Smile
The air was crisp and the wind snagged at my hat, trying to drag it away. I muttered a few angry mumbles while trying to keep the beanie on my head, clutching it tightly in my hands, my fingers knotting around the rough, black fabric. My clothes felt stuffy, and I was starting to heat up, but I knew that as soon as I’d take my thick winter coat off, I would start to freeze, so I settled with unzipping my jacket and taking off my hat. My ears started to turn numb as soon as they were exposed, so I was forced to yank it back on, fumbling with my cold fingers. The Christmas lights reflected in the store windows around me, making the parked cars and windows glow.
Everyone around me looked so happy, and I felt envy strangle my heart and sadness close around my throat. I couldn’t understand how everyone could be so full of joy except me. Maybe they had friends, money, and family: all things that didn’t belong to me.
I glanced over my shoulder at a hunched, gnarly old man, who stumbled a few steps behind me, with his bright green scarf and flushed cheeks. How was it possible that even he, a man who was dragging his left leg behind him as he fumbled forward, had something to smile about? And how could that tired looking mother, with her pale face and heavy dark circles, be beaming down into the eyes of the baby she holds in her arms?
Ever since my little brother died, everybody’s upturned lips remind me of his, which can no longer laugh. Taken away from my family on Christmas, I can’t look at golden tinsel without loosing a little more of myself, thinking of the way he decorated the tree, standing on his tippy toes, trying to reach the higher branches. His loss is what changed me, and what will leave me forever feeling empty on the inside. Nobody seems to understand that Christmas isn’t wrapping paper and bubbling laughter for everyone.
Amidst the sea of numb bodies surrounding me, I thought I heard someone call my name and froze. No, it cant be. But there it was, again. My mind was racing, trying to come up with an explanation, and yet it sounded so much like his voice. I whirled around, my eyes frantically searching through the crowd of snowfall and hot breaths whirling in the air around me. I finally rested my eyes on a little boy, the one with the brown messy hair, the crooked smile of his that made me melt, holding the yellow truck he always played with. Then the crowd shifted, and even though I didn’t blink, even though my eyes were stapled open, the next time there was enough of a gap between all these people, he was gone.
And just like that, I didn’t feel so alone anymore. He was here. I knew it. And so I closed my eyes, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I smiled.
Natalia Consumi