Just Went Out For Milk by Tommy Cotton

Author:Tommy Cotton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tommy Cotton
Published: 2015-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

Diary 15

December 25 1981

The house is speckled with tinsel and all sorts of Christmas decorations from the box I found in the attic. Oscar brought home a tree – not a pine like a normal Christmas tree, it’s actually closer to a cactus – and we have decorated it so barely any green shows.

In bed I always wake when Oscar goes to the toilet. He is so tall that he collects hanging tinsel on his way and becomes tangled.

When I gazed out the front window this morning I felt what Christmas is really about.

Winter sun glowed off street signs. Mrs Albertson’s grandchildren played in the street. (She has stopped looking for her cat.) One of her grandchildren built things with left-over wrapping paper and boxes, one rode a bike with training wheels and another one bounced a basketball. They screamed and laughed.

We are resting until the New Year. Oscar says we need it.

We have made a list of things to get, and will finish shopping soon. I am nervous. I look at our list and I feel a shudder from my spine all the way out to the prickled hairs on my arms. But I will check it twice, check to make sure we have everything we need. And we have a plan, too. Gray Suit, whose last name is Gin-something, is no more than a fifteen-minute bus ride away.

Right now the sun is setting in a purple-blue swirl over the bay. I imagine what Gray Suit is doing for Christmas. I can see his house, now that I know what it looks like: two stories, red tiled roof, and small, cracked brick fence with a black metal gate that creaks when the breeze moves it. I can see his gray suit through the window, his lonely table with one serve of meat and vegetables. I see his face and I see his eyes. He can’t see me, though.

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