January 3, 2018
Christmas was over and the New Year had come, and with it many odd occurrences had happened, things were going well despite the extreme cold and the weather they’d been hit with. Alone in the apartment, Caleb was out, he’d decided to do some cleaning as far as decorations went.
He didn’t want to touch the tree, and it’s ornaments, it felt a bit...not his place. What he did however do was start to pack up some of the other things which he’d put out, his own things. Little things were wrapped up and put into a small box he had, he didn’t have much for the holidays as everything he had were things he’d bought this year. He hadn’t brought anything when he’d left his mother's home, he’d only taken what he needed.
There was an ornament, a single one, which he had bought and that was the last thing he went to get so he could put it away. He would ask Caleb, later, about packing everything else up. For now he was wearing for the single glass, painted, orb that he’d bought when he’d seen it at a store. It was a little silver ornament with a panda painted onto it with holly resting on its head, like a flower tucked behind an ear would look, and a stalk of bamboo with a little christmas bow about it in the panda’s paws.
It was cute and he’d bought it the moment he’d seen it, cradling the bag it had been in to his chest the whole way home from work. Having hung it up on the tree when he’d gotten home with it, finding a nice little place for it, Xi-Wang was as gentle as he could when it came to removing it and yet without any warning he found himself sneezing and the orb dropping from his fingers.
Just as he was finishing the sneeze, and opening his eyes, he heard the crash and bent quickly to pick up the pieces. It was broken….shattered. Biting down on his bottom lip, refraining from tearing up, he went to scoop up the pieces so he could throw them out. He’d never known ornaments had dust inside of them….then again he’d never seen one broken open. The dust however looked glittery...maybe glittery?
Once the pieces were in his hand and he was standing, heading to the kitchen, he was sneezing again and this time his nose nearly pressed into the shattered remains...and right into the dust. Inhaling he opened his eyes and lifting his head he gave pause.
Around him is no longer Caleb’s apartment but his mother's home...but it wasn’t like it had been when he’d left. It looked like when he’d been a child, a very young child. There weren’t all the influences of his mother's wife but rather the influences of his mothers heritage - his heritage.
There was no tree and no decorations all over the place. What there was however was him and his mother eating and bundled up on the living room couch watching a movie together. It was a christmas movie but the words were in Chinese, some of the words he couldn’t remember now...too much time had passed between then and now. After not speaking Chinese for so long, years, he had forgotten a lot, he was working on it though.
On the small coffee table was some food, his mother had made some food for them to eat, and while it didn’t look special and festive it was special. The apartment was small, on the run down side, but it held a certain warmth to it. He could see his younger self, a stuffed panda in his arms, snuggle further into his mother while telling her he was stuffed and thanking her for the meal.
Christmas wasn’t something he’d celebrated like normal people when he’d grown up. There had never been a decorated tree, though there was always a gift or two, it wasn’t a Chinese holiday and while it was celebrated in China it was different. Decorations weren’t a thing, that was what came when the Lunar New Year came, what was normal to his mother for Christmas celebrations were things they couldn’t do due to lack of friends and family here in the country. So it was just them eating and watching movies.
Feeling a warmth fill him, watching his mother ruffle his dark hair, he felt a smile tugging at his lips. He missed her...the old her, not the new her, he missed this - the warmth. Somehow it had all been lost and he had been too young to see the loss coming, to see when it started, and now they didn’t talk anymore...didn’t see each other.
When everything vanished, leaving him back in the apartment he shared with Caleb, he could still feel the warmth the memory left him with but there was also a sadness now. It was a deep sadness, the sort you felt from losing someone you were close to...the sort of loss that left it’s scar because the loss was that big and dramatic. With the remains of the decoration thrown out, he’d see if he couldn’t replace it tomorrow, Xi-Wang returned to get the box of decorations and bring it to the bedroom where he could store it at the bottom of the closet.
That done he changed into some softer, easier to sleep in, clothing and curled up under the bedding with the old panda stuffy he’d had since he was young - since then. Still holding onto the warm feeling he snuggled in to get some sleep...to maybe dream of times long lost - of happier times.
Word count: 956
