"Fix computer or bring cake to mom"

Last Christmas, I really did give you my heart but I was so oblivious to it that I would need to tell the story about how it happened even to myself. It is probably fairer to say that, last Christmas, I gave you… my… well, for lack of a softer word - my sperm. 

It all began when I scored an own goal on Christmas morning, in time for the aspirin that put me in a good enough shape for the day. 

I had spent Christmas Eve with dad and his pack of fishermen buddies. In the freezing blessing that December 24 is, neither the fish, nor our mood was increasing, considering the fact that we had to sit in a boat with an unstable bottom. But, as the well-known fact states, the sea wolf suffers from abstinence when he is taken too far away from the water, which means that he feels nauseous as soon as he steps on some asphalt; which then means that my father’s friends had stuck their cheap, plastic chairs into the sand, as close to the shore as possible, neglectful of the cold. And so I sat with them, under the mushroom-like heating lamp, where the risk of later having toes amputated was relatively small. 

Although the alcohol had moved his center of gravity even lower in his body, dad still got up to walk me to my car, a bit after midnight. Wrapping his bear arms around me, he put a tangerine in my hand and said: “Give your mother a kiss from me.” The words didn’t come out under the influence of his fermented liver but rather under the weight of the regret that he couldn’t kiss her himself. While I was making a second attempt to start the car, I thought how strange it was that even when the love was still there, the relationship couldn’t go on. Just registered it more as an odd phenomenon than as a sad conclusion. 

I was invited to a Christmas lunch at my mother’s. The only thing that my old lady had asked me to do was to bring a cake. In my day-to-day life, I mostly live on a diet of noodles, scrambled eggs, and grilled sandwiches with cheese and ham, but I am well-known as the master of the chocolate cake. Finding the right cake mix is an entire branch of the art culture. 

Anyways, during breakfast, my morning took a completely unpredictable turn. I was watching an episode of “Game of Thrones” and the plot was just about to untangle a complicated knot, revealing which woman was the wife of her own brother or something, when the electricity got cut off. If that hadn’t happened, then I wouldn’t have furiously thrown my arms in the air, tipping the orange juice glass over my open laptop. 

And so it started - the dilemma “fix computer or bring cake to mom”. It was obvious to me, and me alone, that the cake would have had to wait. 

For the sake of decency, I allowed myself five minutes to change from orange-bits-patterned pajamas to the only T-shirt that was left in the drawer. A curse had gripped the neighbourhood and we had been deprived of water, so my laundry was monotonously accumulating in the corner of the bedroom. That sole T-shirt that I put on my back had been sitting on the bottom of the drawer, hiding its logo of an underground band from the most clogged places of the sewerage system of music that probably nobody would have known. 

I immediately ran to THE Hacker of the neighbourhood. He was working from his ground-floor flat every single day, without an exception, which made us - the helpless and ignorant slaves of technology - very blessed. But since Christmas is all about miracles, the Hacker had left a note on his door: “Closed due to a wedding. MY wedding!”. Time was limited and I had to use the bigger portion of it to panic, not to be happy for him, unfortunately. 

Pressure had me driving to a big store belonging to a chain of electric retailers, instead of looking for another small business. Sustainability and softening of corporate power were not my priority when I could almost feel the orange juice deleting my web search history that I had to delete anyways, before bringing the computer to my little nieces and nephews. Luckily, not all employees were getting married on Christmas (or celebrating, for that matter) and I could leave the laptop in safe hands. 

But greedy I was, hoping for some peace and quiet before the aspirin could completely dissolve in my mind. I could only be grateful that the chaos of my day had some orderly structure to it. I bumped into an old woman at the entrance of the door, she slipped, fell, and twisted her ankle. The only way for me to be granted some redemption was by taking her to the hospital. She did not say a bad word on the way there because she was preoccupied with worries that she couldn’t buy headphones for her grandson - an angel, in her words. My feet were itching with guilt so much that I soon found myself back at the store, getting those damn headphones. 

Back at the hospital, the family had already arrived for the woman. The grandson got his gift and everybody was happy, except for me when I found out that somebody had slit my tires, thus demonstrating dissatisfaction with the way I had parked. With the help of roadside assistance, I found myself at a local service garage where they greeted me with a “Merry Christmas!”, reminding me where I was supposed to be. I left the car and headed home. By the time my feet took me there, it was too late even for a fake homemade cake. 

I ran to the supermarket, bought a factory cake with extra chocolate, and prayed that the amount of sugar would close my mother’s mouth. Told the cashier to keep the change of 10 cents. On the way out, I saw an 80-year-old neighbour of mine who had burdened himself with carrying enough food to feed the previous generations and those to come. Dependent on kindness for my karma points, I helped him carry the grocery bags to his house. His dead cat, which he found breathless in the morning, greeted me behind the door. It was she who had prevented him from shopping earlier in the day and it was she who was going to delay me more, considering the fact that karma knows when you don’t help an 80-year-old man bury his dead cat. And that’s how, on Christmas day, I found myself digging a hole in his backyard. 

After all obstacles had been cleared off my way, I appeared at my mother’s doorstep, where I dropped the cake. Right in front of her feet. The mess was so overwhelming that my mom started crying and I didn’t know how to calm her down because “It is just a cake” didn’t sound like much of a consolation. I saw her second husband opening all the windows from the inside of the apartment due to an unidentified by me source of smoke. He reassured me that mom had started crying already before my arrival because she had burnt the turkey. Aunt Cecilia was trying to find a takeaway that was open on Christmas. 

It was at that moment when my best friend Layla called me on the phone. Her panic surpassed the one that had been accompanying me during the whole day as she was thanking the baby Jesus for finally grabbing a hold of somebody. Somehow, she managed to collect herself enough to tell me that she had forgotten her trumpet back at home, but she had already arrived at the Christmas concert in the city centre, where her orchestra was supposed to perform. Of course, I was one of the few people with a car that she could think of… but I had lost my right to a car just a couple of hours earlier. And so Layla also started crying. My mother on one side of the phone - Layla on the other. I also wanted to cry but we hadn’t really gotten rid of toxic masculinity yet. I hope that by the time you grow up we will have achieved its demolition. 

My genius enlightened me at the most convenient time and I suggested to my family that we could all go to the city centre, save the day, listen to the Christmas concert, and drink mulled wine until we got so drunk that eating cake from the floor would not have been a problem. Mom liked the idea and I liked the fact that her husband had a car. We parked in front of Layla’s building, and I could finally approve of her rather dangerous decision to keep a spare key under the doormat. Caught in the act of looking for the trumpet, I accidentally heard the message that was pouring out of her voicemail. It was her boyfriend Gabriel’s who was informing the apartment that their relationship was not going in the right direction and that it had to end. Suddenly, my heart condensed and, with it, all blood vessels dried out. You can imagine the weight that I carried with myself when I went to the concert and gave Layla the trumpet, unable to tell her anything before she went on stage. She loved the stage. 

Somewhere around the second musical piece, my mother’s husband told me that he liked exchanging clothes with her as a roleplay. That was probably the most normal part of my day. Mom told me to walk Layla home and see if she needed anything. “Christmas is not only about eating and drinking,” she said. On the way back, I told Layla about the voice message I had accidentally heard at hers, to which she just smiled and replied: “Let’s not talk about it now. Christmas is not about breakups.” Obviously, she and mom had different views. That same night, Layla had been invited to a wedding and she had no intention of ruining her mood with sorrow regarding events that were predisposed to happen. 

After I dropped her off at hers so that she could get ready, I walked to the bus station, feeling a hungry stomach and a hungry heart.  Well, the bus came but I didn’t get on it because I was 10 cents short. 10 cents from a change that I had left at the supermarket earlier that day. Just as I was about to start walking home, I saw the headlights of a car that slowed down as it got closer to me. A bridal veil poured out of it and the Hacker - MY Hacker - grinned behind it, headed to his wedding celebration in that same ground-floor flat where I had been taking my broken technical devices for years. 

And so I found myself at the last location of the day that changed everything for me. I didn’t have a shirt, nor a tie. I only had the T-shirt portraying the logo of an underground band that had once existed. One single person at the wedding managed to recognize the logo, not because she knew the band, but because she had noticed it on a few other occasions when I had been left without clean clothes. The night took me and that girl to the flat where we had spent a lot of time together, as best friends - my home. 

And here you are, nine months later, you little fella. In about thirteen years, you would be able to understand how it all happened. It is too early for this conversation. 

The truth is, the actual root of your conception starts with another man - a stranger who works for the electricity provider and who accidentally cut the wrong cable while I was watching “Game of Thrones” on December 25. 

You are the result of a series of misfortunate events and the dilemma of the spilled orange juice versus the chocolate cake that your grandma wanted. Your mother Layla and I might not be together right now, but you are, in every sense of the word, a miracle - nobody expected you but everybody wanted you. Merry Christmas, buddy. 

Love you,

Dad