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Personal Randomness
The Doll
The cold night air hits me directly as I step from the warm door of my apartment building into the narrow sidewalk running parallel down 42nd Street. The streetlights illuminate the passerby, all breathing heavy and shivering as the cold reaches into their chests and extracts their souls, turning them to mist in the city air. I stroll toward the shops, feigning casualty, knowing that I am unsuccessful. This isn`t just a random holiday walk. This holds meaning. I shiver. The cold is breathtaking. Your lovely face springs to mind, pulling at my heartstrings. As I've became accustomed to doing over the last three years, I pull from my waistcoat pocket a small silver locket, the arms of the heart wrapped tightly and securely over your picture. Your tinkling laugh infiltrates the steam of a nearby drainage vent, caressing the darkness with your light. It takes a few moments, as it always does, for me to grasp that you are my daughter, and this is real. Putting your picture once more into the dark recesses of my coat, I continue on with my stroll. I have a purpose on this chilling night, one which must be fulfilled. Christmas Spirit depends upon it. Brightly decorated windows line the shops, each with festive lights and the most appealing of objects from the shop within. I see a beautiful doll, at least three feet tall with long tendrils of golden-spun hair. Her blue eyes shine with a light unknown to a mere toy, her green velvet dress painstakingly arranged on her angelically white porcelain. She is a mirror image of you, and I must have her. I enter the store, making my intentions aware to the shopkeeper. He smiles, commenting that the beautiful doll must be for a child as equally stunning. I agree, and show him the locket. He quickly wraps the gift, telling me to have a wonderful Christmas. I give him more money than the doll is priced, telling him to have a splendid holiday. He laughs and tells me how lucky a man I am to have such a beautiful child. I wave goodbye. Once I hurry out of the shop with the doll grasped safely in my arms, the cold hits me once again. I had became accustomed to the warmness inside, and had forgotten to wrap my scarf tightly once more. I run the three blocks to the apartment building, darting inside to escape the first few flakes of a white Christmas. The modest pine greets my coldness as I enter the apartment. Festive lights circle the cone, along with your favorite ornaments. Sitting the package under the tree beside numerous other gifts, I sit in the armchair and gaze outside at the heavy snow slowly covering the sidewalk. Three years worth of gifts sit under the tree, kept hidden in a spare room during the warm months, then brought out with the tree for the holiday festivities. It has been three years without your squeal of pleasure as you take your first look at the lighted tree on Christmas morning. Three years since you and I last decorated the tree, singing Christmas carols and laughing over hot cocoa. Three years since I woke up that dreaded Christmas morning to find you gone, my one and only, taken in the night a mere ten feet from where I slept. These years I've not given up hope. You always said that Christmas was a magical time, and I believe it more than ever. I have to. If I don't, what else is left?  |
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