Vacation pieces are what happens when my brain relaxes and I follow the words.
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“I saw my first refrigerator in 1943. It could fit a 20 pound turkey. Not like that shoebox she has now. Did you see how she had to rearrange everything to fit that tiny ham she unwrapped? The old icebox, that’s what we called them, not this fridge nonsense, kids could fit in them. That’s how you knew they were big enough.” It’s a voice that’s used to sitting in a recliner, scratching their belly over their starched, pressed white button down shirt.
A blond woman in a gold and silver sequined top looks around, “Did she invite her grandpa to the party? That’s so cute.”
“That one’s a wheat stalk short of a bushel, isn’t she?” Fake folksy twang, a classically trained actor trying to sound like they grew up in farmland.
“Look at that hair. So flat. Honey, come here and I’ll tell you how to use hot rollers so you get that bounce.” Bubbly, ditzy, sounds like a woman from a 1980’s movie, wearing baby blue eyeshadow, a hot pink top, and sipping a wine spritzer on ice.
Blond sequins looks around, feeling critical eyes on her. No one is looking. Those voices - so judgy - she can’t place where they are coming from over the music, movie, and conversation.
“Keep it down,” whispers a voice that’s smooth, calming, and feels like chamomile tea with honey before bed. People at the party break out in random yawns, immediately apologizing to each other for being rude, shaking their heads to wake up.
“He calls that a compliment? Back in my day, I’d tell her she has great pins. And why isn’t he wearing a belt?” Gravelly, mucus coated, sounds like they’ve been sitting in smoky bars all their life and eating a lot of cheese.
“Here, try some honey baked ham on a biscuit. I made the biscuits with lard this year and they came out so flaky and nice and I put Irish butter on both sides of the biscuit,” the host says loud enough to make the small crowd wince and pretend to ignore the panic in her eyes.
Her apartment has every surface in the living room and kitchen covered in different Christmas lights. Color changing icicles hang from where the ceiling mets the wall, snowflakes drip down the doorways, twinkle lights wrap around every surface, projector lights move on the walls in the kitchen, and little trees are in every corner, on every table, and scattered on the kitchen counters. Christmas music on, Christmas movie playing on the TV, candles scenting the air with cranberry, pine, vanilla, and gingerbread.
She worked so hard on this party. She wanted to throw a party that’s all about happiness and eating sugar, bread, and ham. Her mom would host an annual holiday brunch with fancy crystal rectangle plates with a little nook for a coffee cup, everything made from scratch except the honey baked ham. Yes, honey baked, yes ordered in advance, and yes, it’s good cold and hot and in scalloped potatoes.
She made mom’s pierogis because nothing says goodness like potatoes and cheese wrapped in dough and fried with butter and onions. And a chocolate cake because she knows this crowd. It was that kind of cake - frosting thick and creamy and cake the perfect density between moist and fluffy. It’s a cake that’s going to go where it wanted, when it wanted. Napkins were made for cake like this. None of her friends want other people to see them with chocolate all over their mouths so they were going to ask to take a slice home (secretly, most of them asked for two pieces). They’d be eyeballing the door to see when the first piece got cut and then make their move and their exit. She had a spare cake in the fridge just in case.
Everything was going great.
Then, it happens. Music fades down, the movie shifts into a quiet scene, and everyone’s mouth is full of ham and biscuit. In that beat of silence…
“I’m a bowling ball!” Squeaky, nasally, child-like and completely proud of themselves.
“You look like a balled up piece of gold wrapping paper,” Belly scratch says.
“I am! I’m the traditional Christmas bowling ball!” A single branch on the Christmas tree shakes, like someone just wiggled an ornament.
“What the hell is that?”
Tinny squeak of happiness,“The traditional bowling ball is the gift you get yourself but give to another person, knowing they’ll just turn around and give it back to you! Dung beetles started it all - one would give their friend a nicely rolled piece of poo and the friend would roll it right back to them! Early humans saw this and said, those dung beetles are onto something! No one knew what to call it until Fred Flintstone bought Wilma a bowling ball for a gift, even though she never bowled a day in her life! Thus-fore, the great traditional Christmas bowling ball gift was born!”
“Sounds made up.”
“I got you this tinsel.”
“What am I gonna do with a single piece of tinsel?”
“Well, it does go real nice with gold. Do you have any gold or know anyone who is completely gold?”
“Just keep it, you ridiculous ball.”
Pleasure sigh, “The greatest tradition ever.”
“I like Gulch Appreciation Day better,” twang says.
“Give it up cowboy. Everyone knows you were poured into a mold in a factory and never saw the inside of a barn,” snooty, the voice of the old woman in the fur who is pissed because you got ahead of her in line.
“Yeah? You’re full of lead like this party.”
“Lead or not, I have class. See these fingerprints? Hand crafted by an artist and you can see they left bits of skin in the glass and metal.”
“We’re screwed,” chamomile tea under a weighted blanket with warm socks and a scary book, soothing but a hint of oh no.
As one, the people turn to the Christmas tree.
The apartment door opens. In walks a slacked, bloused, cardigan’d woman wearing a badge around her neck. Holly, Holiday Magic Case Worker #9.
“Alright, all the people into the kitchen please. All the ornaments, keep quiet. I want to get this done and over so I can get back to the holiday party. Sharon made her coconut cake this year and I’m not missing that. Oh, is that honey baked ham? I’ll take one of those.”
Ornaments fall silent, people don’t move. They all watch as case worker eats a biscuit and ham while unpacking her case. After she takes out paperwork, three pens, and a bottle of water, she sets out a silver cylindrical container with Fun Buster 3002 in black industrial block letters on the side.
“Cake by twinkly light.” The host barely hears the words, gets the shivers of a great idea, body popping with excitement and her hands clap in front of her chest, eyes wide.
“Cake by twinkle lights!” the host says. “New tradition, everyone into the kitchen and we’ll eat the cake while watching the light show.”
“What’s a Fun Buster?” new voice, soft and timid, the shy kid that’s just looked up from a book and is trying to figure out what they missed in the world around them.
“I’ve heard about those,” snooty voice. “Magic is fun and light and good. That container sucks away the fun and deposits it into a pit. She’s going to kill us.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” the case worker says. “You know you aren’t supposed to be sentient in front of the humans. All this does is transfer you to a waiting room until there’s an opening in the schedule for you to go to a new place.”
“A waiting room? I don’t do waiting rooms.”
“In that case, you’ll be first, missy.”
The branch under the bowling ball shakes, “I want to go to a waiting room!”
“Make your way up here,” happiest place on earth, a friend who will play with you and never tell you that an idea is dumb or look at you like you are weird.
Bowling ball bounces branch to branch, singing a song about branch bouncing that drowns out the negotiations between the case worker and the other ornaments.
“I like your song, little one.”
“Are we going to the waiting room together?”
“Not today. We’re going to play hide and seek with the lady out there. Hide yourself under my skirt and pretend you are a sleeping rock.”
“Rocks are my favorite animal!”
“Me too. Now hush until I tell you.” Covers pulled up to your chin, cool side of the pillow, and a stuffed animal held to your chest, fan on for white noise.
The case worker approaches the tree, shaking each ornament, poking them, turning them upside down, sniffing them, one she even bit down on.
Satisfied, “Everything’s been demagicked out here,” case worker calls out. “Now it’s your turn, put down your cake and come to get yourself done.”
The host pokes her head out of the kitchen, “Do you really need to do something to us?”
“You all are getting demagicked and a memory wipe, standard procedure. Exposure to that much magic isn’t good for you. Too much magic, in a concentrated dose, results in underarm rashes from the sweat. No one wants that or the smell. Sit yourself all around here. Put that pillow on the floor, make yourself comfortable. Hand me that remote.”
The case worker magicks up the movie Muppet Family Christmas, plays the “watch out for the icy patch” scenes. As they are laughing, she removes any memories of talking ornaments and herself and replaces it with the idea they didn’t remember anything because they were so absorbed with the movie.
The case worker takes another ham and biscuit treat, then closes the door and lets them get back to the party.
Angel watches the party for another hour, occasionally praising bowling ball for being such a great rock, before giving the all clear.
They spent the rest of the season in that tree, telling stories of adventures they want to have. If you are lucky, you can find them together a Christmas tree - the bowling ball and the angel - sharing their Christmas holiday magic forever and ever.