Chicago. [Part III] --- A Christmas Story

The movie had gone to static, and Johanna was gone. Our cups, half-filled with our fifth round of chocolate muck, still lay upon the coffee table, staining the wood with rings, our fumbling hands having been all but cautious in the presence of one another. Perhaps she knew me- in some form or another. Perhaps she remembered my hands, my jaw line, or the way I crouched.

Perhaps she knew me.

Only the memory of her remained, and the old Johannas of five and ten years before were hazy, distant images that sat precariously upon the edge of forgetting. My eyes followed the soft stream of the faucet, and there, I attempted to recollect her (her clay handprint) and all of her shady spaces- her tears, her greatest fear, her small fingers- smaller than mine. I could only see her here, the blue light shining off the edges of her tender edges.



Two weeks passed. Each Monday and Thursday I stood at the lecture hall doorway, awaiting the trotting of footsteps, anticipating her beckoning me by the florescent lights of the hallway, and each Monday and Thursday I was waiting until I could wait no longer.


December had been swift, having had its way with the land and us and Johanna. Even in that last day, that night on the couch with our mugs in hand, her skin aglow with that light in her bones, I had felt the cold seep through the cracks in my windows, and it had wiggled its gentle way through our skin and into our chests, where my Johannas are kept.

Even the trees had forgetten her, Johanna flowing like sap from where the bark of the trees grew pale, and the snow that masked their branches could not mask their shaking. The grass grew yellow with the assistance of autumn, and at night I would lay awake, eyes closed and breathing lightly, and I would dream that the past was not lost to me.



I saw the flashing lights after the first Thursday of those two weeks, above the nativity display in the local department store. Those neon letters hummed, distracting and filling me, as though they had a life of their own. I could feel the snow falling softly upon my nose and ears, and even as I noticed and turned to continue home, their image remained in my mind.

At home, a box of my old hobby supplies remained unpacked in my closet, and that night I opened it and took out two cans of red spray paint. By 1 am the town had already darkened, and

I watched the stars and the moon glow like that light behind her skin as I walked quickly down the main roads.

I wrote it on the road, where concrete and metal met and the bridge began, and when I was finished, I was pleased to find that even in the structured lamplight, I could see the message perfectly. I read it over to myself, rubbing the joints of my paint-flecked hands with a softly consuming acceptance, listening to the trees howl out in the soft breeze. Soon, the spring would come, and their snow-covered branches would recollect their warm tones. Their leaves would grow fresh and green, and the grass would be heavy, and they will know Johanna again, and this time, she is not inside of their hollows.

She is inside of their skin.

“We will be reborn.”




The next Monday, when I found the box on my desk, I did not open it until I got back to my apartment. The package was neatly wrapped in what was once a Trader Joe’s bag, and the tag on the bow read simply: “To: Allen, From: Johanna.”

I worked slowly so as not to damage the box when unwrapping, and upon opening I stared into a pool of foam. Wading through, my hand felt paper, and I pulled it out- a single sliver of unevenly chopped cardstock that read: “For One Free Cup- to be redeemed only on Christmas Eve.”

I was expecting her when she arrived. For two hours that black thing in my stomach writhed and screamed in my anticipation, and when the knock came upon the door, I was surprised to find that it had dropped into my knees.
Standing, I pressed my head against the door and waited for some time. It was only when the knock came again that my shaking hands found the knob, and when the door was opened, the cold rushed in.

The thing fell into my feet, and I stared into the eyes of Johanna, the five years ago Johanna, pleading and red with nothing to say. Even underneath the shelter of her hood, I could see the place I would have liked to kiss, that place just above her ears where the length of her hair was now missing. Her skin was red, hot with chill and with the moon in her stomach.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, but attempted. She said it with a carelessness that prompted no response, and when she pushed passed me into the living room, I watched her take off her coat, but did not argue.



“They pulled the plug a week ago. My mom- she thought it was best.”

“From the way you talked about him, I thought he was already dead.”

“I think… he was, in a way.”

A soft noise of discontent. I saw only the top of her lowered head, revealed by the streetlamps outside of my window, the rest of her hidden beneath the folds of darkness. The cup of hot chocolate still warmed my hands, though in the last hour that we had sat in silence, the rim had not touched my lips. I had listened to her soft breathing, the ones she hoped I couldn’t hear.

“My mom burned all the pictures… she- she threw it away. Now all I have are the things in my head. I keep seeing him, lying on a hospital bed. I don’t want to remember him that way. I want him to stay with me.”

She lifted the mug to her lips, and when she lifted her head, the light glistened against her eyes.

“He’s dead, Johanna.”

She stopped, the rim to her lips, and the light in her cheeks faded.

The next to register was the crashing, the great sound that came when she slammed the mug down onto the wood of my coffee table. She stood, fist trembling.

“Don’t you think that it hurts enough when I tell myself? I can’t eat. I can’t sleep-”

“But he is dead.”

“Stop saying that!”


I was already standing.

She was taking a step backward and I reached for her, grabbing her arm, pulling her into me and our collision filled us with sound and purpose and it initiated us. Her wet cheeks fell upon my arm, and there she struggled, pushed with her fists balled and her muscles rigid, and then stopped, giving way to our silent catastrophe. All was quiet, the December air stealth fully crawling up into our cavities, and there, the black thing was writhing at the cracks in my chest. Against Johanna, it wriggled out from between our chests and fell beneath the carpet, through the concrete- somewhere into the dark void called forgetting.

She sobbed, and every tear that touched my arm began a symphony. Every soft cry of agony was a flower that blossomed, wildly growing leaves and stems, it’s roots digging further into the earth where they were united and intertwined like lovers.


In the Spring, the December wind would leave as quickly and quietly as it came, leaving the trees with a renewed sense of glory and truth. They would grow new leaves, the names carved around the knothole still there, though fading, their roots growing ever deeper, and they would remember Johanna just as I remember Johanna. She still finds me in my fingers, in my hands and in my mouth- she finds me at the river, when I see her in my reflection, as she still crawls so deeply, so fondly, within my skin.


Johanna left early the next morning- to go back to her mother’s, she said. I’m not sure if I believed her or not… of course, as I have mentioned before, I am never quite certain about anything anymore. To this day, we write letters and we speak often, though she’s still never certain if those scars beside her knothole will disappear.

I unpacked the rest of my dishes, my clothes, my hobby supplies, and I went shopping for Christmas dinner. It was when I went to wash my hands that I noticed the slip of paper sitting on the sill above my sink, pressed damply against my wet window. I reached forward, peeling the edges off until I managed to get it off without ripping it. In slightly running letters, in Johanna’s bold handwriting, the top of the slip read,

“Father’s Secret Recipe:

Allen: What good is a secret without the excitement of sharing them? Think of me.”

The ingredients and proportions were there at my fingertips, all laid out in neat hand-writing and topped with a smiley face at the corner. I breathed, the place where my cracks had once been surprisingly whole, surprisingly warm, and I made myself two cups that night. After calling my parents and my friends, I sat down and watched A.M.C’s Christmas special, basking in the light of the television, and I fell asleep, nestled into the dark cushions, barely listening.


“Bread... that this house may never know hunger.

“Salt... that life may always have flavor.”

“And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.”