He came! He was here! I didn't see him, but I know for sure that he's been here. No, no, no- not Santa Claus. My old nemesis, you've heard me talk of him before: Loki, the Trickster god.
It was a lovely, early December evening. Mark was just home from an overnight visit with Mom and some Christmas shopping. Presents were piled under the tree, which has been up for a week or so already. Mark was wrapping, and had placed a few more gifts underneath the branches, heavy with ornaments and bubble-lights. The dog had been walked and was blissfully gnawing on something at my feet. I myself had even poured a rare glass of Pinot Grigio, left over from Thanksgiving, the perfect complement to the buzz of another kind which we were enjoying thanks to an early Xmas gift from a kind friend (thank you, kind friend). David Archuleta was singing Christmas carols on the iPod, for God's sake. It was some kind of Gay Christmas Bliss, like a Hallmark commercial on LOGO TV.
Mark stepped into the kitchen to make himself a cocktail. I stood up to get... something.
That's when he was here! He must have been right behind the tree; that's probably why I didn't see him. Because when the tree started falling, it started falling right towards me.
It's funny, because as it fell, time seemed to slow down, so that it was falling very, very slowly, and the antique glass ornaments made the most delicate sound as they, slowly, shattered, one by one. But even though time had slowed down, and it took so very long for the tree to stop falling, the only thing I actually had time to do was to give a short, choked scream like a schoolgirl who has just stepped on a dead squirrel.
Loki laughed and laughed. "Ho ho ho!" said Loki.
The first thought in my mind was that I was very, very glad that I was nowhere near the tree as my husband came back in from the kitchen.
So, the up-side is that it can be a positive bonding experience between partners to clean up a disastrous mess like that one.
You smile. You wear red. You go on.
And Merry Christmas to you, too, Loki. Good one.
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