“Christmas Eve”

“Supremely-anticipated Christmas Eve finally arrived. Snow fell that day and all the neighborhood kids gathered for snowball fights and snowman construction. He wore black-rubber boots with metal fittings that snapped in and locked tight, a heavy woolen coat, a knit scarf, and mittens that made it difficult to use his hands. When covered in snow the world was unrecognizable. A coat of silence clad the earth and all who roamed it. Fir tree boughs sagged under its weight as the snow gathered on top of them, forming long ship-like structures which would suddenly fall in several pieces to the ground. Intangible flecks fell noiselessly onto his nose and into his eyes when he turned up to observe them. He moved slowly and clumsily through the deepening drifts, occasionally falling face-first into one of them and having to rise awkwardly, brushing crystals off his face and slapping off clumps from his coat and pants. His snowballs were pathetic, as his brother never missed an opportunity to remind him. They were not really balls but quickly pressed handfuls that blew apart in mid-flight, never reaching their intended target. Meanwhile, he took direct hits to the body, back, and head from attackers who knew both how to form a snowball and how to aim one for maximum effect. What really stung, though, were the iceballs. These violated the Mayfield Conventions governing legal attack-tics but sometimes flew nevertheless. Older boys would gather slush from the bottoms of rain gutters and squeeze it tight into rock-hard orbs. If one were hit directly by an iceball, it could bruise the flesh or blacken the eye.”