christmas day (microfiction)

25.12.2025

A: Now it is over. Did you enjoy Christmas day? And what did you get up to?

S: I spent most of the day with my friend after phoning the Lady for an hour in the morning, learning languages and completing another module of my management course. We had an excellent Christmas lunch of beef wellingtons and spicy pepperoni and pepper pizza. With some beautiful Marks and Spencer’s chocolates. We talked and played Scrabble. Some family time for dinner where I had tandoori chicken, wholemeal pitta breads, a freshly cut salad and a yoghurt and mint sauce. Dessert was a chocolate yule cake which had chocolate sauce on the outside and cream inside. Afterwards, I watched Mrs Robinson with my friend for the first time at his place and then we called one of our other mates together before I called the Lady again on the walk home.

A: What did you make of Mrs. Robinson?

S: She is infinitely seductive. An experienced older lady that knows what she wants. A powerful woman that revolts against the trap that is marriage.

A: You were seduced?

S: Was Mrs. Robinson trying to seduce me?

A: That is for you to tell.

S: Or not as the case may be. A fine film.

A: How do you reflect upon this day?

S: It was fun. Some work and a lot of pleasure. I managed languages learning and reading up on psychology as well. But my thoughts are with those that were alone today.

A: Any other thoughts before retiring for the night?

S: I have decided upon my New Year’s Resolution. To make sure I do either the exercise bike or running on the treadmill more regularly. And to read more. Always, there is more reading to do. If a writer does not read, how can he write?

a nice memory (microfiction)

21.12.2025

A: What is the most beautiful memory you have?

S: I’ve been brought up with a lot of care and attention. I have many beautiful memories. Why choose just one?

A: Okay, it does not have to be the most beautiful. Just one that is beautiful.

S: Well, the one is one that happened many times. We would be staying at our grandparents’ house in London. It was exciting to be in London by itself. And my grandad would get us together and tell us a story before bedtime. And then he would ask us what the story meant at the end. Sometimes, he would take us on long walks and then tell us the stories as we were walking.

A: Those are your best memories? Stories?

S: They were stories told through love. They might not give happiness to some people, I know that all too well, I that write my stories. But they gave me happiness. And after the stories, my grandfather would be my bedfellow. I always slept in the same bed with him when I stayed over at his house. Because I was the closest to my grandfather. We were like best friends.

A: From being this kid that was excited by stories, why have you become this angry animal? If you had such a happy childhood, why are you full of rage and sadness?

S: Even when I was a child, I had anger management problems. I was born to be The Tiger.

A: Do you often dwell on these happy moments?

S: It is Christmas time. Today, a man told me that at Christmas time, you remember the ones that are not there. The ones that you had with you at Christmas. Do you know, there was this one. I asked them out in the New Year. It was my New Year’s resolution. I had them for that Christmas, thinking that they were mine although I did not celebrate it with them. I remember my grandparents at their house. We would have Christmas there. What is that if it is not dwelling on happy moments?

A: Happiness tinged with grief.

S: There was a time when they laughed that I felt all the joy in the world. Life has changed. Now, they are all gone from my life. They are either the dead or the living dead. They all left me.

A: Well now you have someone. And you can live in their laughter.

A Negative Statistic about Christmas – 18.12.2017

Gleaming images of beautiful families assail us everywhere around December time. Positive messages and good cheer seemingly abound. Beneath the surface, however, there are grimmer realities. Consider the food wastage. In 2014, 4.2 million Christmas dinners were wasted across the United Kingdom according to Unilever. The most startling popular statistic, and the most worrying, is that of the “Christmas Suicide”. This statistic, that there are increased rates of suicide attempts in the holiday season, is a popular myth and has been debunked by several authorities. However, it is pervasive. Why is this so?

Through one perspective, the “Christmas Suicide” myth could be interpreted as reflecting a deep unease and anxiety about the holiday season. Beneath apparent happiness, we are told, there lurk tragedy and depths of despair. Happiness is a bubble, reality is sadness. We are only separated from suffering by a hair’s breadth, for we too could be contemplating demise by our own hand. Is it human nature to be unable to keep away thoughts of suffering during our most special and happiest moments? Or is the experience of suffering that we have gone through to build family relationships an unavoidable and irrepressible memory?

Such questions deserve more thought. However, my opinion is that the Christmas suicide myth rests on a cultural idea of loneliness that is used to depict the anti-social elements in society as dangerous. It is the lack of friends and family, we are told, that leads an individual to murder him or herself. This lack leads to a deep and hopeless despair. This singling out of the lonely betrays a complacency which the social individual possesses and an unflinching and unwarranted trust and belief in social arrangements. He or she is surrounded by people in the holiday season and anything else appears both perverse and dangerous, a threat to life, society and the individual. But what of the loneliness of the crowd? Of never being able to express to others what is inside, or to feel a true companionship? Such feelings are buried and displaced onto the Christmas suicide in a convenient fashion.

By all means, think of those that are not as lucky as you in Christmas time. Empathise with the less fortunate and the lonely. However, do pay attention to the differences between cultural myths and prosaic realities. When you are enjoying time with the family and friends, pause to think how much you are the real, happy you and how much you are simply a character in a story about Christmas and its insiders and outsiders.