Welcome to a beautiful day at The Bright Light Cafe

The Bright Light Cafe       A hot cup of coffee

Click here to sign up for your free newsletter - "Brilliant!"

The Good Stuff
Short Story

A Christmas Story

by Marc Hecht

Length: 639 words

Tell a friend about this page

Applaud with your positive comments by clicking here

The Good Stuff Menu featuring Anecdotes, Articles, Meditations, Multimedia, Poems, Quotes, Short Stories, Links

Deep Relaxation & My Place of Tranquillity CD

Conquer Stress
Experience
Deep Relaxation
and your own inner
Place of Tranquillity

- Audio sample -

Deep Relaxation

More information ...

 

Breathing Deeply CD - your own personal coach

Breathing Deeply
is the natural and simple path to happiness.
Breathing Deeply

promotes confidence,
self-esteem
and good health.
More Information ...

 

Let Your Talent Shine!

Shine Your Light!

Poets, Writers,
Artists, Musicians

More Information...

Voice Over Artists, Actors/Actresses
More Information...

 

You have a choice when you have The Second Trigger!

Stop your negative buttons being pushed.
When it's time
for a better life,
it's time for
The Second Trigger

More Information ...

 

A Christmas Story

They say that humanity is possession of a higher intelligence. The thing that makes man so distinctly human, so much more highly evolved, is his sense of comprehension, rational thought; or at least, that is what’s commonly said. The truth, however, lies in the exact opposite. It is one of man’s completely irrational abilities that makes him so special; to see beauty anywhere, anytime, in anything.

Consider a cold, Massachusetts night. It’s one of those nights where you just can’t seem to get warm, no matter how many jackets, gloves or scarves you wear. A man, a young man, stands on his back porch, looking out on a dark night in his crowded neighborhood. Lights shine dimly from scattered windows, trees batter against windows so thin and brittle that they should have shattered years ago. His face is grim as he picks fallen leaves off of an old ripped up couch and sits down, shivering.

Somehow, through some trick of the human mind, he is transported. Transported to neither a time nor place, but to a feeling reflected through both, a feeling thought long gone, forever lost, a feeling that would never return.

He stands outside on a night much like the one he began in. He is in Vermont, though it really doesn’t matter. The grimness in his features is gone, replaced by the soft, smooth unweatherdness of childhood, his head tilted up so high the back of his neck aches from the strain. A hand lies on his shoulder, the hand of some giant masculinity, not a frightening masculinity, but rather the comforting warmth that could only come from such an imposing figure. He calls this hand “Dad”. Dad’s other hand points up, at some distant star shining dim in the moonlight. “Do you see that one? That’s part of Orion’s Belt.” He doesn’t see the star Dad is pointing to; it is lost to him in a sea of shining beauty, thousands of torches shining in the windows of houses so distant they blur into a murky gray. “I see it,” he tells his father. Not a lie, per se, but solidarity, a reciprocation of warmth, love in a shared experience.

He and Dad walk side by side, the cold unable to affect them in their warm little bubble called family. They brush through the foot-thick snow lining the walkway and enter the cabin. The father strips him of his gloves and boots, places the boots on a tray in the front hall and leads him by the hand into the cabin. They place their gloves side by side in front of the fire place, the father huddling close to his son, sharing in the warmth of the flickering dancing fire before them. They sit down cross-legged in front of the fire and Dad says something. It doesn’t matter what he said, just that they shared a laugh that seemed to go on forever.

The man is back on his small back porch in Massachusetts, though it doesn’t really matter. He stands up and crosses to the railing, looking back out into the darkness. He can’t see the stars tonight, just an inky blackness stretching out from above his house, expanding endlessly into a sea of swirling nothingness. But he recalls that night, long ago. The cold can’t touch him; a warm bubble inside in his stomach won’t let it hurt him any longer.

It’s all so temporary, he thinks to himself, that temporary feeling. A temporary feeling, a temporary place, even a temporary father. A father he sees so little of these days. That night may be gone, the father may be elsewhere, the stars may be invisible, but that feeling remains, just waiting to be conjured up from the hidden, obscured, magical parts of his mind.

And all was well.

 

Top of Page

 Reason no. 36: Teach Your Son
Reason no. 36:...
Shawnda Eva
Buy This at Allposters.com

Reviews

Reviews (applause received)    Applaud with your positive comments by clicking here

Be the first to review this story - click here.

Top of Page

Copyright ©2004-2012 Bright Light Multimedia