Last Years Winning Entry – Short Story Competition

This is last years Christmas Short Story Competition if you would like to enter this years competition please send your entries to us at admin(@)crunchmania.com by the 12th of December 2009.

A CHRISTMAS WISH COMES TRUE.

By R. HENSHALL

Being a father of sons and daughters, it seems that this time of year brings us all that little bit closer. Christmas is a period that conjures up warmth and well-being, a time to forget petty quarrels and a time to give thanks for the good fortunes that we have had, no matter how small.

Sadly, my own childhood was not always so. This story relates the trials and tribulations following the end of the Second World War.

*

I was six years old when that particular conflict was ending. It was a time of great hardship, a time of much relief, and a period of stark reality. It was also a time when childhood disappeared all too quickly.

For the last two years of that Titanic struggle, I had the closeness of my mother, but only distant communication in letters from my father, a man I could only vaguely remember from sepia styled photographs in the family album. The promise remained unfilled about his return.

The weeks dragged by, the months became milestones, and I became the butt of many a joke from my school chums. Why had their fathers returned safe and yet mine was hardly ever mentioned in my own house?

Christmas was upon us and our home became decorated in hand –made paper chains of various bright colours. We lived as one family, grandparents, mother and myself. I was forced to make up stories at school and many of my friends ridiculed me. Such is the cruelty inflicted by youngsters at that age.

I remember being sad when told that my belief in Father Christmas was infantile and that all my pals knew better. Young fingers pointed at me and my so-called chums sniggered as I left the schoolyard to trudge home on that last day of school before the Christmas holiday.

The bombsites and the craters were all over the city and I walked across them knowing full well that mother had told me of the dangers lurking beneath. I searched for shrapnel and other war mementos, which I could hide amongst my box of lead soldiers under the safety of my own bed.

This particular day, I was determined to approach my mother with two questions that were worrying me. Did Father Christmas exist and when was my father coming home?

The skies darkened and a flurry of snow whipped across my face as I hurried home for Christmas. As I approached the house, the gas lamps had been ignited, casting a sorrowful yellow shadow in the doorway. I felt like a youngster with no friends, a spurned child with a pitiful collection of meaningless war souvenirs in my clammy hand. Mother opened the front door and the dancing shadows of twilight cruelly exposed the grey ashen face that had developed over the last year.

Suppertime was quiet, very quiet. Both my grandparents retired to the back parlour room and I plucked up courage to venture the Father Christmas question.

“What do you think?” said mother as she cleared away cups and saucers. I pushed a few wayward crumbs across the linoleum tablecloth with my fingers as I let the vague answer drift into my mind. It didn’t seem to answer anything, and it certainly wasn’t the reply I expected. Grown up talk was always a world into itself. The rest of the conversation was sketchy and I was told to go to bed as it was fast approaching Christmas Eve.

“If you believe, you believe,” said mother without much expression.

I remember going to bed and turning my head into the pillow, stemming the heavy sobs of depression. Later that night, for some unknown reason, I awoke from my troubled slumber feeling more determined than ever to reconcile myself to positive thinking.

Why shouldn’t Father Christmas exist? Up to now he had done everything for me. I closed my red, watery eyes tight, wishing as I’d never wished before. I didn’t want a tin plate train or peddle bike. I knew exactly what I wanted.

The next day I awoke to see a small assortment of presents at the bottom of the bed. Did he exist or didn’t he? I cared not.

For the rest of Christmas day I watched mother carefully preparing our festive lunch. Paper hats and crackers were on the table, and, as in the previous year, an extra place was set at the top of the table. I thought nothing of this as I sauntered into the kitchen to finish off the cake mix with my finger.

It was through the back window (still criss-crossed with sticky tape) that I saw the yard gate open. A shadowy figure emerged through the faint mist. It was a man with a thick grey overcoat, a canvas bag under his right arm, and a flopping empty sleeve on the other side. He limped quite heavily as one foot dragged slowly across the winter slush of fallen leaves.

I knew at once who it was and I also knew that all the kids in my school were wrong. My dad had come home from that terrible War. Home for good. The tears ran down my face as I turned to see my mother smile for the first time in two years.

Since then, nothing has quite compared with that joyful Christmas Day, and even now in my aging years, there is a great belief in someone above. Maybe I prefer to call him Father Christmas.

Congratulations to Mr Henshall, e-voucher to follow as soon as I can!

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