Yuletide Loops

Bill stands at the edge of a circle filled with people he has seen every day for almost a year. His hands are shaking, but he does his best to hide that. This never works when you don’t have the confidence. Confidence - who would have thought you needed confidence at an Anonymous meeting on Christmas Eve? “Hi, my name is Bill, and this—”

           “Hi Bill,” call the others.

           “Right, you think I’d remember that. Anyways, my name is Bill, and this is my three-hundredth time reliving Christmas Eve 2025.” He looks out at the assembled anonymous, blank stares as always. There are those that are half bored, those that are thinking about getting a drink afterward, and the facilitator, genuinely unsure of what to make of Bill’s assertion. Everyone remains silent, waiting for further explanation. Bill knows he needs to pause for at least ten seconds to add gravity to his words. Less, and they won’t take him seriously, more and the facilitator will suggest they move on. Time loops offer plenty of opportunities for learning.

           He holds his breath, waits. This time he’s going to get it right. “Ok, so time loops, right? You probably all think I’m nuts, but we’ve seen Groundhog Day, maybe Palm Springs for the younger folks. Anyway, I’ve been through this day for almost a year now, and every time it ends the same way.”

           “What a load of shit,” calls Dave, a mean drunk who smells like the aftermath of Christmas arson. 

           Bill waits, he always waits.

           “Dave, what have I told you about interrupting?” asks the facilitator.

           “Ah screw off then.” Dave stands and tips over his chair. “If I have to listen to this bullshit, I might as well do it on the corner.” Dave weaves his way out of the room, leaning on the walls for support before stumbling out into the frigid evening air.

           Bill says a silent, ‘thank you.’ Getting rid of Dave is key. If Dave stays, the whole loop is a wash. He hates Dave.

           “Sorry, Bill, continue, but I’d prefer if you could stick closer to fact than fiction.” There is sympathy in the facilitator’s eyes, but not a single ounce of understanding or believing.

           To be expected. “Right, well in about,” Bill checks his watch, “two minutes, you’re going to start hearing sirens, a lot of them. That’s how we know the aliens are here, and when that happens, we’ve got about—”

           “Alright, Bill, thanks for sharing. Why don’t you take a seat until you’re ready to tell us the truth.”

           Chastisement, check. “Yeah, alright, why don’t you call on Mary, then.” The facilitator always calls on Mary unless Bill calls him out. Then shame re-directs him to Stevie.

           Flustered, the facilitator shuffles paper on a clipboard, performative, but necessary. “I think I’d rather hear from Stevie. It’s been a while.”

           And we’re on track.

           Stevie is an older woman dressed mostly in black and is perpetually five minutes away from putting on a tinfoil hat. With her help, they can steer back to the topic at hand. Stevie stands. “Hi, my name’s Stevie.”

           “Hi, Stevie,” Bill joins in with the chorus.

           She gives a small, embarrassed nod. “Did you say something about aliens, Bill?”

           Bill grins. “So glad you asked.”

           “No,” says the facilitator.

           “Well, I did.”

           “But we’re not here to talk about aliens. We’re here to talk about addiction.”

           “It’s Christmas Eve, can we at least hear about the aliens a little bit?” asks Allen. He’s normally quiet, but after several loops running into him at a bar, Bill has learned that Allen is a science fiction writer. Allen doesn’t believe a word about aliens, but he’s certainly willing to use what he sees as Bill’s psychotic break as fuel for a new novel. Inspiration doesn’t come cheap when there’s no booze involved. Allen told Bill about fickle muses at length after a drunken evening on loop fifty-seven.

           “Thank you, Allen.” Bill checks his watch. “Right, now if you’ll all follow me to the window, I believe I’ll have to do a lot less talking.” He ignores the facilitator’s sputtering protestations and makes his way to the window. He watches in the reflection as one by one, the group gets up to follow. Domino effect. So far so good. It’s crucial that everyone follows for the next stage of the plan to work.

           “Will everyone please sit down?” asks the facilitator.

           No, they won’t.

           “It’s Christmas, and if there’s no aliens, at least there’s pretty lights out the window.”

           Ten seconds. Bill feels his heart racing, despite having seen it all a few hundred times before.

           A small crowd forms around the window.

           Outside, the sound of a siren blares as a lone cop car whizzes by at suicidal speed. Bill watches as several people jump, but he does not. Snow falls on the empty street. Most people are at home with their families. They won’t be for long. The single siren is followed first by a few ambulances and then by a chorus of other emergency vehicles, swelling to a crescendo that fills the city. “If you’ll all direct your attention to the top of the Manchester building.” Bill points down the street toward a large building known for housing bankers and insurance lenders. He won’t feel too bad about what happens next.

           “I’ve had quite enough!” shouts the facilitator.

           In the same instant, the grey clouds break with glowing red flames as the leading edge of a silver spaceship slices through the top of the Manchester building like butter. Explosions of orange and blue flame illuminate the night sky and there is a collective gasp from the onlookers. Bill steps away from the window as chunks of debris rain down on the pavement. During one loop he had led them to watch from outside, but that dropped their numbers from nine to two, also known as not enough. Live and learn.

           In a collective moment, the assembled addicts realize that Bill isn’t having a breakdown. Some scream, Allen faints, and Stevie turns toward Bill with rapt attention. “What do we do?” she asks, not screaming, not panicking, but knowing that there is only one person that can help her now.

           Yes! “Alright, everyone, I’d say stay calm, but we’ve done this a few times and that isn’t going to happen. Maybe we’d all feel better if we let out a nice scream, huh?”

           The group turns to look at him.         

           “Trust me, it’ll feel better. All together now.” Bill lets out a primal scream, housing all of the frustration, pain, and futility that he has experienced in the last year. It doesn’t get any easier watching your world get vaporized, but he has found the screaming feels good.

           Unsurprisingly, the others also scream. Their exhalations last longer than Bill’s, but by the time they are finished, they are worn out and ready to listen.

           “Ok, so we’ve got about ten minutes before things are going to get really bad.”

           “This isn’t really bad?” asks the facilitator.

           “No, Terry, this is just plain bad. Trust me, it gets worse.”

           “My name. You know—”

           “Almost a year of this, Terry, keep up. So, we’re all going to go up the fire escape on the back of the building. We’re going to try and beat these creeps the old-fashioned way, with a little bit of holiday cheer.”

           “Holiday cheer?”

           “Terry, I need you on board, because believe it or not, most of these people look up to you.”

           “They do?”

           They did not, but Terry needed to believe they did. Bill continued speaking before anyone else could. “Alright, so we’re all game with heading up the fire escape then?”

           “I want to call my family,” says Susan.

           “Your cell phone stopped working ten minutes ago.”

           Susan still takes her cell phone out to check. This is only the tenth time Bill has made it this far, but so far, there is no way to stop Susan from checking. Then, when it doesn’t work, she—

           “IT’S NOT WORKING! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!”

           Bill pulls a whistle from his pocket and blows. It’s loud and all he could afford with the five bucks in his pocket that morning. The group stands in silent attention. He checks his watch. “Running short on time, everyone. Anyone else have any unhelpful outbursts before we head to the roof and try to stop this yuletide invasion?”

           There wouldn’t be but asking was important.

           Bill waits, smiles at the lack of response, and presses on. “Ok, everyone, follow me.” Like a mother duck, Bill leads the group of shellshocked individuals to the fire escape out back. One by one, they climb. “Keep the pace up, if we’re too slow—”

           A sudden blast of laser fire rips through the back alley. Scorching hot beams of green energy completely obliterate Terry who has once again failed to get up the fire escape in time.

           “—we lose Terry.” Bill curses. Luckily, losing Terry and the heat from the now molten pavement below is enough to drive people up to the roof with new fervor.

           They crest the fire escape and Bill looks out with pride at the contraption he has assembled. Seven hundred strands of Christmas lights, all arrayed in concentric circles. Lined up around the lights, there are mirrors, one for everyone, and now one extra without Terry.

           The sky is chaos. Looking up for too long will stop anyone dead in their tracks. Bill allows himself a quick glance. Hundreds of saucers straight out of an old comic take the place of clouds. Green beams of laser fire arc out from beneath them turning metal into slag, buildings into rubble, and people into dust. He’s seen it from a hundred angles, but it never gets any easier to look at. Some things are just meant to make you shit your pants, and the end of the world is one of them.

           Bill takes a breath and blows his whistle again.

           There are eight people on the roof. He really would have preferred nine, but Terry is always a little slow on the uptake.

           “What is all this junk?” asks Stevie.

           “A little holiday cheer and a lot of research.” To the untrained eye, it’s a jumble of Christmas lights and old mirrors shoplifted from around the city. To Bill, it is hope that maybe this time, things are going to be different. “Listen, I’ve talked to scientists, I’ve talked to conspiracy theorists, and everyone in between. Something about this shape, the aliens don’t like.” Loops sixty through one-hundred-and-twenty had been a crash course in iconography, the next ten were wasted with a professor of philosophy, and finally an additional fifty with the only person that made sense, the college janitor.

           “They don’t like Christmas lights?”

           “Think of it this way. You see a snake, you get the willies, right? Doesn’t matter how big it is, you get that innate chill and back the hell up. Something about this shape is the equivalent of a snake to the aliens.” Bill’s watch beeps. Two-minute warning. “But I don’t have time to explain it more than that. Here’s what you’re going to do. Everyone grab a mirror, and when I blow my whistle, you’re going to point them directly overhead, alright?”

           People look up as he says it. Realizing his mistake, Bill blows the whistle drawing their focus. “BUT DON’T LOOK UP UNTIL I TELL YOU!” his shout echoes across the roof, his voice hoarse. Why the hell did I decide to do karaoke on December 23^rd? It’s a mistake he will spend the rest of his life living with. Every morning he wakes with a hangover, and every evening his voice is not quite as loud as he wants it to be. “We have less than two minutes, people. Pick up a mirror or get out of the way.”

           In what can only be described as a Christmas miracle, they all move around the circle of Christmas lights and grab a mirror. Bill moves to his spot, right next to a big red switch that will turn all the Christmas lights on. Here goes nothing. He picks up his own mirror and puts a boot on the switch. “Well, friends, we’ve only got one shot at this.”

           “Are we all going to die?”

           “Not this time, Stevie. Not this time.” Bill kicks the switch with his foot. The lights switch on in unison and pulse between red, green, and blue, specific colors in a specific order. Research, so much research. The ground rumbles below as a laser hits a gas main. The building holds. It always holds. “Mirrors to the sky, people.”

           Everyone lifts their mirrors and angles them upward. Overhead, a saucer has come low, attracted by the light, not yet realizing what it is. Bill watches as a dome on the bottom of the craft irises open, revealing the four points of its primary weapon. “Merry Christmas, mother f—” The points flash bright green. A beam shoots down from the sky almost too fast to process. The Christmas decorations melt, the ground beneath his feet buckles, and heat blasts him in a wave. Screams are swallowed by fire.

           Bill wakes up to blinding bright sunlight reflecting off of snow-covered roofs. His head is pounding with the fury of the previous night’s karaoke. He sits up, vomits into a plant beside the bed, and wipes his lips. “Ok, so it doesn’t work without Terry.”