literature

That Christmas

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Literature Text

“That Christmas, you gave me my first present.”
“That Christmas, you promised me that you’ll wait for me.”


The young girl sat on the low stone wall that kept out unwanted animals from getting into the garden. She wrapped her furry winter coat around her small body as tight as she could as gust after gust of wind blew through her. She shook uncontrollable as the snow fell all around, freezing the world and the garden. The girl stood for a moment, coughed, and climbed over the wall. She walked through the now dead garden and wondered how long it had been since anything had grown here. She glanced up at the old abandoned house that she now made her home and imagined the large old wooden house alive and full of people and lights and warmth. She pictured a large tree with a roaring fire and many young kids running around in the excitement of Christmas as the parents hosted a fabulous party that everyone came to. She longed to be one of those excited children, but ever since that fateful day.
It was at least a year ago when the fire happened, almost a month after Christmas when there was an accident. It happened in the middle of the night, when she was having a sleepover at her friend’s house. The whole house was engulfed and nothing could possibly be saved. The girl would not believe that her parents were dead and so she ran away to search for them. She searched everywhere, or at least everywhere she could. She did not want to go to her grandparents, and so she kept herself hidden until she found an old neighborhood where barely anyone lives and there were many old and abandoned houses, the perfect place for her to hide out.
And so she did. She stayed in the old house for almost two months now, burning the old wood and eating whatever she found. The elderly people of the neighborhood would offer her a meal now and then and a bed to sleep in when she asked, but they never bothered to care where she lived or where she was from. For this the girl was happy, she could live on her own without really being totally alone. And while she was happy, she still felt the longing of being with someone, anyone.
Then, one day...
“Hello there, little girl.” The girl was sitting on the low stone wall, daydreaming as usual when a tall, handsome young man wearing a long leather coat walked up to her. She gasped at first when she was him, but quickly regained herself. “What ever are you doing here in the cold?”
“I am,” she began, but could not find any reason other then the fact that she really had no other place to be.  “I am...waiting.”
The man smiled warmly and sat on the wall next to her, “Then I shall sit next to you.” The girl nodded and turned back to the spot she was staring at, acting as if she was daydreaming again, when she was really trying so hard not to stare at this new man. The man sat quietly, glancing casually at the girl every now and then, but was patient; almost too patient for the girl. Finally the man said, “You know it is Christmas.” The girl nodded but did not say anything so the man continued. “And usually, people will give each other a gift, to celebrate.” Again, the girl only nodded. “And so, I was wondering if you could accept this.” The man pulled from his pocket a small box that was wrapped in shiny red paper and topped with a bow and handed it to the girl.
The girl looked from the box to the man, and when the man nodded, the girl ripped off the paper and bow and opened the box. Inside laid a small golden key and a small heart-shaped locket. The girl gasped at the beauty and thanked the man many times. The man took the locket and gently placed it about the girl’s neck.
The girl jumped off the stone wall and said, “Now I must give you something, I will be back in a moment, please.”
The man nodded and smiled, “I will wait. I will wait for as long as I must, I promise.”
Running as fast as her frozen legs could take her, the girl headed into the house. She ran into, what she assumed was the living room, but was now her bedroom. She dug through the old mess until she found a small wooden figure of a woman that she had discovered long ago. She giggled at the thought of getting and giving a present. The girl found some old cloth and quickly wrapped it around the wooden figure and raced back outside to the garden. However when she got there, the man was gone. She looked all around but she could not find any trace of where he might have gone. The girl looked at her locket and a tear rolled down her cheek. She longed to see the man again, just as she longed for the old house to be filled once more, and just as she longed to find her parents alive and well.

A young woman stood in front of a low stone wall, gazing at the snow covered ground where she had once planted many flowers and vegetables. With a long sigh, the woman walked back up to the large house that she had rebuilt. The key she had gotten as a gift so long ago was the key to a vault and the locket was the proof that she was, indeed, Miss Mary Catherine. Inside the vault were millions of dollars as well as the deed to a plot of land in an old neighborhood where barely anyone lives. She had also found that very low under ground once laid a sapphire mine, which is where all the money came from. The young woman took the money and rebuilt the home and also donated nice portions of the money to charities and foster homes and the like.
Still, the young woman lived alone and still longed for what she had been longing for almost her whole life. So there she stood, staring at the old garden when she found herself saying. “That Christmas, you gave me my first present.” The young woman grabbed the locket that forever hung around her neck and closed her eyes. “That Christmas, you promised that you’d wait.”
“And I did wait.”
The young woman gasped and turned suddenly to find a tall, handsome young man standing behind her, wearing a long leather coat wrapped tightly around his body. She could hardly believe her eyes. She could not possibly think how he was here again, and still looked the same. But she also did not care. She wrapped her arms around the man and kissed him. However when she broke the kiss to look into the man’s eyes, he was once again gone. And where he stood, laid a small box wrapped in a shiny red paper and topped with a bow. The young woman ripped off the paper and bow and opened the box. Inside was a sapphire ring. The woman put on the ring as a tear fell from her face. The wind blew through her and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”
This was to :iconthehiddensapphire:'s picture, "That Christmas" [link]

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edit:
Also, :iconwoopstrafel: wrote a song to go along with it! [link]
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This was kinda fun to write, though I had to change my Ipod a lot to get the right songs to listen to o.0 but its finally done!!!
© 2007 - 2024 mewtootim
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