Word Count: 315
It wasn’t snowing. It should be snowing on Christmas Eve. Anja didn’t figure in that snow in Alabama was unlikely, all she was hoping for was a Christmas like she had as a child. She needed that. Her own “Christ Child” had been left behind in a hospital bathroom.
The night was silent and still. The stars were out full and studding the sky like pinpricks of golden light. One shone brighter than the rest. She thought it could be the North Star but it could have been a meteorite or space debris, like they were talking about on the news.
Inside her apartment it was cold and quiet. She turned on a lamp and in the dim glow, the room didn’t look as shabby. She turned up the thermostat to sixty-four degrees, the highest the landlord allowed. She took off her coat, hat and mittens and pulled on her bathrobe that she hung on the bathroom door.
She was hungry but all she had available that was quick and heatable in the microwave was packaged dry chicken noodle soup. When it was ready she took the bowl into the tiny living room, covered herself with a lap robe, flicked on the news on the television and started to eat.
There was a house fire in Austin that claimed four lives. A bad accident on I-73 that involved seven cars and possible fatalities. And a baby was found floating in the river two towns away.
The feeling of Christmas drained through her, puddling somewhere beneath her feet on the floor. Baby Jesus, Mother Mary, God Himself all flowed away. In the hollow left behind in her stomach was an ache. In the empty space of her mind, her soul bounced and banged at the furrows like a maze, seeking escape. She opened her eyes and in a blink, it flew out and away.
