FESTIVE FUN
By Wayne_Sharpe

Damian hated the snow, he hated how cold and sticky it was. He preferred something a little hotter. Yet there he was out in the garden, his coat buttoned up, a scarf half strangling him and his woolen gloves caked in the sticky cold snow.
His mother had forced him to go play outside with the other kids in the neighborhood, according to her, he would soon complain once the snow had melted and gone away, so he was to make the best of the snow whilst it was here.
Damian looked over the small privet hedge of the front garden and through the snowy downfall. He could see Jerry and Clare across the street running and skidding on the icy pavement.
Jerry was a bigger kid from around the corner, who only hung out with Clare because he fancied her. Clare had the hot's for him too. If anything, that alone was a good enough reason for Damian to plough a snowball right into his face.
And so, from behind the hedge, Damian scooped up a large handful of the hated snow, rounded it into a perfect ball and with a crack shot, launched it over the road. Damian watched the missile arc wonderfully, almost gracefully through the air to smack into the unsuspecting face of Clare.
Damian smiled enormously with a satisfaction he rarely felt. OK, he had in fact been aiming at Jerry but any face would do. He hated them all, why wouldn't he, that was what he was supposed to do regardless of his mother's wish for him to fit in.
Damian scrambled to his feet, covered in snow and ran back up the path. He laughed as he listened to the angry calls from Jerry and Clare.
Stomping his feet outside the back door to shed unwanted white stuff, as his mother had insisted he did, Damian banged open the door and stepped into the house.
His mother, wearing her usual blue gingham dress and frilly white apron, was standing at the sink with her hands submerged deep in the soapsuds of the washing up bowl. With a half-glance over her shoulder, she said,
"Back in so soon, sweetie? When the snow is gone, it's gone you know!" she repeated herself to his annoyance.
"I know mother, I just don't like it, that's all. I'm off to my room!"
Now fully turned around and looking at him, his mother scrunched up the towel as she dried her hands and with a sad shake of her head, shouted after him,
"Sweetie, you know we have to fit in around her, don't you? Or we will have to go home, back down there!" her words came out as a whimper rather than a shout but Damian still heard her.
"I know mother, blend in, get along and above all, be nice. NICE!"
He slammed his bedroom door and leaped the gap to his bed, buried his face in his pillow and screamed for all his worth "Aargh! BE NICE! Aargh!"
It only took a couple more screams into the pillow before his anger abated and he could sit up without fear of setting light to the house. Damian felt guilty and ashamed of himself. He had burnt down their other home's and had forced them to move. Damian knew that he was endangering their lives every time he had what his mother called, a meltdown.
Damian swung his legs over the edge of his bed and stood up on the toy-strewn floor. He could see out of the window and over to the other side of the street. There, Jerry and Clare continued to skid and slide on the ice whilst laughing and grabbing each other for balance. The anger that constantly burned in Damian's gut began to boil again with resentment. Why did they have to have fun in front of him? Why were they so happy and carefree whilst he was scared and miserable all the time?"
It wasn't fair!" he cried inwardly.
"It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair!" he cried as the room around him began to smolder
"IT ISN'T FAIR!" He finally screamed as loud as he could. The room around him burst into flames. The memory of cold sticky snow was wiped from his mind as the hot scorching air flowed down his throat and into his lungs. A smile curled the corners of his mouth as flames licked his fingertips and began to burn his clothes.
His anger calmed to a simmer as he flexed his muscles in the familiar fire but the guilt of his selfishness returned as he watched the advent calendar his mother had pinned to his bedroom wall began to drip brown sweet chocolate. He watched as the corners of the calendar began to curl up and burn. Damian couldn't take his eye from it as each little window burned. Most were already open, the Christmas tree, the sleigh, snowman, bauble, present, toy bear, ball and cycle, all burned. Finally, the flames, Damian could see, reached today's unopened window, the 24th December. Damian had been counting down the days and knew there was only one more sleep to the big day.
The window sporting the big Smiling face of Santa began to burn and the prize behind bubbled and leaked out. A tear ran down Damian's cheek but boiled away just as quick as it had appeared.
"It wasn't fair, none of it!" he cried.
The deep and dangerous roar came hurtling up from downstairs.
"DAMIAAAAAN..!"
He knew his mother was on her way up. The bedroom door flew open and there she was with thunder on her face and lightning in her eyes. With a wide sweep of her arm, a spinning black vortex swept through the room putting out the fire and capturing the thick black smoke and funneling it out of the door.
"Damian, how could you? We have only been here a month. How many more times must we move because you think it isn't fair. How could you!"
Damian looked at the anger and despair on his mother's face and felt a sense of guilt for what he had done but no matter what, he still knew it wasn't fair, all of it wasn't fair at all. Averting his eyes from his mother to the smoking remnants of the calendar pinned to the wall, he saw that window 24 was gone and the chocolate too!
With a mixture of shame and hatred Damian looked up at his mother and repeated his mantra in a weak and feeble voice "But mother, it just isn't fair"
With a tired shrug of her shoulders, she stepped over to him and sat by his side, placed an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into her.
"I know sweetie, I know but that is how it is. This is how it is, we live here now and we must blend in. Remember sweetie, there is only one more sleep till Christmas day, only one and then we can relax"
Damian's eye shot up from the floor and with a desperate stare, he asked,
"Then we can go home, back to father?"
She smiled and nodded "Yes, we will be able to go back down to your father once your Christmas wish is complete"
Just as Damian's bottom lip began to quiver; the doorbell rang and the sound of joyous singing floated up from outside. His mother sighed, walked out of the scorched and burnt room and headed down the stairs. With sniffling hiccups, Damian listened as his mother open the front door only to be greeted by a chorus of Jingle Bells, his favorite Yuletide Carol. Although he was utterly miserable he couldn't help but join in quietly.
"Oh! What fun it is to ride on a one horse open sleigh....hoo jingle"
But as he was about to carry on to the next line, just like the Carolers, he stopped as his mother rudely shouted out at them "BUGGER OFF!" and slam the door in their face. Without barely a pause, his mother shouted up the stairs,
"AND YOU MY YOUNG DEVIL WILL TIDY YOUR ROOM BEFORE DINNER. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

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Once, he had been playing in his bedroom at previous home when he had heard his mother and father going for it. His mother had raised her voice, calling his father name's and complaining that he was always away when Yuletide was here and that Damian, their pride and joy never got to see him at Christmas.
His father was a large man, well over six feet and broad. His hands were like plates and his belly was around, to say the least. On hearing the names, Damian's father had erupted in a destructive rage and had beaten his mother senseless, whilst shouting at her far worst names and saying,
"Only one day and night a year, that's all, just one day and night and then I am yours all year around. It's not my fault that the rules state that I have to be available for duty one day and one night a year. That's just the way it is and I have told you this every God damned year"
As his father spoke he slapped her into unconsciousness.
That had been the last time Damian had seen his father. His father wasn't allowed anywhere near them even though he had tried. Every Yuletide his father had made the effort to visit but he had been thwarted by his mother.
Damian didn't understand why they hated each other but they did, something about mountainous...mentanous, or was it maintenance? He wasn't sure. All he did know was that his mother was scared that his father was going to take him away.
"Well, tonight is the night, daddy was gonna try and visit me , like all the other times. As always he'll try whilst I'm asleep. Well this time I'm gonna stay awake all night"
Looking out of his window he could see the falling snow against the now black night sky. Damian hated it here and hated his mother for forcing him to be here. Slowly descending the stairs Damian called to his mother,
"Mommy, I'm sorry about my room, I've cleaned it best I can!" hearing no reply he thought "Jeez, she's mad!"
Out loud, he called again "Mommy, can I come down for tea, I'm hungry now?"
Again, he heard no reply, not even the sounds of his mother pottering around in the kitchen. He guessed she was outside the back door smoking a cigarette. His mother hated people who smoked indoors, she said it made the house stink of dirty ashtrays that you found in dive bars and so she would rather freeze to death for a nicotine fix than live with that smell in the house.
Damian walked the length of the hall and peeked into the living room, it was empty except for the Television that had been switched to mute. Further along, Damian peeked into the dining room, again to find it empty except for the flickering candles in the candelabra on the table, the ones his mother loved to light every night.
Damian began to feel nervous, the silence of the house was unsettling and the darkened rooms intimidated him somewhat. The door at the end of the hallway was ajar and revealed the light in the kitchen. Damian reached out to pushed the door open but with a fright, he quickly pulled back his hand as a large shadow suddenly blocked out the light and a booming voice erupted in the kitchen.
"WHERE IS HE, WHERE IS MY SON?""
Damian held onto the walls as the house shook violently as the familiar voice bellowed out.
"WHERE IS DAMIAN? IF ANY HARM HAS COME TO HIM, YOU SHALL PAY MY DEAR!"
Damian shook with fear, he recognized the voice as his father's. With his face now closer to the door, he could see his mother cowering on the floor and the large portly figure of his father standing over her. She looked terrified.
"I'll ask once more. Where is my little Devil?"
His father raised his hand high into the air and as his mother shied away from it with a cry of fear. Damian couldn't stand and watch anymore. With a fierce determination, he banged open the door and rushed in. He threw himself between his terrified mother and his father's descending hand and screamed,
"LEAVE MY MOMMY ALONE!"
The heavy hand struck Damian violently across his face, knocking him flat on the floor. With tears of fire raining down, Damian rubbed his stinging cheek, jumped to his feet and screamed in anger,
"I HATE YOU, I WISH YOU WEREN'T MY DADDY" and ran to his mother's open arms, trailing puddles of smoking fire where his tears had fallen.
His mother wrapped her arms around him and kissed the top of his head and cooed,
"There, there Damian, it'll be alright" and looking up at her estranged husband, she scolded "Happy now? Just go will you!"
By the time Damian's tears had settled to sad hiccups, only he and his mother remained huddled on the kitchen floor.
His mother helped him to his feet and with a sad smile ruffled his hair and pointed to the hall door "Come on, it's time for bed. Sooner you're asleep the sooner you know who will arrive and look under the tree!"
And with that, she hurried him upstairs helped him into his pajamas and into bed. Tucking him in, his mother kissed him goodnight and flipped off the light and shut the door.
Damian listened to his mother's footsteps as she went back down the stairs and turned up the volume on the TV. In the dark, with his covers pulled up to his chin, Damian excitedly waited for that special person to arrive.
"Maybe," he thought "maybe I'll hear him on the roof or come down the chimney"
Damian tried so very hard to forget the days upset and to stay awake so he could see Santa Claus but slowly he fell into a deep sleep.
                                    ----------------------------------
Light crept in through the bedroom window and morning slowly blossomed. The noise of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen tugged at Damian's sleepy mind until eventually, he was fully awake. In excitement, he threw off his bedcovers and jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs to find his mother preparing breakfast.
"Happy Antichrist-masse mummy" he shouted happily and eagerly hugged her.
With a chuckle, his mother patted his back with a free hand,
"Oh, Damian! It's Christmas up here, remember. You didn't think we would forget did you. Go see if Santa came, go look beneath the tree"
With a squeeze, Damian separated himself from his mother, ran down the hall into the living room, laughing with pure happiness and shouted to his mother, who now stood at the door watching,
"He came, he came. Look the presents" he turned and smiled at his mother "Look, the presents, they're all gone, he took them" and with that Damian burst into tears.
Damian's mother smiled back at him and said,
"Yes dear, he came. I'm so happy you didn't get to see him. Was this all you wanted what you wanted, did we do it right?"
With the biggest smile he had ever forced onto his face, Damian said,
"Oh mummy, this was all I ever dreamed it to be. All the suffering, misery and despair. The spoilt brats down the road and the horrible snow and even better, you surprised me with a neglectful abusive father. I really can see why everyone enjoy this time of year" tilting his head to the side in thought, Damian finally asked,
"I've really enjoyed being up here but I think I want to go home now, for real! I'm tired of playing a human. Let's go back down and celebrate Antichrist-masse properly, with torture and torment. Let's go and throw a couple of lost soles on the fire and celebrate the coming of Satan Claws"
A smile on her face, his mother whipped her hands around and around until the floor between them swirled into a large scorched hole. Looking down into its depths Damian could feel the heat rising along with the screams and groans of the tormented.
"Is daddy there waiting for us?" he asked his mother.
Smiling happily at her devil son, she said "Yes my dear! he is waiting for us, Lucifer is waiting for all of us!"