Dear friends,
This year we wrote you all a story.
Peace,
Billi and Daniel
A Gen-Y Christmas Carol
Once upon a time a boy and girl were walking down an alley. They saw a rose sitting atop a water meter. The boy picked up the rose. The girl, thinking it was a memorial for a skateboarding child who ran into the water meter and died, told him to put it back and avoid bad juju, but the boy would not. Instead the boy untied a small ring that was fastened to the stem of the rose. The girl thought he was trying to break the rose because he was angry at the now-dead skateboarder for something. Then the boy dropped down on two knees and asked the girl to marry him. Understanding the situation at last, she hopped around in a gleeful circle and said yesyesyesyesyesyesyes. That was the 10th of July, 2002.
Things rolled merrily along. The boy and the girl got married. They honeymooned in enchanting Missouri. They went on a few long zen trips. They had a rare species of moth - L. bildanicus - named after them by a friend. They learned about the business side of the wig industry. They learned to make latte art. They won a trip to Las Vegas that they couldn't take because they were underage and underincome. They went rolling naked in the snow. One of them - won't say which one - read "Twilight" three times in a row in one week. And the girl changed her name a couple of times, unable to decide whether she liked the hyphen. (She did in the end.) The boy and the girl also made a lot of wonderful friends. Like Manifest Destiny, the special people in their lives spread from one coast to the other promising bounteous goodness for a long time to come.
Oh, their adventures were grand and varied. They were never without a joyful sun on the horizon and bright path before them. As part-time bohemians, they were immensely successful (meaning they could keep returning to it part of the time). But on Christmas Eve 2009, they found themselves on a precipice of decision. The ledge before them presented a risky but exhilarating bohemian flight of fancy, a flight to an enchanted elfish land. The long slope leading away from the ledge was steady and financially prudent, probably the route most people would chose. They deliberated long and hard about their next move. Should they jump? (That would mean not buying Christmas presents but going to the Land of the Elves.) Or should they take the safe way down? (Which would leave funds for Christmas shopping and becoming landed gentry, but cancel the frozen transect.)
As they stood at the ledge deliberating, they heard an accordion wheezing nearby. Suddenly a giant, long-faced man - certainly a Son of Lee Marvin - was standing beside them. "You gotta get behind the mule," he rasped, "in the morning and plow." As he spoke, they were transported back in time to May 2009, to their old loft apartment. They watched a scene unfold as the Son put a long-fingernailed hand on each of their shoulders. It was well past midnight. The girl was sitting on the floor, organizing bills, agonizing over piles of receipts, looking with longing at the Let's Go: Europe volume sitting on her bookshelf, then stifling a yawn. The boy was hunched over the keyboard, pecking away at a term paper. He rubbed his red eyes and shook his head to clear the drowse. Neither of them would go to sleep that night, for both had deadlines to meet and both had to be on their way to work at 4:30 a.m. "Take my drink with a little drop of poison," said the Son of Lee Marvin, at which point they were suddenly back at the precipice, alone. The boy and the girl, remembering the sleepless scene in the loft, shuddered at the thought of getting back behind that mule.
They were not alone for long, however, before a train of Marfans, led by a grizzled "Screw You!"-ing conductor, materialized and sauntered jovially onto the ledge. "We're from Texas," said the weathered captain. The Marfans all shrugged as casually as indie darlings, some lifting a friendly wave, some just bobbing their chins slightly. And in a blink the entire party was leaning on the rail at Padre's. The music was loud. The girl and the boy discovered fresh margaritas in their mits. They basked in the pleasant room with its colorful lights and smiling faces. "Just trying to get home?" asked a friendly Marfan in blue straw cowboy hat. "Well they ain't in jail!" the captain answered for them, now striding the stage. The boy and the girl looked at each other. The boy replied, "Not yet. It just sounds nasty." The girl didn't know if he meant home or jail. The captain cackled on the stage. And as quick as before, the boy and the girl were alone on the precipice.
The girl looked at the boy with confused eyes. He looked ready to sail into the air. "But wait," she whispered, "I'm not sure." Just then, a small impish woman with a coy grin giggled from her perch in a nearby tree. She was dressed as a swan. "Human behavior, " she laughed to herself, shaking her head. She sprang from the tree and transformed mid-fall into an actual swan. She grabbed the boy in one swan-talon and the girl in the other. She flew them over subdivisions, where every house looked the same and every backyard was occupied by an abandoned dog and a rusted swing set. She flew them past office towers, where tired executives stayed late alone for overseas conference calls. She flew them over a cold dark ocean, where fishing boats bobbed and tankers created islands of light. As they flew past the captain's window of one tanker, they saw a man holding a photograph of his long-missed family. Finally they flew over a blue-white drift of evergreens. They landed gently beside a glowing castle made of snow. They could hear their own voices laughing inside the frozen walls. "Declare independence," said the swan maiden. And once again, the boy and the girl were left alone on the ledge by the precipice.
They looked around. They were indeed alone this time. Before them lay the thrilling drop. To the side, the gradual slope. Then the boy turned his shoulders square to the ledge and stood up straight. An amused grin warmed his face. The girl turned that way too, but kept her eyes on him. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he pointed to the gradual slope.
"Have we ever gone that way?" he asked. The girl's eyebrows crinkled together in response. "I guess not," she said. He smiled at her and grabbed her hand. She smiled back. "Merry Christmas," she whispered. Holding hands all the while, they took a running start and flung themselves off the precipice.
THE END
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