Heaven's Ablaze - Chapter 5
Title:: Heaven's Ablaze
Genre:: AU Fanfic
Rating::R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes.
Author's Note::This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter Five - My First Christmas
After April had introduced me and people had done the obligatory laughing at Bam’s horrible driving, someone got up to offer me what seemed to be the most comfortable chair in the whole room. I shook my head, intending to go sit on the floor in a corner, where I wouldn’t be noticed by the multitudes of people, but Bam pushed me into the chair and then, grinning, waved at me and ran out of the room up the stairs.
Bastard.
I was quiet for a while, and conversation turned to other subjects and I just watched as little groups formed and people milled about. A pretty girl, about Bam’s age, came around with a tray and offered me some mulled wine. I took some, thanked her, and sat sipping at it for a while.
There were about 30 people crammed into the room, which, although big to begin with, was feeling very small and hot right about now. There were people of all ages, from toddlers to teenagers to what looked like Bam’s grandparents. And everyone was smiling. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was happy.
I felt like such an outcast. I felt like I didn’t belong at all. I didn’t know where Bam had gone but he was the only person in the house that I felt vaguely comfortable enough with to talk to at all.
In the cage you've locked yourself in
However, my tranquility was obviously not fated to last very long. Soon enough a kindly looking woman came and sat herself down in a chair next to mine - the previous inhabitant of which had just gotten up to look after his son. She smiled at me and introduced herself as Maureen.
“Hi,” I said, taking a sip of my wine awkwardly.
“You’re Vil’, right?” I smiled at her and shrugged. “Oh, I must be saying that wrong. I’m sorry. How is it said?” I pronounced the name for her slowly and she smiled at me.
“Well that sure as heck ain’t American. It sounds nice though. Where are you from then, to have such an exotic name like that?”
I chuckled a little nervously.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it exotic… the name or the place I come from. I’m from, um, Finland.”
She nodded and smiled a little blankly - I knew she had no idea where it was that I was talking about.
“It’s in Northern Europe. Santa Clause lives there,” I said, feebly, turning back to my drink.
“Oh. Well so then you’re used to this cold weather?”
“Yeah. And I’ve been here for 10 years. So it’s okay.”
“10 years? In West Chester? I’ve never seen you around though, and I thought I knew everyone.” She smiled warmly. “Well I’ll have to get to know you some time. You here alone, or is there a second half?”
I shook my head.
“I’m alone,” I said shortly, turning back to the cup again, and hoping against all hope that she would take the hint and leave me alone. However, these friendly, good-to-do women never can take a hint and she was no exception.
“Well don’t look so sad about that. We can have you hooked up with a nice girl in no time. Match making is our specialty.” I looked down at my cup again, blushing red.
“I… um… well. Thanks. But… please don’t trouble yourself.” I had to be polite, she meant it in a nice way, and there was no way for them to know that I wasn’t interested in girls in the slightest. Of course I was never abject to a romp around with anyone, but I had enough experience to know which side I fought for, and most people in this room would definitely think it was the wrong one. So I said nothing. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. I’d learnt long, long ago that telling people about my sexuality could result in violence.
That was why I was here in the first place, wasn’t it?
We hide behind the crimson door
I shook this out of my head and occupied myself by stopping the pretty girl and taking a glass of normal wine from the tray. A little surprised that there was wine at this event, I downed it a little quickly for Maureen’s taste.
“You want to watch yourself on that, darling,” she said kindly. Her niceness was on the verge of driving me to insanity. “I know, me, after one glass I’m gone.”
I shrugged at her. “I’m Finnish. We’re born with alcohol in our bloods. It takes two bottles of this to get me tipsy.”
“I see,” she smiled, but it was a little forced now. I sighed. I felt guilty. Why, I don’t know. But I did.
“I’m sorry. I… I’m not used to… people.”
“It’s okay darling.” She patted my hand and then stood up, excusing herself so that she could go look after her niece - I presume - who had just tumbled over her little 3 year old feet and done an impromptu somersault.
After that people generally left me alone. I got up to try and help April in the kitchen - to do something useful, I suppose - but she and her friends threw me out after giving me a sneak sample and telling me that I needed fattening up.
I walked through the busy room, people smiling up at me. I smiled back as best I could but what I wanted to do was find Bam. It was awkward down there. I didn’t know them. I had nothing in common with them. The adults, I mean, and the people closer to my age.
They had all grown up in wholesome American households, with mothers who made cookies for them when they got home from school and fathers who taught them how to play baseball in the backyard. They all went to school, got good grades, graduated and then went to college, and were all now earning more in a month than I’d ever earned in a year. They’d never had a run in with the police, they were devoted church goers… they were as perfect as anyone could ever be.
I was the complete opposite. And I knew it. And it made me feel horrible.
I climbed slowly, quietly, timidly up the squeaking, carpet covered staircase and was faced with a hallway and many shut doors.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t want to go barging into people’s rooms, but I did want to find Bam… maybe the safest answer was just to turn around and see if that chair was still empty.
“Looking for Bam?” I almost jumped out of my skin when Jess emerged out of one of the doors.
“Um, yeah, actually.”
“He’s in there.” Jess pointed at one of the doors and smiled at me. “Enjoy the sermon?” He was smirking a bit. I think he had me just about figured out. Smart kid, I thought.
“Honestly? Not much.”
“Thought so. Oh well. It’s not really my thing either. But Mom makes me go at Christmas. Something about me not becoming a completely godless person or… something like that.” He rolled his eyes - I chuckled. He was about 17 or 18 and he seemed a lot less innocent and naïve than Bam. I’d have liked him a lot if we were the same age at the same time.
“Well, I think it’s a bit late for me,” I said, shrugging.
“Ah well. We’ll have a good party in Hell sometime, okay?”
Alive behind the crimson door
I nodded and smiled at him again as he passed me and then knocked on Bam’s door and let myself in.
He was just finishing taping up the wrapping paper on a present. I smirked at his haphazard wrapping.
“That the best you can do?”
“Hey, come on, this isn’t as easy as women make it look.” He frowned at the tape which had now stuck to itself. “Oh, shoot.”
“Want me to re-wrap it for you?” He shook his head and grumbled.
“It would be a bit pointless, it’s for you anyways.” He shrugged and put the present aside. “Figured you wouldn’t have many Christmas presents. And that is one of the best parts of Christmas. Yeah. It’s not the best present but whatever. It’ll work.”
I stared at him.
How long had it been since I’d had a Christmas present? 12 years. I mean, I’d brought them presents - of sorts - but that was because they had been so nice to me. Why was he giving me a present? I was 13 years older than him. I was grumpy. Mean. Awkward. Weird. So why? Why would he, a 15 year old with plenty of friends and family, go out of his way to make me happy?
I had no idea. I didn’t understand at all.
With the warmth of your arms you saved me
“I… well… you didn’t have to get me anything, you know that, right kid?”
He shrugged and smiled.
“I wanted to. And you can stop calling me kid, thank you. I’m fifteen. I’m very grownup.” He rolled his eyes at himself and held out the present. “You can open it now if you like. I was going to make you wait till tomorrow morning but … well don’t they do it at night in Europe? It’ll be like… like home or something.”
I smiled at him, still in a little bit of awe of his niceness. I didn’t want to point out that at home we hardly ever had Christmas presents. That my family didn’t really celebrate Christmas; that they didn’t care enough.
I took the package from him and looked at it and smiled.
“Can I just keep it like this? It’s artistic.” Bam blushed and told me to open it. So I did.
I remember that moment like it was yesterday.
Do you remember when you were little? When the best part of Christmas was tearing the paper off of the presents that you would hardly give a second thought to for the rest of the year?
I was itching to get my hands on that paper.
I can’t explain it, even now. But ripping that present open was the best moment that my life had provided me with for many years.
For your soul, my love
The present was inconsequential. Bam had given me a scarf that he’d bought in Wal-Mart a few days before because he noticed that the one I had wasn’t really doing much against the cold.
I still have the scarf. I wore it for many, many winters after that one. Now it’s somewhere special, somewhere that I don’t quite remember but I’ll find it one day. It’s good like that.
I was so touched by the gesture that I had to sit down on his bed, the scarf in my hands. My fingers felt the soft, soft wool of it and I had the biggest urge to just sit there and cry. But something told me that that might not go down so well with Bam. So I just thanked him for it a lot, and put it on to show him how much I liked it.
“Come on, its time for supper. I can tell.” Bam grinned and pulled me up and we ran down the stairs - it was the first time I’d actually physically run towards something in a very long time - and even though Bam insisted that this was just an appetizer and that the real feast was the next day this looked like a pretty hefty meal to me. There was so much food on the table it was unreal. I ate until I could eat no more, and even then April swooped upon me and force fed me about 10 different types of pie and cake.
After dinner, which was a kind of potluck affair, despite the billion different dishes April had made, a lot of people left. Especially the families with young children - in the end it was just Bam’s family, his friends and their families, and Jess’s friends and their families - though as far as I could tell they had many mutual friends. Odd in brother’s with their age difference, I thought. But then what did I know? When I left my little brother was 3. I hardly even remembered what he looked like.
The camaraderie between the teenagers was hilarious to watch. I sat in the arm chair watching them chase each other around and laugh and tease while their parents sat around and talked about them in not-so-quiet voices. I didn’t talk to anyone really, just sat and watched. And it was okay like that.
Just a little bit before midnight April stood up and hushed everyone and got them all onto the floor.
“You know what time it is,” she said, smiling a little. There was a little bit of a groan from all the teenagers. I wiggled around in the chair and tried to keep my eyes open, exhausted from all the excitement of the day. April handed a book to one of the men in the room and he smiled, and opened it up, and started reading.
The book turned out to be the Bible. The story happened to be the Christmas Story.
I was stuck inside of a cheesy family Christmas movie. The words burned me. I remember wishing on every star I could see out the window for someone, somehow to get me the hell out of there.
It had been bad enough to be in a church. But to have the bible read to me?
Finding souls to feed
The Nightside of Eden
I hated how the Bible always seemed to be yelling at me in every word, telling me with every sentence that I was going to burn in hell for eternity.
But I sat through it. I could have got up. I could have left the room. But I didn’t. I sat through the story and watched the room as they all watched the person reading. Bam was poking the pretty girl who had carried the tray around before but April hushed him and he sat still after that, lying on the ground with his head propped on his hands, listening.
I wondered how many times they’d heard this story. How many times they’d read it. I wondered, and I wondered how they weren’t bored of it. How it still managed to capture their attention like nothing else. I wondered that even the teenagers were listening, even though it was obvious that some of them weren’t the most religious people on the planet. Most teenagers aren’t. I wondered at the look of awe and happiness on their faces as the words were read out in a slow, thick American accent. I wondered, and I envied.
I envied them their serenity. Their faith. Their trust.
Their hope.
And in the warmth of the past I crawl
Scorched by the shame
And then it was done and everyone sighed together and grinned and looked around at each other as if Christmas had just been made for them. Jess looked at me quickly and we shared a look that dripped with a weird sort of understanding, even though I could tell that the story that had just been read aloud meant a heck of a lot more to him than it did to me.
After a few more minutes of this, April was walking around, shooing us all to bed.
“Ville, honey, you’re up in Bam’s room. I hope you don’t mind; I’d have given you the spare room but Bob needs a bed; he has a bad back, you see.” She nodded to one of her friends. He smiled at me and apologized but I waved it off.
“I’ll be fine April. I can even go home and come back tomorrow…”
“No, no I won’t hear of it! There’s space enough. Please.” She smiled at me - I couldn’t say no. Bam was standing up, waiting for me. When I heaved myself out of the chair he bounced up and down.
“Come on, come on. Quick before Jess gets in there and tries to steal my bed.” I rolled my eyes but followed him up the stairs - he had bounced up them whereas I walked up them slowly.
“Here, look. I’m on the floor, and Mom put new sheets on my bed so you can sleep in that.” He nodded at me. I shook my head.
“No look, Bam, I’ll go on the floor…”
“Oh shut up and get in the bed. Seriously.”
There was no arguing with the kid. I tried but he wouldn’t listen, and left me to get changed into my pajamas with his hands over his ears singing ‘lalala I can’t hear you’ at the top of his lungs.
I shook my head at his retreating back and dug around in the bag that someone had brought up for me until I found my pajamas - an old shirt and some gym shorts that I found god knows where - and climbed in Bam’s bed, feeling so awkward I wanted the ground to swallow me alive. His room was like any other teenagers room. Posters of sports teams and pro-skateboarders littered the walls. There were piles and piles of CD’s next to a rather beat up stereo system. He had three skateboards lined up neatly against a wall and several pairs of shoes next to them, each pair more decrepit, ripped and torn than the one before it. There were a few books on a bookshelf and a backpack on the chair that went with a desk which looked vaguely unused. Generally it was quite clean but I could tell he’d cleaned it, probably under the supervision of his mother.
He knocked on the door before bounding in again - without waiting for me to tell him it was okay to come in but I didn’t mind that, being in bed already. He was in his pajamas too and was carrying a sleeping bag under his arm.
“Bam, are you sure? I can sleep in that, I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to sleeping on the floor…”
“Oh shut up Ville. You’re in the bed now.” He grinned at me, rolled the sleeping bag out on the floor and grabbed his pillow. He did an interesting sequence of rolls, punches, flips and kicks before he got comfortable in the sleeping bag.
“You okay down there?”
“Yep. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“Better sleep. Santa Clause and all that.” He grinned. I stared at him in the dark.
“You don’t … believe in Santa do you?” He threw back his head and laughed.
“I was kidding, man.”
“Oh.”
“St. Nicholas was real though. A long time ago. But yeah, you probably don’t care. Good night.”
And with that he was asleep.
I, on the other hand, was having immense problems trying to get to sleep. Nothing out of the ordinary; I had always been an insomniac. But that night it bugged me that Bam was so fast asleep and peaceful and I was restless and very awake.
There was even one scary moment, about 2 hours after Bam had started snoring quietly, when I would have sworn I heard bells outside and something hit the roof above my head with a loud thunk.
But then I realized that the thunk was Bam rolling over and the bells were figments of my imagination and I calmed down a little. I didn’t really want to stay for Christmas dinner. I didn’t want to intrude; I knew now more than ever before that I didn’t really deserve to be around them. We were from two different levels in the world, the bottom and the top, and there was no gray area.
In my mind, at least. I knew, for some odd reason, that they liked me and were trying their best to take me under their wing.
For what end purpose I knew not. I was grateful, of course I was. My life had become, in the few months I’d known them, vaguely livable. But I still didn’t know why they were bothering at all.
It was amid this whirl of thoughts that I finally drifted to sleep in the early hours of the morning.
Bam woke me up by trying to exit the room quietly at what felt like the break of dawn.
“Mmf wha’ time is it?” I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and stretching, trying not to laugh at the obvious start I’d given him.
“It’s about 9. Mom’s probably making pancakes. Come down if you want some. We don’t do presents in the morning. After lunch.” He nodded happily and grinned, obviously excited about presents. It was very endearing to see. He’d changed out of his pajamas, obviously, without me waking up. I muttered something probably very incoherent in response and buried my head in his pillow. Nine in the morning was way too early to think about food.
I was downstairs about 10 minutes later, having spent most of the time in front of the mirror desperately trying to make myself look less overnighted and obviously failing horribly - the second April saw me she was asking if I slept well and hoping that I had and telling me I looked so tired and forcing me into a chair and setting 5 pancakes in front of me and a huge beaker of orange juice next to it.
“April, really, I can’t…”
“Oh poppycock. You need fattening up. Eat.”
Sighing and shrugging, I cut up the pancakes and ate them slowly, dutifully swallowing them, gulping each piece down with orange juice. My stomach rumbled. I wasn’t used to this much food.
April cut Bam and his brother and their friends off on their 7th pancakes and shooed them all out of the kitchen. I sat at the table alone, still working on the pancakes, while April and her friends set about cooking for lunch. It was snowing outside. The kitchen was warm and steamy and smelt of Christmas. April and her friends were singing and laughing, talking to me every now and then. The laughter of the children rang through the whole house, and you could hear the men in the living room watching replays of a football game.
Sleep had done me good. I had vaguely acknowledged the fact that the family was really trying to accept me and take care of me and I knew that I needed to stop questioning it. It was hard but it wasn’t like they were giving me any special treatment. They had just accepted me as one of them.
An interesting concept, really. To be almost part of a family? I’d never even dreamed of it.
The rest of the day consisted of playing video games with Bam - apparently I was a natural -, eating unhealthy amounts of food, saying goodbye to all the friends and parents and then sitting with just Bam’s family for the present opening ceremony.
They loved the presents I gave them. I don’t remember what they were but I know they liked them. And they’d given me presents too, which have also escaped my memory; they were eclipsed by the feeling of pure happiness I’d had opening Bam’s simple present.
We built a snowman in the yard. Had a snowball fight. Made snow angels. I even started building an igloo but Bam decided it would be fun to try and dive bomb it.
He had bruises from the ice blocks for weeks. He succeeded in destroying it though. So I stuffed his coat full of snow. And then we all tramped, wet and cold and grinning, back inside for hot chocolate and a movie by the fire.
It was the first time I could honestly say that I’d had fun in 12 years.
I’ll never, ever forget that feeling.
It was like I was having another chance at some of my childhood. I’d given up on playing in the snow long before I left Helsinki; it was something I’d always regretted.
I went home long after it was dark, a bag full of leftovers which had been forced on me slung over my back, their cries of goodbyes echoing in my ears.
I'm killing loneliness that turned my heart into a tomb
For the first time in my life, I began to understand why people actually liked Christmas.
Genre:: AU Fanfic
Rating::R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes.
Author's Note::This story is based on the album Dark Light. All lyrics are taken from that album, and are copyright of Ville Valo. I do not know or own the characters in this story. The storyline itself is property of me and me alone. This story deals with the themes of religion and a degree of pedophilia. If you have a problem with the themes, dont read it.
Links
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter 2 - Pot Luck
Chapter 3 - Warmth
Chapter 4 - Joseph on Wheels
Chapter Five - My First Christmas
After April had introduced me and people had done the obligatory laughing at Bam’s horrible driving, someone got up to offer me what seemed to be the most comfortable chair in the whole room. I shook my head, intending to go sit on the floor in a corner, where I wouldn’t be noticed by the multitudes of people, but Bam pushed me into the chair and then, grinning, waved at me and ran out of the room up the stairs.
Bastard.
I was quiet for a while, and conversation turned to other subjects and I just watched as little groups formed and people milled about. A pretty girl, about Bam’s age, came around with a tray and offered me some mulled wine. I took some, thanked her, and sat sipping at it for a while.
There were about 30 people crammed into the room, which, although big to begin with, was feeling very small and hot right about now. There were people of all ages, from toddlers to teenagers to what looked like Bam’s grandparents. And everyone was smiling. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was happy.
I felt like such an outcast. I felt like I didn’t belong at all. I didn’t know where Bam had gone but he was the only person in the house that I felt vaguely comfortable enough with to talk to at all.
In the cage you've locked yourself in
However, my tranquility was obviously not fated to last very long. Soon enough a kindly looking woman came and sat herself down in a chair next to mine - the previous inhabitant of which had just gotten up to look after his son. She smiled at me and introduced herself as Maureen.
“Hi,” I said, taking a sip of my wine awkwardly.
“You’re Vil’, right?” I smiled at her and shrugged. “Oh, I must be saying that wrong. I’m sorry. How is it said?” I pronounced the name for her slowly and she smiled at me.
“Well that sure as heck ain’t American. It sounds nice though. Where are you from then, to have such an exotic name like that?”
I chuckled a little nervously.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it exotic… the name or the place I come from. I’m from, um, Finland.”
She nodded and smiled a little blankly - I knew she had no idea where it was that I was talking about.
“It’s in Northern Europe. Santa Clause lives there,” I said, feebly, turning back to my drink.
“Oh. Well so then you’re used to this cold weather?”
“Yeah. And I’ve been here for 10 years. So it’s okay.”
“10 years? In West Chester? I’ve never seen you around though, and I thought I knew everyone.” She smiled warmly. “Well I’ll have to get to know you some time. You here alone, or is there a second half?”
I shook my head.
“I’m alone,” I said shortly, turning back to the cup again, and hoping against all hope that she would take the hint and leave me alone. However, these friendly, good-to-do women never can take a hint and she was no exception.
“Well don’t look so sad about that. We can have you hooked up with a nice girl in no time. Match making is our specialty.” I looked down at my cup again, blushing red.
“I… um… well. Thanks. But… please don’t trouble yourself.” I had to be polite, she meant it in a nice way, and there was no way for them to know that I wasn’t interested in girls in the slightest. Of course I was never abject to a romp around with anyone, but I had enough experience to know which side I fought for, and most people in this room would definitely think it was the wrong one. So I said nothing. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. I’d learnt long, long ago that telling people about my sexuality could result in violence.
That was why I was here in the first place, wasn’t it?
We hide behind the crimson door
I shook this out of my head and occupied myself by stopping the pretty girl and taking a glass of normal wine from the tray. A little surprised that there was wine at this event, I downed it a little quickly for Maureen’s taste.
“You want to watch yourself on that, darling,” she said kindly. Her niceness was on the verge of driving me to insanity. “I know, me, after one glass I’m gone.”
I shrugged at her. “I’m Finnish. We’re born with alcohol in our bloods. It takes two bottles of this to get me tipsy.”
“I see,” she smiled, but it was a little forced now. I sighed. I felt guilty. Why, I don’t know. But I did.
“I’m sorry. I… I’m not used to… people.”
“It’s okay darling.” She patted my hand and then stood up, excusing herself so that she could go look after her niece - I presume - who had just tumbled over her little 3 year old feet and done an impromptu somersault.
After that people generally left me alone. I got up to try and help April in the kitchen - to do something useful, I suppose - but she and her friends threw me out after giving me a sneak sample and telling me that I needed fattening up.
I walked through the busy room, people smiling up at me. I smiled back as best I could but what I wanted to do was find Bam. It was awkward down there. I didn’t know them. I had nothing in common with them. The adults, I mean, and the people closer to my age.
They had all grown up in wholesome American households, with mothers who made cookies for them when they got home from school and fathers who taught them how to play baseball in the backyard. They all went to school, got good grades, graduated and then went to college, and were all now earning more in a month than I’d ever earned in a year. They’d never had a run in with the police, they were devoted church goers… they were as perfect as anyone could ever be.
I was the complete opposite. And I knew it. And it made me feel horrible.
I climbed slowly, quietly, timidly up the squeaking, carpet covered staircase and was faced with a hallway and many shut doors.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t want to go barging into people’s rooms, but I did want to find Bam… maybe the safest answer was just to turn around and see if that chair was still empty.
“Looking for Bam?” I almost jumped out of my skin when Jess emerged out of one of the doors.
“Um, yeah, actually.”
“He’s in there.” Jess pointed at one of the doors and smiled at me. “Enjoy the sermon?” He was smirking a bit. I think he had me just about figured out. Smart kid, I thought.
“Honestly? Not much.”
“Thought so. Oh well. It’s not really my thing either. But Mom makes me go at Christmas. Something about me not becoming a completely godless person or… something like that.” He rolled his eyes - I chuckled. He was about 17 or 18 and he seemed a lot less innocent and naïve than Bam. I’d have liked him a lot if we were the same age at the same time.
“Well, I think it’s a bit late for me,” I said, shrugging.
“Ah well. We’ll have a good party in Hell sometime, okay?”
Alive behind the crimson door
I nodded and smiled at him again as he passed me and then knocked on Bam’s door and let myself in.
He was just finishing taping up the wrapping paper on a present. I smirked at his haphazard wrapping.
“That the best you can do?”
“Hey, come on, this isn’t as easy as women make it look.” He frowned at the tape which had now stuck to itself. “Oh, shoot.”
“Want me to re-wrap it for you?” He shook his head and grumbled.
“It would be a bit pointless, it’s for you anyways.” He shrugged and put the present aside. “Figured you wouldn’t have many Christmas presents. And that is one of the best parts of Christmas. Yeah. It’s not the best present but whatever. It’ll work.”
I stared at him.
How long had it been since I’d had a Christmas present? 12 years. I mean, I’d brought them presents - of sorts - but that was because they had been so nice to me. Why was he giving me a present? I was 13 years older than him. I was grumpy. Mean. Awkward. Weird. So why? Why would he, a 15 year old with plenty of friends and family, go out of his way to make me happy?
I had no idea. I didn’t understand at all.
With the warmth of your arms you saved me
“I… well… you didn’t have to get me anything, you know that, right kid?”
He shrugged and smiled.
“I wanted to. And you can stop calling me kid, thank you. I’m fifteen. I’m very grownup.” He rolled his eyes at himself and held out the present. “You can open it now if you like. I was going to make you wait till tomorrow morning but … well don’t they do it at night in Europe? It’ll be like… like home or something.”
I smiled at him, still in a little bit of awe of his niceness. I didn’t want to point out that at home we hardly ever had Christmas presents. That my family didn’t really celebrate Christmas; that they didn’t care enough.
I took the package from him and looked at it and smiled.
“Can I just keep it like this? It’s artistic.” Bam blushed and told me to open it. So I did.
I remember that moment like it was yesterday.
Do you remember when you were little? When the best part of Christmas was tearing the paper off of the presents that you would hardly give a second thought to for the rest of the year?
I was itching to get my hands on that paper.
I can’t explain it, even now. But ripping that present open was the best moment that my life had provided me with for many years.
For your soul, my love
The present was inconsequential. Bam had given me a scarf that he’d bought in Wal-Mart a few days before because he noticed that the one I had wasn’t really doing much against the cold.
I still have the scarf. I wore it for many, many winters after that one. Now it’s somewhere special, somewhere that I don’t quite remember but I’ll find it one day. It’s good like that.
I was so touched by the gesture that I had to sit down on his bed, the scarf in my hands. My fingers felt the soft, soft wool of it and I had the biggest urge to just sit there and cry. But something told me that that might not go down so well with Bam. So I just thanked him for it a lot, and put it on to show him how much I liked it.
“Come on, its time for supper. I can tell.” Bam grinned and pulled me up and we ran down the stairs - it was the first time I’d actually physically run towards something in a very long time - and even though Bam insisted that this was just an appetizer and that the real feast was the next day this looked like a pretty hefty meal to me. There was so much food on the table it was unreal. I ate until I could eat no more, and even then April swooped upon me and force fed me about 10 different types of pie and cake.
After dinner, which was a kind of potluck affair, despite the billion different dishes April had made, a lot of people left. Especially the families with young children - in the end it was just Bam’s family, his friends and their families, and Jess’s friends and their families - though as far as I could tell they had many mutual friends. Odd in brother’s with their age difference, I thought. But then what did I know? When I left my little brother was 3. I hardly even remembered what he looked like.
The camaraderie between the teenagers was hilarious to watch. I sat in the arm chair watching them chase each other around and laugh and tease while their parents sat around and talked about them in not-so-quiet voices. I didn’t talk to anyone really, just sat and watched. And it was okay like that.
Just a little bit before midnight April stood up and hushed everyone and got them all onto the floor.
“You know what time it is,” she said, smiling a little. There was a little bit of a groan from all the teenagers. I wiggled around in the chair and tried to keep my eyes open, exhausted from all the excitement of the day. April handed a book to one of the men in the room and he smiled, and opened it up, and started reading.
The book turned out to be the Bible. The story happened to be the Christmas Story.
I was stuck inside of a cheesy family Christmas movie. The words burned me. I remember wishing on every star I could see out the window for someone, somehow to get me the hell out of there.
It had been bad enough to be in a church. But to have the bible read to me?
Finding souls to feed
The Nightside of Eden
I hated how the Bible always seemed to be yelling at me in every word, telling me with every sentence that I was going to burn in hell for eternity.
But I sat through it. I could have got up. I could have left the room. But I didn’t. I sat through the story and watched the room as they all watched the person reading. Bam was poking the pretty girl who had carried the tray around before but April hushed him and he sat still after that, lying on the ground with his head propped on his hands, listening.
I wondered how many times they’d heard this story. How many times they’d read it. I wondered, and I wondered how they weren’t bored of it. How it still managed to capture their attention like nothing else. I wondered that even the teenagers were listening, even though it was obvious that some of them weren’t the most religious people on the planet. Most teenagers aren’t. I wondered at the look of awe and happiness on their faces as the words were read out in a slow, thick American accent. I wondered, and I envied.
I envied them their serenity. Their faith. Their trust.
Their hope.
And in the warmth of the past I crawl
Scorched by the shame
And then it was done and everyone sighed together and grinned and looked around at each other as if Christmas had just been made for them. Jess looked at me quickly and we shared a look that dripped with a weird sort of understanding, even though I could tell that the story that had just been read aloud meant a heck of a lot more to him than it did to me.
After a few more minutes of this, April was walking around, shooing us all to bed.
“Ville, honey, you’re up in Bam’s room. I hope you don’t mind; I’d have given you the spare room but Bob needs a bed; he has a bad back, you see.” She nodded to one of her friends. He smiled at me and apologized but I waved it off.
“I’ll be fine April. I can even go home and come back tomorrow…”
“No, no I won’t hear of it! There’s space enough. Please.” She smiled at me - I couldn’t say no. Bam was standing up, waiting for me. When I heaved myself out of the chair he bounced up and down.
“Come on, come on. Quick before Jess gets in there and tries to steal my bed.” I rolled my eyes but followed him up the stairs - he had bounced up them whereas I walked up them slowly.
“Here, look. I’m on the floor, and Mom put new sheets on my bed so you can sleep in that.” He nodded at me. I shook my head.
“No look, Bam, I’ll go on the floor…”
“Oh shut up and get in the bed. Seriously.”
There was no arguing with the kid. I tried but he wouldn’t listen, and left me to get changed into my pajamas with his hands over his ears singing ‘lalala I can’t hear you’ at the top of his lungs.
I shook my head at his retreating back and dug around in the bag that someone had brought up for me until I found my pajamas - an old shirt and some gym shorts that I found god knows where - and climbed in Bam’s bed, feeling so awkward I wanted the ground to swallow me alive. His room was like any other teenagers room. Posters of sports teams and pro-skateboarders littered the walls. There were piles and piles of CD’s next to a rather beat up stereo system. He had three skateboards lined up neatly against a wall and several pairs of shoes next to them, each pair more decrepit, ripped and torn than the one before it. There were a few books on a bookshelf and a backpack on the chair that went with a desk which looked vaguely unused. Generally it was quite clean but I could tell he’d cleaned it, probably under the supervision of his mother.
He knocked on the door before bounding in again - without waiting for me to tell him it was okay to come in but I didn’t mind that, being in bed already. He was in his pajamas too and was carrying a sleeping bag under his arm.
“Bam, are you sure? I can sleep in that, I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to sleeping on the floor…”
“Oh shut up Ville. You’re in the bed now.” He grinned at me, rolled the sleeping bag out on the floor and grabbed his pillow. He did an interesting sequence of rolls, punches, flips and kicks before he got comfortable in the sleeping bag.
“You okay down there?”
“Yep. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“Better sleep. Santa Clause and all that.” He grinned. I stared at him in the dark.
“You don’t … believe in Santa do you?” He threw back his head and laughed.
“I was kidding, man.”
“Oh.”
“St. Nicholas was real though. A long time ago. But yeah, you probably don’t care. Good night.”
And with that he was asleep.
I, on the other hand, was having immense problems trying to get to sleep. Nothing out of the ordinary; I had always been an insomniac. But that night it bugged me that Bam was so fast asleep and peaceful and I was restless and very awake.
There was even one scary moment, about 2 hours after Bam had started snoring quietly, when I would have sworn I heard bells outside and something hit the roof above my head with a loud thunk.
But then I realized that the thunk was Bam rolling over and the bells were figments of my imagination and I calmed down a little. I didn’t really want to stay for Christmas dinner. I didn’t want to intrude; I knew now more than ever before that I didn’t really deserve to be around them. We were from two different levels in the world, the bottom and the top, and there was no gray area.
In my mind, at least. I knew, for some odd reason, that they liked me and were trying their best to take me under their wing.
For what end purpose I knew not. I was grateful, of course I was. My life had become, in the few months I’d known them, vaguely livable. But I still didn’t know why they were bothering at all.
It was amid this whirl of thoughts that I finally drifted to sleep in the early hours of the morning.
Bam woke me up by trying to exit the room quietly at what felt like the break of dawn.
“Mmf wha’ time is it?” I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and stretching, trying not to laugh at the obvious start I’d given him.
“It’s about 9. Mom’s probably making pancakes. Come down if you want some. We don’t do presents in the morning. After lunch.” He nodded happily and grinned, obviously excited about presents. It was very endearing to see. He’d changed out of his pajamas, obviously, without me waking up. I muttered something probably very incoherent in response and buried my head in his pillow. Nine in the morning was way too early to think about food.
I was downstairs about 10 minutes later, having spent most of the time in front of the mirror desperately trying to make myself look less overnighted and obviously failing horribly - the second April saw me she was asking if I slept well and hoping that I had and telling me I looked so tired and forcing me into a chair and setting 5 pancakes in front of me and a huge beaker of orange juice next to it.
“April, really, I can’t…”
“Oh poppycock. You need fattening up. Eat.”
Sighing and shrugging, I cut up the pancakes and ate them slowly, dutifully swallowing them, gulping each piece down with orange juice. My stomach rumbled. I wasn’t used to this much food.
April cut Bam and his brother and their friends off on their 7th pancakes and shooed them all out of the kitchen. I sat at the table alone, still working on the pancakes, while April and her friends set about cooking for lunch. It was snowing outside. The kitchen was warm and steamy and smelt of Christmas. April and her friends were singing and laughing, talking to me every now and then. The laughter of the children rang through the whole house, and you could hear the men in the living room watching replays of a football game.
Sleep had done me good. I had vaguely acknowledged the fact that the family was really trying to accept me and take care of me and I knew that I needed to stop questioning it. It was hard but it wasn’t like they were giving me any special treatment. They had just accepted me as one of them.
An interesting concept, really. To be almost part of a family? I’d never even dreamed of it.
The rest of the day consisted of playing video games with Bam - apparently I was a natural -, eating unhealthy amounts of food, saying goodbye to all the friends and parents and then sitting with just Bam’s family for the present opening ceremony.
They loved the presents I gave them. I don’t remember what they were but I know they liked them. And they’d given me presents too, which have also escaped my memory; they were eclipsed by the feeling of pure happiness I’d had opening Bam’s simple present.
We built a snowman in the yard. Had a snowball fight. Made snow angels. I even started building an igloo but Bam decided it would be fun to try and dive bomb it.
He had bruises from the ice blocks for weeks. He succeeded in destroying it though. So I stuffed his coat full of snow. And then we all tramped, wet and cold and grinning, back inside for hot chocolate and a movie by the fire.
It was the first time I could honestly say that I’d had fun in 12 years.
I’ll never, ever forget that feeling.
It was like I was having another chance at some of my childhood. I’d given up on playing in the snow long before I left Helsinki; it was something I’d always regretted.
I went home long after it was dark, a bag full of leftovers which had been forced on me slung over my back, their cries of goodbyes echoing in my ears.
I'm killing loneliness that turned my heart into a tomb
For the first time in my life, I began to understand why people actually liked Christmas.