And So This Is Christmas
Stories similar to this that you might like too.
“This is Christmas,” said Tiny Tim, “and what have you done?”
The last of the year had come and gone. The old year out, the new one in, a time for looking back at all that had happened and a time to look forward to all that would happen. But Tiny Tim was not looking forward. He was looking back.
It had been a good year for him. He had been able to pay his rent on time and buy food. He had not had to pawn any of his precious ornaments, and he had even been able to give away some of the things he liked best.
But he had not had much money left over to spend on himself, so he had made do with the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet. And when it came to the most important thing in his life—his health—he was no better off than he had been a year ago.
His heart still throbbed within him and his blood still coursed through his veins, but he felt as if he were just one more broken-down old man who was trying to hold on to something that was slipping away from him.
His eyes wandered to the window. The sun was shining brightly outside, but it did not seem very bright to him. It seemed far too bright for that. For there was no snow on the ground, no frost in the air, no wind in the trees, no winter in the world. And yet it was Christmas Day, and he was supposed to be happy.
He went to the door and looked out. The street was deserted. No one was walking along it, no one was hurrying by. No one was doing anything. And then he noticed that there was a large parcel sitting on the doorstep of the house next door. There was nothing written on it, but it was big enough to hold something valuable.
“That’s odd,” he said to himself. “Why should someone leave a parcel like that on my doorstep?” He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The parcel was heavy. It took both hands to carry it inside. When he opened it, he saw that it contained a set of fine clothes. A suit of clothes, a coat, a shirt, a pair of trousers, a hat, and a pair of shoes.
“These are nice clothes,” he said to himself. “I’ll have to take them to a tailor to get them fitted. They’re not my size.” He put them on, and they fit him perfectly.
“I guess I must be a lucky fellow,” he said. “They’re the right size and they fit me. But they’re not mine. Who could have sent them to me?”
He went back out into the street and walked up and down it. No one was watching him. No one was looking at him. No one was interested in him. He felt very lonely.
“There’s no one around to see me,” he said. “I’m sure I look like an old fool. I’ve never had any clothes like these before, and they’re very fine clothes. They must have cost a lot of money.”
He started to walk down the street, but he soon stopped. Something was wrong with his legs. He could not move them properly. He tried to straighten them, but he could not. And then he noticed that the clothes were slipping off of him.
“Oh, dear!” he said. “I seem to have lost my clothes!” He ran back into the house and looked for them. He searched everywhere, but he could not find them. He began to cry.
“Who has been so unkind as to leave me all alone on Christmas Day?” he cried. “No one seems to care whether I live or die. No one seems to care what happens to me.”
He went back out into the street. The sun was shining brightly. He stood in the middle of the road and looked around him. But there was no one else to be seen. He was all alone.
“What am I going to do?” he said. “I can’t go home without my clothes. No one will let me in if I don’t have anything to wear. I must have something to wear. I must have some clothes to go home in.”
He went back into the house and looked through his things. There was nothing that he could use. He looked at his watch. It was nearly four o’clock. His mother would be expecting him soon. She would be waiting for him on the doorstep.
“I’ll have to hurry,” he said. “She’ll be waiting for me.”
He ran out onto the porch and looked down the street. He could see no one. No one was coming along it. And then he saw someone sitting on a bench. He could not see the person’s face, but he knew who it must be. It was the man from the next door. The man with blue eyes.
“It’s the man from the next door,” he said to himself. “The man with the blue eyes.”
He went down the steps and walked slowly toward the bench.
“Is that you, Mister?” he said. “Are you waiting for me? I came to give you this.” He held out the parcel.
“That’s very kind of you,” said the man from the next door. “But I’m not expecting anyone. I came here to sit and think. I’m thinking about myself. I’ve been thinking about me for a long time. And now I’m thinking about you. I want to help you. I want to do something for you.”
He took the parcel from the boy.
“Here,” he said. “You’re going to need these things. I know it’s Christmas Day, but I thought you might need them. Here are your clothes. Now you can go home.”
The boy took the clothes and put them on. They fitted him perfectly. He turned around and looked at himself in the mirror.
“I look like a fine young gentleman,” he said. “And I feel just as fine. I’m sure my mother will be pleased to see me dressed up like this.”
He went back into the house. He was still wearing his new clothes.
“Where did you get those clothes?” asked his mother. “They’re very nice. And they fit you perfectly.”
“I found them,” said the boy. “I found them in the street. Someone left them there. They were lying on the ground. I picked them up and brought them home with me.”
“You’re a very good boy,” said his mother. “You must be very careful. You mustn’t let anyone see you with them. I don’t want people to know that you have new clothes. I don’t want people to laugh at you.”
She wrapped the clothes up and hid them under the bed.
“That’s a secret between you and me,” she said. “And you must never tell anyone that you have them. Do you promise?”
“I promise,” said the boy. “I promise. And I won’t go out without them again.”
He sat down and told his mother all about his adventure. He told her how he had been frightened and lonely and how kind the man from the next door had been to him.
“He was a very nice man,” he said. “I’m sure he would be happy to come and live with us. He’s a very lonely man. He’s always alone. I think he would like to have a family.”
His mother looked at him. She was very proud of him.
“You’re a very good boy,” she said. “You must be very careful. And you must never tell anyone what happened. I don’t want people to know that you have new clothes. That’s a secret between you and me.”
“I promise,” said the boy. “I promise. And I won’t go out without them again.”
The following day, when the boy went out to play, he saw the man from the next door sitting on his bench. He was watching him.
“Good morning,” said the boy. “How are you today?”
“Not very well,” said the man from the next door. “I’m thinking about myself. I’ve been thinking about myself for a long time. And now I’m thinking about you. I want to help you. I want to do something for you.”
The boy ran over to the bench.
“Do you remember me?” he said. “I came to give you these things. I found them in the street. They were lying on the ground. I picked them up and brought them home with me. And now I’m going to take them back. You can keep them if you like.”
He took the parcel from the man’s hand.
“That’s very kind of you,” said the man from the next door. “But I’m not expecting anyone. I came here to sit and think. I’m thinking about myself. I’ve been thinking about me for a long time. And now I’m thinking about you. I want to help you. I want to do something for you.”
He took the parcel back from the boy.
“Here,” he said. “You’re going to need these things. I know it’s Christmas Day, but I thought you might need them. Here are your clothes. Now you can go home.”
He put the clothes and the parcel back under the bench where he’d found them. The man didn’t notice. He was too busy watching the boy leave the park. He watched until he couldn’t see him anymore. Then he sighed deeply and began to think.
***
It was dark by the time the man finished thinking. There was no snow on the ground anymore. In fact, there was barely any sign that there had ever been snow there at all.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that this has worked quite well,” he said to himself. “I think I’ll call myself Mr. Snow. It’s short and memorable and sounds impressive. And anyway, nobody seems to mind.”
He looked up at the sky. His eyes were very bright and his face was covered in a thick coat of white snow. He could hardly even make out where one of his eyebrows ended and another started.
“I wonder what I should do next,” he said aloud. “I suppose I’d better start off by collecting my money. But I haven’t got enough yet. I suppose I’ll just have to go round again tomorrow.”
Then he looked around to check that there wasn’t anyone watching him.
“Oh well,” he sighed. “No point in worrying about it now.”
He walked towards the park gate and turned left instead of right when he reached it. When he got to the corner where he had parked his car the first time, he paused to look behind him. He hadn’t seen anything unusual, so he set out walking quickly, keeping an eye out for the boy who had given him his new clothes.
But although he tried hard to see him, he couldn’t see the little boy anywhere. All he could hear were the noises that children made, as they played together in the park.
He went into the park. It was full of people: parents with their children; couples with each other; friends and families. Everyone was having fun. But no one noticed the man from the next door who was wandering aimlessly through the park, looking for someone he knew.
There was a woman sitting on a bench reading a book. He walked past her without noticing. She read some more and then put down her book, got up, and followed him. He was surprised to find that someone else had come after him but he wasn’t frightened. The man from the next door was used to people following him wherever he went. He ignored her and carried on walking.
The woman was still following him. He turned right at the next corner and went along another path, which led to a small wooden bridge over a stream. The man from the next door stopped at the edge of the bridge and looked down at the water below.
“What’s happening?” he said aloud. “Why is everyone disappearing? Are they coming back? Or are they leaving me?”
His voice echoed around the empty air of the bridge, but nobody heard him. No-one answered. He waited for several minutes, but eventually, he decided that no one was coming back. The noise from the playground faded away to nothingness.
Then it became quieter still and everything around him suddenly seemed quiet and still and peaceful. For the first time in years, there wasn’t anybody around to tell him how wrong he was or to remind him what he needed to do next.
He turned and left the park without even noticing that he was carrying something wrapped in newspaper.
***
On a bench by the river, a man sat watching the lights of the cars going back and forth across the road far above him. The lights glowed softly in the darkness. Sometimes one of them flashed briefly, and sometimes another blinked slowly or flickered out altogether.
At first, he couldn’t see much beyond the lights of the cars. But after a while, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he saw shapes moving in the distance. He stared intently at them and he began to count the number of people in every group. There were ten of them in total, five couples, and three families. One of the couples walked past him and smiled and waved.
The man from the next door felt sad and alone and lonely and tired. The people in the street didn’t seem to notice him anymore. He was invisible to them. But he couldn’t stop staring at the people in the cars passing by him.
Then, gradually, he began to remember. He remembered who he was. He remembered why he had done what he did and how much it hurt.
And although he wanted desperately to get away from them and start living life on his own terms again, he also realized that if he didn’t do what they asked him to do, they would probably kill him. So he continued to walk through the streets of London until he found a taxi that he could afford.
In the taxi, he thought about all the things he had ever wanted to do, and all the people he had ever meant to be. He thought about what he might do and where he might go. At first he thought he would travel, but then he remembered that he had no money.
So he thought maybe he would buy a boat and sail it around the world. Or maybe he would join the army or the navy. He knew he wouldn’t like that very much because the men and women who served in the armed forces always told him that it wasn’t for people like him.
He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do, but he knew that whatever he did, would be better than being here and doing nothing. As the taxi sped through the night, he gazed out of the window at all the people and the buildings and all the lights.
He wondered if one day he would look back at this moment in time and realize that he should have been happy now instead of trying to think of new things to do when he already had so many good ideas.
Eventually, as he listened to the engine roar beneath him, he started to feel sleepy. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to relax. He thought about all the wonderful times he had spent with the people in his old apartment block and wished that they were still around so they could tell him what to do next.
But the next thing he knew he was waking up in a strange place surrounded by unfamiliar faces. They were all sitting around a table playing cards; some of them were drinking beer and talking quietly, and others were just waiting patiently and hoping that the game wouldn’t last too long and that their turn would come soon.
As he watched them play, the man from the next door felt a familiar longing rise within him. He missed his old life; he missed the people from his old home and the life he had shared with them before he lost himself.
And then, as he watched the men and women around the table play their hands, he noticed something strange: although it was obvious they was playing cards, none of them looked as though they cared about winning or losing. None of them seemed interested in anything but having a good time.
He sat and watched the game for a little longer, wondering whether anyone was going to call for a change of players anytime soon. But then he got bored with it and decided he needed to get away from them. As he stood up to leave, one of the men in the group suddenly turned round to face him.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “Go away.”
The man from the next door was confused. He looked around at all of the faces staring at him from across the table. All of them looked angry, hostile and unhappy. They didn’t want him there. They wanted him to leave. He understood that now.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared at the man from the next door. Then, slowly, he reached under the table and pulled out an old-fashioned revolver. His finger tightened tightly on the trigger and a shot rang out through the room, shattering the glass of a nearby picture frame.
The man from the next door flinched as he heard the gun go off. He looked up sharply at the man who had shot him and tried to say something. But all that came out of his mouth was a muffled croak as more blood ran down his chin and over his shirt.
One of the other men standing around the table stepped forward and pulled his own gun out. The man from the next door saw him aiming the weapon at him. And although it was obvious that the man had intended to shoot him dead on the spot, he didn’t move. Instead, he smiled weakly and held up his hands as if he expected someone else to help him.
At that moment, one of the other players pushed himself away from his cards and walked towards him, holding his pistol high above his head. “Give us everything you’ve got!” he shouted as he waved the gun around.
But although the man from the next door knew he was never going to get away again, he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He just wanted to die. So he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed it to the gunman.
As soon as he did, the other gunmen fired their guns into him at close range. One bullet hit his chest, another his thigh. Then two more shots ripped through his stomach as he crumpled to the floor in a pool of his own blood.
He lay on the floor for a while, unable to move or breathe properly. It was all so painful that it made him sick. But eventually, he forced himself up onto his knees and looked around, searching for somewhere he could hide and escape.
He realized that he was trapped inside a huge metal container, with no way out except through the door at the far end of the room. There were other containers stacked up along each wall, each filled with rows upon rows of shelves containing small boxes of various sizes. Some of the boxes were full, some empty – but all of them had heavy locks and chains fastened to the sides of them.
There wasn’t enough room to run anywhere, so he stayed where he was, trying desperately to think of a way of escaping from the gunmen. But then he felt an excruciating pain in his leg and looked down to see a second bullet lying beside him.
It hurt more than anything he had ever experienced in his life. The wound was so bad that he felt his whole body go numb. The pain grew worse and worse until it felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest.
All he could do was lie still, staring at the ground below him as he waited for death to take him. And when he was sure that the world was going to be taken away from him forever, he heard a voice behind him saying his name.
“Tommy!”
The man from the next door jumped as he heard his wife’s familiar voice calling out to him. But instead of running to her, he kept his head down and stared at the blood flowing steadily out of his stomach and pooling around his feet.
“My God,” she said, stepping back as she gazed at him. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. How could this happen? How could he have let this happen to him?
She moved closer to him, touching his cheek gently as she bent down and kissed his forehead. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but nothing came out.
Instead, he closed his eyes and died.
The End