End Of Year Puddle Of Reflection

I found a puddle at the bottom of my bed. I don’t know how it got there, a slight flooding probably, but it was here and when I looked into the puddle I saw a rippled version of myself looking back. As we stared at each other I could see the extra cracks that had been formed over the year on my face. Maybe it was just the water.

Other things started to bob out of the puddle. Job rejection emails, strands of hair, stitches, deleted phone numbers, poorly prescribed medication… I couldn’t look at the puddle anymore. Left it to dry.

New Year Party Walk

I was walking through a New Year’s party when I realised I’d become invisible. I tried to grab a glass of prosecco from the bar but my hands went through the glass, hands I couldn’t see. I looked around the room and didn’t recognise anyone, large swathes of people wearing neon passed through my body. It was the dress code, and I imagined at one point I was wearing neon too.

I walked through the crowds looking for an exit, but when I found a door it would not open. I couldn’t see myself yet everyone was watching me try.

Ringing In The New Year

Bzzz. That was the first sound I heard on New Year’s Day. Before the fireworks. Before the cheering. Before the smashed beer bottles. It was a bzzz. The bzzz of my own flat doorbell, rung by me. I had the keys in my pocket but rang the doorbell anyway. I knew another me was on the other side, sleeping in my bed, reading all my books, wearing all my clothes. At midnight, this other me had manifested a better new and improved me. I’d been through this before.

The new me didn’t bother answering the door. My shadow was shrinking.

Facing The New Year

At the end of each year, I like to look at myself in a mirror and have a conversation with myself. What went well this year? What didn’t go well? What do I hope for next year? What will I do to achieve my goals? How about a funny joke?

But this year I’m not so sure I’ll get the opportunity to do such a thing. I was waiting to cross the road when a bus drove past. I checked my reflection out and noticed my face was missing. I rushed back and saw nothing looking back in the mirror. Featureless.

Scary Toilet Bowl

I found myself staring into the toilet bowl at a New Year’s Party. It was the only quiet place in the venue, cubicle locked, only the eyes on various stickers watching me. I was panting, looking into the water, admiring the clear piss that someone had forgotten to flush. I admired it because it was the cleanest I’d seen in some time, and it wasn’t mine. At a party like this, someone was making sure to stay hydrated.

Mine was almost luminous in comparison, and that was how I entered 2024. It completely eradicated the unflushed liquid that impressed me so.

The Boxing Monster

I woke up with aches and pains all over, head to groin , and I could barely see as the morning light shone through the thin curtains. I felt as if my eyes were burning, and something was inside my brain punching it like a fitness bag. 

I stood up and fell back into the bedsheets, left in a sprawl determining how it came to this. I heard a snigger in my head and realised I’d been got by the Boxing Monster. A product of the date, a once a year creature who made people watch TV morning till night. 

The Santa Clause IV: Going Postal

R.I.P. Selcouth Station.

The Santa Clause IV: Going Postal

No chimney, no open windows, no key under the mat, the only way in would be through the letter box. Newly fitted, the flap still stiff, barely used, the brush strip still firm, anyone would struggle squeezing something through this the first few times. Santa sighed, he could see his breath float off into the night sky. He’d entered many homes through cracks, crannies and holes in his time, more than anyone in fact, but the first entry was always the worst. He felt unprepared, his sack felt heavy, the weight of a billion gifts to unload. Ho ho hum.

He turned to the reindeer roadies, but only Rudolph had arrived, wiping his red runny nose on one of Santa’s sacks.

‘Prancer, Dancer, Comet, Cupid, D-‘

‘They’re all sick, can you believe it?’ Rudolph interjected mid-sneeze. ‘They were well enough for the prep, goddammit, achoo!’

‘Funnily enough, I can’t.’ Santa sighed. ‘So, Rudolph, you ready?’

‘Sure thing, boss. Rudolph pulled his hands from warm leather coat pockets, rubbing them together in preparation. ‘Your moral support is here.’ And with that, Rudolph started clapping, he’d be at it all night, a monotonous, weak, clammy clap. It helped Santa deliver faster.

And so, Santa went through the motions one more. He lifted the flap and stuck an arm in, to see how far he could reach, and he couldn’t reach far. The other arm followed, with just enough room to poke his beard on through. He felt a little stupid, it took a few houses to turn numb to the letterbox technique.

‘You look stupid over there.’ Rudolph agreed as he continued his moral support claps.

The next step for Santa was to grip onto the end of his beard with both hands and took one last breath before he pulled.

Santa tugged hard, tugged until some of his hair had shed onto the welcome mat, tugged until his skin started to come undone from the strain of it all. His face continued to stretch, snapping from the skull, his eyes popping out, glistening like baubles, the cheap glassy kind. A stew of tinsel and mulled wine followed, spewing from his throat, now poking out from the jaw, as Rudolph from outside squeezed Santa’s stomach, to let every drop out. With no way to get a full skeleton through such a small gap, what else could one do? The presents followed.

Santa’s slop had already started to move, a little Christmas magic had seen his blood harden into jelly, like those Santa lollipops seen in sweet shops, allowing Santa to wobble all the way to the living room Christmas tree. The present was safe inside him, it wasn’t the first, it wouldn’t be the last. As he pulled the gift out from his mass, he noticed a young girl standing at the stairs. His eyes weren’t in the right place, but he could still see her stare.

‘Merry Christmas!’ He gurned as his intestines slipped out.

She wouldn’t give them back.

New Hands

I snuck a feel of the present under the Christmas tree. It was a lumpy package, soft on first inspection, but a slight squeeze presented a hardness that wouldn’t be felt initially. I pondered what it could be. New slippers? Maybe an ornament or gadget for the kitchen or bedroom? I just couldn’t figure it out, so left it to my dreams to unravel and unpack. 66

On Christmas day I finally found out. It was the first present I gunned for and tore the wrapping apart. Two new hands fell out, smooth nails, no scars or marks.

Then a saw.

Christmas Leak

I woke up to find a pile of glitter on my floor. I never partook in that side of the festive cheer with green, gold, silver, and red, glitter piled up high. I looked around the room and quickly saw the source of the festive glitter flurry, a leak in the ceiling, dripping Christmas down upon me.

I tried to block it up myself, but the next day I found baubles smashed on the floor, nothing could stop this leak, not even a plumber. By the end of the week, I had tinsel, a Christmas tree and unopened presents. Drip drip.

Winter Gloves

The winter gloves hadn’t been cleaned in years, and the insides were full of crumbs from long-forgotten winter snacks. Once the hands stopped growing there was little need for additional gloves. These gloves had little cartoon reindeer faces on them too, so why would one replace them? And washing them might see the bobble-nosed reindeer losing their shine. So the gloves just needed a good shake so they could carry on being winter gloves.

This year the winter gloves were holding onto another pair of gloves, gloves with hands already in them. They had Santa faces on them. Bobbled beard.