A Fake Plastic Snowflake

In memory

“Aren’t fairy lights the most beautiful thing in the world?”

If you were here, you would smirk slightly, not as in a half-hearted smile, but a lop-sided one, one that hung off the corner of your mouth and flattened your lips against your retainers, bulging out a little. Lowered head, furrowed brows, head tilt, a raised brow.

“Really? Searching for a missing someone on a Christmas eve? How very Hugh Grant of you.” You would squint at me a bit and poke my jawline. 

It smells like a mixture of eggnog and traffic, the muddy languid slush of wet snow against the heavy air of smoke as drunk businessmen spoke, drawling out Christmas carols. 

It’s Christmas eve, people, get a grip. It’s not Christmas yet. 

Three years ago, you were so giddy, and I remember the way you dragged me out to the middle of the bicycle lane and gestured with your chin, tilted up towards the fairy lights, entwined with the artificial rainbow snowflake lights tied rather sloppily onto arched trees.

“Aren’t they pretty?” 

“I guess, but they’re plastic-y and fake.”

“So? Look! That light blue that just shines for a moment. It’s a snowflake, except it doesn’t fall. People think snowflakes are beautiful because they’re rare and a product of nature �" but I think that things can be superficial and seemingly shallow, but beautiful. Like fairy lights! People might not understand it, but are they so differ�"“

And time froze. I remember you dashed out. I remember, you saw the little girl with the ponytail drop her mittens, and you dropped your bag, and dashed out onto the road into the snow in front of her. I remember a shove, and you fell. 

There was a brightness, an anticlimactic brightness that blinded my eyes and I’m sure blinded yours when the car shone it’s headlights in your face.

I see the girl with the ponytail lay flowers at the side of the road, and she sees me. She opens her mouth to try to say something, then closes it, and I almost turn away to walk away. I tilted my head and somewhere above me, snowflakes turn a light blue.

Maybe, they can be pretty. 

Maybe even with some people gone, things can still be beautiful. 

There are crowds of people on the street, and the smell of traffic fades with the passing of time and I hear the Christmas carols strengthen in the distance with the carolling choir. There is the warm smell of chocolate, snow, and home. There are Christmas lights on Christmas trees, and stars that shine brightly and strongly above the laughter.

I walk over to kneel by the road in the snow, and take them out of my pocket. I twirl them in a circle, attempting to lay them neatly, then decide to bunch them up and bury them gently. They shine in the snow, and from far away they remind me of you. 

I look at the fairy lights in the white snow, and close my eyes to remember.

I remember you under classroom lights

Library lights

Mall lights

Starlight

Headlights. 

Tonight, I see you in fairy lights. 

Somewhere a bell tolls, and people cry out. It’s warm, and I look up to see a hint of snow.

Merry Christmas, my love.