tell me how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

"I find your churlish remarks to be inane," frets the owl. "And your chimney is filthy, have you ever thought about cleaning it?"

"Didn't you just do that for me?"

The owl cocks his head, considering. "Fair point. OK, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present, as you guessed. Name's Bob." The owl ruffles its feathers and a tiny wave of dust makes its way to the floor again. "Sorry about that," Bob says, looking down at the perfect halo of black on the floor around him. I look at Bob-he's got soft-looking white feathers down his chest, black eyes, and a line of brown around the bottom of his face like the thinnest of goatees. He's not large, roughly the size of a football, and he hops on slender well-clawed feet over to me.

"Could you bend down here? You're doing my neck in."

"I thought owls could rotate their heads 180 degress," I reply.

"What are you, a Discovery Channel closet case? Just get your ass down here," barks Bob.

I sit cross-legged on the floor as Bob flaps his wings and sits on the edge of the table only recently righted by Fido. He fluffs his feathers again, and I find he smells like soil, hay, and blueberries. He clicks his off-white beak together a few times and cocks his head to look at me. "Now Helen, I'm here to take you through your present. There's a lot going on that you don't really see, not really, and we have to fix that. You're not well, kid. Not well at all. And it's sad, 'cause it's only going to go downhill from here."

I watch him silently, thinking I've heard all of this before.

He clicks his beak again and, raising his wings with no effort at all, he floats up onto my shoulder. His claws settle in reassuringly on my shoulder, holding tight but not too tight. His weight is comforting and solid.

"Stand up, kid, and let's go for a walk, ok?" he twits.

"Ok." I say, standing. He settles himself in and balances as I stand up, and we walk to the door. "And Bob? If you leave a present down my back I'm going to be really pissed off."

"Don't pressure me, I've had a lot of coffee today," tweaks Bob, as I reach for the doorknob and open the door. As we step out the front door, once again my foot doesn't reach the soggy Ikea doormat outside the step. Instead I find myself in my mother's living room, her living room in Dallas, her living room so far away. It's just as I remember it-the plush couches forming an imaginary battalion, her hardwood floors slick and shellacked. On the dining room table a festive bowl of holly is set out, along with the detritus that my mother always used to collect and pick up and move around in the eventuality of it finding its home-bills, a tube of lipstick, a pair of fingernail clippers, a few CDs.

Bob coughs next to me. He looks at me, holding a wing over his beak. "Sorry. Pellet coming later on."

The Christmas tree is lit up in a corner, and I turn to it, looking for the familiar ones. Somewhere on the tree should be that horrible plastic of Paris ornament of a Victorian woman I painted when I was about 6. She has a garish face because I couldn't manipulate a paintbrush very well, so the black for her eyes melted across her face like a turn-of-the-century Batman. Her thick heavy purple gown should stand out among the tree...but try as I might, she's not on there. None of the crap ornaments I made as a kid are on there, as I see that the tree is actually not composed of any homemade ornaments at all, it has uniform, crisp, fresh-looking glass balls.

"That's funny. Mom always used to use the homemade ornaments," I say softly, more to myself, and Bob doesn't answer but I feel his head turn to look at me. I make my way through the quiet house. The dogs are there, and even though Bob gives a nervous hoot when he sees them, they don't even turn their ears up to Bob and I as we walk through the hallway. They can't see us. We aren't here. No one is home at my mother's house, and as I pass a corner I see the stockings hung up on the wall-there is a stocking for everyone, including the dogs...but there is no stocking for me.

Bob turns to look at me again. "You weren't expecting one, were you? You're not really a part of anything, Helen. Things go on."

"I know," I tell Bob without turning my head. I look around the sitting room and it is unfamiliar. Things have moved on, as they will do. I reach for the back door doorknob and turn the handle, and as we step outside we don't go into the fenced-in backyard, instead I find us standing in the middle of a busy shopping area. People are racing around, looking hassled. I feel stunningly uncomfortable, and my shoulders tense up automatically, causing Bob to hoot nervously and sway with the tension.

"Chill, Helen." Bob instructs. "They can't see you, can't touch you. Just chill."

I look around the shop and see, pausing over a shelf, is my father and stepmother. They are looking studiously at a brightly packaged box.

"Is that something for Helen?" asks my stepmother.

"I dunno," replies my father honestly. "I have no idea what she likes."

"We've been to three different stores already, babe," my stepmother says, exasperated. "We have yet to find anything!"

"She's just so hard to figure out," my father says, ambling down the aisle. "I just don't know her."

I sigh.

"It's funny," Bob says thoughtfully. "I know you're supposed to see the scenes that you're supposed to see. But the truth is, everyone who has been shopping for you is saying the same thing. No one knows what to buy you. No one." I look down an aisle and see Angus puzzling over a gift. Another aisle of the same shop has Angus' Mum holding something cloth and soft-looking, and she seems bewildered. Parallel to that aisle is my mother, holding something in her hand but looking unconvinced. It's impossible that all of these people are in the same store, but there they all are, picking things up and putting them down, wondering what the hell you get for someone you just don't know. "People just don't know you, Helen." Bob says softly. "They can't know you because you don't let anyone know you."

"That's not true!" I shout back at Bob as I watch the entire cast of characters in my life wandering around the same store, half-heartedly trying to figure out what to get me, like characters in a music video. "People do know me! I do let people in! I want to let people in, I just don't know how!"

I turn around and see myself, standing at the checkout. I recognize myself, it's from Thursday last week. I look tired, strained, unhappy. I am drawn, and there are lines around my eyes that I hadn't seen before. I place some items on the checkout belt-two large bottles of fresh juice, some yogurt, two boxes of mince pies.

Bob shakes his feathers gently next to me, and I feel the edges of them on my ear like a whisper. "I see you're buying mince pies for your Asian grandmother. I don't know why you are buying them-she doesn't really care about you, does she? I mean, she saw you earlier in the year, but she didn't come over to see you, she came over to see her other granddaughters. She even said that her other granddaughters were the most beautiful girls ever, right in front of you. I'm sorry, Helen, but you just don't figure in to the equation."

I feel my shoulders slump.

Bob leans gently into my ear. "Why do you try so hard to be accepted, Helen? Why are you trying to hard to be remembered? Why do you chase after people to be loved?"

I watch the mince pies make their way down the belt, and I watch myself smile at the cashier, the smile never reaching my eyes. I am embarassed for the mince pies. I am embarassed for being me. I shake my head and turn to Bob, feeling my tears well up. "What is this, tough love from a bird of prey? Is this the point of my Christmas visits? Are you all here to make me remember how shit I am, how scraping the barrel doesn't begin to sum me up? Is this fun for you, because I can tell you, it's not much fun for me."

Bob leans in and reassuringly takes my earlobe in his beak. "It's all a bigger part of something, Helen. It's all a bigger part of something. You made these walls, you chase these phantoms. I'm just here to show you what you're heading towards."

I shake my head, upsetting Bob, and I shout into the cavernous store, "I'm just fine the way I am! There's nothing wrong with me! I'm just fine!"

And with a soft click of Bob's beak I am back in my living room, tears running down my face and tiny footprints highlighted in black coal dust leading up to the fireplace.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:13 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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