Holiday spirit

[Quinton Maxwell]

One night, while walking past my window I see silhouettes on my lawn. Everytime I pass the window, I cannot but help to check outside to see if they're still there and, without fail, I see them. I run outside in my robe and Scream "why won't you bastards melt already!?!" Realising my own foolishness I make a hasty retreat back into my home. My mind begins to play tricks on me. I start to believe they are moving and every time I work up enough backbone to look I think they're in different positions. So as a result I religiously take photographs of the white figures. A collections begins to congregate on the windowsill. I study them with detailed intensity to the point where I can draw accurate sketches of them without looking. I could've swore that one made a mean face at me. Did that one just move? Oh torment. I could kill whoever built those damn things on my lawn. Worrying about the snowman encompasses more and more of my time.If I'm not by the window staring with well trained suspicion at them then on I'm in my easy chair contemplating what they could be doing out there and what their plot to get me might be. I leave little snacks and beverages by the window to keep me from passing out in the long hours I spend staring them down. I develop a highly focused paranoia and refuse to leave the house for fear that those frosty fiends will grow bold at the opportunity and decide to snatch me without the safety of my home. They envelope all my attention, they are all that matters, I think of nothing else. Sleep leaves me and won't return. I sit in bed watching the door waiting for them to appear. Finally salvation! I watch with joy and delight as they suffer in the spring as time and temperature work together to eat their mass. Winter has left and I have been freed by nature from my white nightmare.A return to sanity visits me and my life settles back into safe routines and normality. I go to work, I eat, I sleep. Every once and a while I pause on my lawn and I feel a debilitating depression come over me. It is hard to explain, an emptiness like none other I've ever felt, not even departing lovers. One night a cold front comes through. I get up, setting my news paper on the table and walk to the window. A light snow falls on us all. I sit at the window motionless and stare at where the snowmen used to stand. I stand their for hours.
I am pretending that they are still there.
I am pretending that I am clever.
I am pretending that I am interesting.