Time flies when you’re having fun, or so they say,
but to be honest, I can’t really call my life fun-filled,
yet five decades have flown by in the blink of an eye
without me even noticing, and now I’m staring
at a white-bearded face looking back from the mirror
and wondering what was the point in laughing
at that kid who thought fifty years was a long time
when I probably have twenty or thirty more to go
and can’t even imagine making it through a week
of family Christmas gatherings.
I don’t do Christmas gifts—or Christmas itself, for that matter—but if I did,
an Etta James record and a box of soft tissues would be plenty, I guess,
so I’m not a high-maintenance man, yet neither a good girl nor a bad one
writes my name on the tag attached to the wrapper with the Santa motif,
and not even because my solitary life has grown on me after a few years,
or my last date thought I’m a bore and didn’t hesitate to say it to my face,
but because it’s easier to cry to ‘At Last’ than muster up trust once again.
Nothing beats the hypnotic mechanical movements
of the Friden calculators at Consolidated Life
after a week of testing spiritual resilience with Hallmark Christmas flicks.
And it wasn’t even in Technicolour—although, come to think of it,
that might actually be part of the reason
for its soul-restoring power.
Nothing heralds the arrival of the month of forced joy better
than binge-watching Hallmark Christmas flicks—only slightly
toned down by a reserved immersion in Russell and Hitchens
during the commercials—with all the remarkably irrelevant
characters in the spectacle of self-inflicted sorrow that some
call the holidays. After all, even a die-hard atheist like myself
deserves his guilty pleasures.
How kind of me to drop a tenner into the battered polystyrene cup
of that poor bloke sleeping on the pavement outside the bank!
Don’t believe me? Check out my last tweet.
How kind of me to help the new guy at work,
even though he is so incompetent that he would be better off doing something else,
but he never listens to me on the latter!
How kind of me to always put so much thought into the presents
I give my relatives and friends! Like last Christmas, when I gave my older sister
‘The Essential Atkins for Life Kit.’
And speaking of life-enhancing writing, isn’t it kind of me
to share my life experience,
and all for free?
Sorry, mate, but it’s not—it’s all condescending.
I never asked to be born. It was forced upon me by a moment of mindless lust, later sugarcoated by religion with the phrase “the gift of life.” The problem is, unlike an unwanted Christmas gift, I can’t simply toss it away. Both nature and society have made sure to hold me hostage as long as possible and to produce further victims of this vicious circle. Now that I’ve finally realised this, I know why Merry Christmas sounds like an insult.
hidden pilcrow 