Christmas Light

Nothing compared to Center City at Christmas.

Streetlamps lit up the night all year, but most of the time it was with a ghostly dense yellow as if light could stagnate and solidify. That light made the ugly brick colors of buildings uglier and made those unfortunate enough to sleep on the street look, if possible, even more forlorn. For the month leading up to and two weeks after Christmas, however, the color patterns blazed in youthful energy. The reds, greens, bright yellows, and vibrant blues gave the houses and storefronts the appearance of jolly and inviting friends. In Christmas light every person without a home held a steaming Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate. Abe could not help but grin as he strolled toward the mall.

Occupying the first two stories of four twelve story buildings near midtown, the mall was not part of Abe's normal commute home – but today’s was a special commute. Walking home on December 23 was his traditional time to buy Deirdre’s Christmas present. It was not procrastination; Abe would not be back to work for the next week and it was always his intention to begin his break with the task that brought him the most joy. He was sure that the bustling crowd on the sidewalk could see the spring in his step.

Once inside the mall, Abe knew his destination and made for it directly. As he walked, he considered whether anyone could possibly count how many people were in that mall. Chatting couples, hurried parents, and groups of awkward teenagers went about their business, or pleasure, in masses and droves. The overpowering buzz of voices was enough to make anyone feel that they had to shout to be heard. Here, too, Christmas lights and decoration were in abundance, but Abe could not see that anyone was taking notice of this. Most were more interested in the bright surfaces of their phones than the dazzling display above. No matter, he thought, he was always under the impression that Christmas only really existed for him and Deirdre.

               The first thing his senses noticed entering the shoe store was the angry shouting of a not-quite-elderly man in an orange hat and camouflage coat at a teenage employee. Apparently, this store did not cater to the would-be hunter’s size. The poor girl, who Abe thought was probably not much older than Dierdre, was taking nothing short of verbal abuse for this and many of the store’s other shortcomings that Abe was sure had nothing to do with her. With patience and poise that belied her age, she apologized for the inconvenience and suggested another shop on the other side of the mall. This promptly ended the hunter’s tirade and, just as Abe began to think that the man was an example of the grinch-like miser alone at Christmas, he shouted to his wife and young son who immediately followed him out of the store, their cheeks red and faces downcast. That this man had a family that needed to put up with him angered Abe more than anything the man had done.

               Christmas was not special for everyone, Abe thought. No matter what commercials would have people believe, most shoppers did not go out in the spirit of giving. Many, like the hunter-man, were only out for themselves; those that were looking for gifts were doing it out of sheer obligation or to please their own egos. And the kids were the worst – anyone that believed in the purity of children had only to pass the mall toy store to see base greed expressed in screaming and hateful speech. Kids at Christmas would not settle for less than whatever the biggest and most expensive fancy caught their eyes.

               But this was not the case with Dierdre. She had developed a deep love at a very young age, not for getting, but for giving. She was never the kind of young girl who would let her father help her pick out his own gift, nor was she the kind to buy cheap sunglasses or tools that he did not really need; she demanded to be the one to pick out the gift… and it was always a genuinely good one. At age four, she had pointed at a bright orange jersey of a player newly signed to Abe’s favorite hockey team and said, “Daddy. Christmas.” Once the shock of this moment had subsided, Abe had been pleased to see that it was somehow twenty dollars less than the normal ticketed price. He promptly followed his daughter’s command. At age six, she had come home from school for winter break carrying a box that was a third of her size. She had refused to tell him what was inside, until he unwrapped that same box on Christmas morning (he had never understood where her talent for giftwrapping had come from). It was a collector’s edition set of Superman films on Blu-ray. This time, shock had been mingled with nervous anxiety as he asked where Dierdre had gotten the money; she simply answered, “Teacher helped me.” He found out a week later that “teacher” had the set displayed on his bookshelf and was surprised one day to find Dierdre laying out about three dollars’ worth of coins on his desk – the excess lunch money she had been saving – and even more surprised when she asked if this was enough to purchase the Superman set, “for Christmas for my daddy.” He was so touched that he had handed it over at once, saying that he could always get another one. At age nine, Dierdre had outdone herself (somehow) by setting up a weekend getaway to the mountains that she had purchased on the internet without his knowledge, set up arrangements for herself to stay at a friend’s house, and telling him on Christmas morning that although she knew how much he loved her, she also knew he could use some time away from her. Nine years old. And he had gotten her a flower-print journal.

               Dierdre’s own Christmas lists, apart from when she had asked for a pony at eight-years-old, had been exceedingly modest. He had bought her the journal because she had asked for a first journal. He thought, as he was happily at the counter purchasing the shoes she had asked for this year, that she was probably the only teenage girl in the world who would trust her father to buy her shoes without being there herself. This year, however, he was determined to outdo her generous spirit – or at the very least, to match it.

               Leaving the shoe store and back into the crowd, he had only to cross the corridor to reach the jewelry store. The crowd still swarming as it was, however, made this quite the task. Finally, after two stops and nearly being run into by an entire family of four staring at their smartphones, he made it to the sparkling shop.

               This store, even more so than the others, was lined with shiny silver garland that, glinting from the light that glinted from the gold and silver trinkets, made Abe blink several times. There were no less than three couples over by the rings in the hope, Abe was sure, of securing a holiday sale on the tokens of their love for one another. There was only one clerk available, and she had already spotted Abe and was smiling at him when he walked over to her.

               “Hello! How can I help you today?” she asked with warm sincerity.

               “Hi,” Abe returned, “I’m here for my daughter. I want to get her something really nice. She loves ponies… maybe something with a horse? But not tacky looking. A nice horse.” He hoped this rather lame finish was enough to communicate his point.

               “Ah!” Judging by her widening smile he assumed she got the picture. “I think we can work with that.”

She brought him to a counter near the open storefront that had several themed necklaces. “This just came in and it might be the nicest of its kind that we have ever had.”

Grateful for his good timing, Abe looked down at the case and saw a brilliant diamond cut in the shape of what was, unmistakably, a horse, complete with tiny ears and a swishing tail, at the bottom of a fine soft golden chain. “Three carat diamond with a fourteen-karat white gold chain,” the attendant explained. “This piece runs at seven hundred and forty – “

“I’ll take it,” Abe cut her off. He had known this would be expensive, and this was not at all his usual method of making a purchase, but he had told himself before coming in the door that no price was too high for Dierdre this Christmas.

Only taken aback for a moment, the attendant smiled broadly. Sliding open the glass door behind the counter to retrieve the necklace she asked, “Credit card?”

As Abe reached into his back pocket for his wallet, the attendant turned to grab a very small white card reading device which she plugged into the aux port on her smartphone. She took the card that he handed her, swiped it, handed it back, and then directed her phone towards Abe. “You’ve made a great choice and I think she’s going to love it. I just need your signature.”

Abe had never gotten used to this; his at other times neat signature, when attempted by his finger on a screen, usually came out looking like a toddler had tried it. He pressed his hand to the screen and made a motion – and as he did so, everything went black.

               Abe was sure he had gone blind. What had once been a store dazzling and dancing from a thousand lights was now a solid block of darkness. Abe’s head turned in every direction he could think and could not see so much as his own body. It took a moment before he removed his hand from the blank phone screen, and as he did so a terrifying thought hit him at full force… the blank phone screen. This might have been a momentary power outage, except that a handheld device had lost power. He took out his own phone, found that it also had gone blank, and pressed the power button for a few seconds. Nothing.

               This was no simple power outage. This was something much worse.

               When the lights had gone out, so had – for just a few seconds – all sound in the mall as the masses collectively froze. The first sound to break the silence was a half-hearted scream, followed immediately by another, but both ended in giggles and a gruff male voice replied in an echoing whisper, “Shut up!”

The screams had ushered the back in the buzzing conversation. At first, it sounded mainly amused, as if the shoppers expected the power to come back at any moment, but slowly it became anxious and frightened. Abe knew that others were realizing they could not turn on their phones. Then the real screams began.

If it was difficult to hear normal conversation with the buzz before the outage, it was nothing to how Abe felt he had to speak now. He felt a body run into him and feet shuffling all around and he thought the couples must be leaving. He looked in the direction of the counter and said, “Miss, I’m still here. What do you need me to do?”

The attendant had apparently recovered enough to make decisions. “I am the manager and I’m only going to stay to put down the gates. I’ve got three other employees in the store with me and we’re going to need to post guards at all possible entrances until those doors are down. You cover the entrance directly to the right of where you are standing and I’ll let you out the back way with us when we’re done.”

Abe nodded, realized she could not see him, so he said, “Understood,” and went to take his place to the right of the counter as she bustled the other direction to give orders to the other employees.

He hoped beyond hope that the outage was confined to this mall. As he was now closer to the corridor of the mall, he was overwhelmed by the sound of the rushing, screaming, falling of the people struggling to get out and feel the wind as the teeming mass ran by. Of all the stores he could be in when this happened, why did he have to be in a jewelry store? He thought for sure someone would attempt a robbery.

But no one did. He had no way to tell how long he stood there, but it felt simultaneously like a few minutes and a half hour. Once the manager had pulled down and manually locked the gate, she called to the rest: “Ok, we’re good! Dennis, you hold my shoulder and the rest of you form a line behind. I’ll lead us out.”

At least Abe had picked a store with an incredibly efficient and poised manager. In less than a minute, he was outside in what he knew to be the parking garage. No light here, either.

He shouted a quick thank you toward the manager then took off at a brisk walk toward the only extremely faint glimmer of light that he saw, and knew he was right when he felt the fresh air. He stopped just before he made it out; he heard the same sounds of people rushing and saw masses of dark shapes moving swiftly across the opening. He took a deep breath and stepped out into the throng.

He had to begin moving at once so that he would not be bowled over by the crowd. After matching the pace at a swift walk, he looked around to take in his surroundings. The buildings showed no signs of power. The only lights came from the stars. When he realized that he could neither hear nor see any signs of cars moving on the street, his heart sank. This was real. This must have been an EMP. Dierdre…

Abe and Dierdre lived just north of the city limits. What if the outage had reached that far? He knew that the only way to know now would be to plot a course straight for home. He did not think the highway was a good idea tonight; he knew there was a straight road running directly north out of the city. It would only be a few minutes to walk from the end of that road to their townhouse.

What if he was too late? What if looters had come in? What if Dierdre had been asleep when the outage happened? What if she had been attacked… hurt? Worse?

He tried not to allow himself to dwell on these thoughts, but they consumed him. Fear of the worst that might have happened to Dierdre drove him on towards his house with all the speed the crowd would allow.

“Hold on, baby,” he forced himself to say out loud. “Daddy won’t let anything happen to you.”

When Abe’s row of houses finally came into view, he saw a knot of people at the other end of his street. They seemed to be listening intently to someone. If Abe’s mind had not been drowning in fear, he might have considered that Dierdre would be in that crowd. Since Abe did not consider this, his first thought when he found his door unlocked was that all his worst fears were confirmed.

“DIERDRE!!!!”

She was not on the couch. She was not in any of the three rooms upstairs. Abe ran around the small townhouse a full seven times before finally concluding that Dierdre was not in it.

He could not think. He could not yell. His breath was coming too quickly. He shut his eyes tight and tried to slow it; he succeeded just enough to get the idea. “The crowd,” he gasped, “She must be outside.”

He sprinted toward the knot of people and noticed that it had gotten smaller. In fact, as he slowed, he saw in the starlight an extremely large and untidy pile of boxes in the center of the gathering. A lone young woman was standing next to the pile of boxes, and as the people approached one-by-one she was giving instructions in a raised voice.

“You need to take those over 2415. The Petersons didn’t get to shop this week and don’t have any food in the house. Stacy, take those diapers and milk over to 3108 – no one has seen Ms. Gonzalez come out since the outage, but we’ve all heard little Alex crying.”

Abe realized who these people were. These were all the teenagers that lived for several blocks around, some younger kids and some adults. And in the center, taking charge of distributing supplies, was…

“Hi, dad.” Dierdre’s smile was and bright; like Christmas itself, she seemed to scatter the darkness surrounding her. “Grab a box!”