A Christmas Tale
Copyright (c) 1993, Franchot Lewis
All rights reserved




                A CHRISTMAS TALE
                 by Franchot Lewis


         Tina hears the thumping noises of her grandmother's
    footsteps and she begins to predict the future. The footsteps
    mean that her grandmother is agitated again, and Tina is
    about to get yelled at. Tina's facial muscles twitch and she
    feels a churning in her stomach. She hunches her shoulders,
    sinks down in the sheets, and tries to hide, so to become a tiny,
    little lump in the bed, hoping to be invisible. She sucks in
    her breath as she hears the footsteps in the hallway out side
    the bedroom door.
         She fears that she can't - but knows she must continue
    to stay in her grandmother's house. But, how can she? She
    feels, she can't and be afraid this way? She skulks about the
    house, moves in every shadow she can find. She avoids eye contact
    with her grandmother and tries to avoid anyone who comes to her
    grandmother's house. This is a fretfully, worrisome, way to stay
    alive until her parents come for her. To her young mind, it
    seems like she has been living afraid forever. Already, she has
    spent three weeks living in her grandmother's house. She is
    convinced that everything in the house, including the furniture,
    is determined to subdue her. The ugly walls want to smother her.
    When she goes to bed she can hear her grandmother moving about,
    and she worries that her grandmother's friends might come
    sneaking into her room. To hide from them, she slides down in
    the bed under the blanket and covers her head. She prefers the
    darkness under the covers. She dreads sleeping with her head
    uncovered, making herself an easy target in the glow of the
    night light her grandmother keeps on in the room, for her, her
    grandmother says. She thinks the light is there for her grand
    mother and her grandmother's friends to spy on her.