The heat feels like a lukewarm blanket. The heavy air presses down on Karel, as if he is wearing a too-tight helmet. At the beginning of this unremarkable summer, he quietly moved into a plain-looking house at number eleven, Chapel Road.
When his feverish house hunt first brought him to this godforsaken corner of the city, he hesitated. The street consists mostly of houses from the ’60s and ’70s, each with an immaculate front yard with a flawless, short-cut lawn, most of which surrounded by tightly cropped hedges of Lawson cypress, yew, or thuja. And of course, bulbs of boxwood everywhere, like green, oversized soccer balls, left behind by some spoiled giant child.
After about twenty houses the street reaches an open area, with fields to the left and right. There, a muddy path leads up to the small chapel that probably gave this street its name. Beyond the pastures, about 300 yards further down the road, lies another handful of old school villas, and further on more meadows, leading to a gentle hillside where an unsightly grove of half-dead firs fights for survival.
When Karel first stood on the sidewalk looking at that house with the for rent sign, he immediately imagined a driveway full of nosy neighbors telling him, without being asked, which soccer team was most likely to win this year’s title, what poison they sprayed on their dandelions, or how they took their mobile home to the Costa de la Whatever for six weeks each summer to develop permanent skin damage in the scorching southern sun. If he gave them the chance, they would probably bug him every single day with eggs from their chickens or zucchini from their vegetable garden, proclaiming their silly yet outspoken opinion on the uninteresting news facts of the day or borrowing a cup of self-rising flour.
Forced by circumstance, however, he had no choice but to rent this house with its high ceilings and the faint smell of manure, coming from the cornfield behind the garden and sneaking in through every crack and crevice.
The orientation of the building is a big plus. It’s somewhat hidden in the back, with only the garage and the kitchen facing the street, and the kitchen window partially hidden from view by a giant monkey puzzle tree. He finds them hideous, those broomsticks with their plastic-looking branches that remind him of cacti. Snatched from their natural environment, the windy flanks of volcanoes in the Andes, and mindlessly planted in the middle of a narrow front yard. Doomed to outgrow their brand-new habitat within twenty years. That surely happened here: the monkey puzzle tree towers above the roof, like a prisoner looking over a wall.
“The perfect place for a drug lab,” said his father when he helped Karel move the nearly 20-year-old washing machine his parents didn’t use anymore.
*
For several blissful weeks, Karel enjoyed a tranquility he never experienced before. His fear of being alone proved to be unjustified. Actually, he is quite good at this. He gets up at seven-thirty, is in his car by eight, and does the bookkeeping of his employer until five. Fifteen minutes later he parks on his driveway, and slips into his house before anyone has the chance to talk to him. He eats his simple but home-cooked evening meals from the good plates, which they used to bring down from the attic for special occasions only, at the large dining table overlooking the garden. Sometimes he eats outside, on the sunlit bluestone terrace. After dinner, he washes dishes, folds socks, or sorts out vinyl records while listening to one of his Spotify playlists-the record player has stayed with Katja.
Some evenings, he reads for hours in one of the hundreds of books he collected over the years, but ended up unread on a shelf. Around eleven, he switches off the lights, leaving the curtains open (no one can look in anyway), brushes his teeth, and pulls the sheets up to his chin. He usually sleeps with the window open-something Katja never wanted, even when it was a very hot night-and falls into a dreamless sleep within ten minutes.
The perfect existence. Until today, this sweltering Saturday afternoon in late August.
This morning, Karel’s peace was brutally disturbed by the doorbell. A man wearing ablue polo shirt threw him a bright smile. “Good morning, sir, I have a parcel for number ten.” He pointed to the modern house on the other side of the street, one of the only newer buildings here.
“Why don’t you give it to their neighbors?” asked Karel.
“They’re not home.”
Karel didn’t make any attempt to take the package. “I have to leave in a moment,” he lied.
“Please, sir. I have to deliver a lot today.”He threw Karel a hopeful smile.
Karel vaguely remembered a conversation two colleagues were having a couple of days earlier, about a documentary on thedelivery company this man worked for. Something about long working hours, being paid per package, and blatant exploitation. Dejected, he held out his hand.
*
He stands in his driveway, hesitating. He had this coming. You can’t live on a street like this and not have contact with your neighbors.
The heat seems even worse on the other side of the street.
Evi Liefsoens. The name on the mailbox matches the one on the label. According to the same neat name label, her husband’s name is Steven Trekels.
After Karel rings the bell twice, a man with a gray ponytail opens the door. He wears black shorts and a blue T-shirt with the words “No pain no gain”.
Karel tries not to stare at the dark spots around Steven’s armpits. “I have a package for you.”
The man crosses his arms and casually leans against the doorframe. “I haven’t seen youbefore.”
“I recently moved to this street.”
“At number eleven?” He doesn’t wait for Karel’s answer. “Evi, darling,” he shouts without turning around, making it seem like he’s yelling at Karel.
Almost immediately, as if she was waiting for his cue, a woman emerges. She wears the same T-shirt, but a pink one without wet spots under her armpits.
“This is the new neighbor, from number eleven.”
She’s slightly out of breath. “Welcome to the neighborhood! Nice to meet you. So, do you like it here?”
“It’s fine,” says Karel. As long as you don’t invite me in and question me for hours about my life.
“It sure is a characteristic house.”
“I have a package.”
She doesn’t take the box from him. “Truly one of those houses with a soul. And big, too. Perfect for raising children.”
The question she doesn’t ask remains up in the air.
Karel clears his throat. “I’ll be on my way then, I have work to do.”
Since neither of his neighbors makes any attempt to accept the parcel, he puts it on the floor in the doorway.
*
He hurries across the street, the eyes of his neighbors and the scorching afternoon sun burning on his back. Standing in the front yard of number nine is his next-door neighbor. With his slim, longue body and his exploded hair, he reminds Karel of Sideshow Bob, a character form The Simpsons. Over the past weeks, he has been ringing his doorbell on several occasions, grinning at the doorbell camera like an idiot, but Karel pretended he wasn’t at home.
Despite the warm weather, he wears a sweater. He waves enthusiastically at Karel. When he approached, he sees his sweater depicts a reindeer, and underneath the text Happy X-Mas, my deer. Khaki shorts and flip-flops complete his outfit.
“You’re the new one from number eleven!” he shouts as he approaches. “My name is Gert. Number nine.” He points to his house as if Karel doesn’t know where number nine is. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for weeks, but I couldn’t get a hold of you. I even came by your house a couple of times, but you weren’t in.”
He’s standing so close now that Karel takes a step back.
“I thought: he needs to fix his front yard sometime anyway, so I’ll just talk to him when he does.”
Karel follows his gaze. The front yard was well-maintained when he moved in, but by now it looks a bit messy. He doesn’t even care. That familiar urge to keep everything in perfect state has faded since he last closed the front door of his beloved, stylish villa in which he put all his savings, and where he wanted to build a life with Katja-where he thought he was building a life with Katja. It made him realize that he can work his ass off every hour of his life to have everything neatly in order, but in the end, chaos always prevails. If not outside him, then inside. We are all made up of billions of atoms, which have miraculously decided to vibrate on the same wavelength for a limited time, only to go their separate ways again. Karel is tired of fighting against the forces of the universe.
“You can borrow my lawnmower and electric hedge clippers.” As Gert says this, he passes an invisible hedge trimmeracross Karel’s beech hedge.
“Thanks, but I have all the equipment I need.”As Karel says this, it dawns on him he left his gardening tools at his old house. Katja’s new boyfriend might be using them at this very moment. He betsthat loser doesn’t clean the blades before storing the hedge cutter back in the garage.
“Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about … As you know, Christmas season is upon us.”
Karel feels the sun burning mercilessly down his neck. “It’s August.”
“I know! Normally I start earlier, but my mother just had to go to Thailand for an entire month, and guess who had to take care of Chichi?”
“Chichi?”
“Her chihuahua. A furry little angel. She barks all day, pees in the hallway, and is terrified of Christmas decorations.”
Karel vaguely remembers that he did hear a little dog barking regularly in recent weeks. He just nods, since he decided he would rather stand barefooted on the hot asphalt for an hour than talk to this man for one more minute.
“Anyway!” He makes a dramatic hand gesture. “Now that Chichi’s back at my mom’s scratching her leather sofa, I can finally get on with my Christmas preparations.”
“Okay.”Karel turns around. “Good luck and have a nice d-”
“I just wanted to give you a heads up. You might experience some inconvenience over the next few weeks.”
“Inconvenience?”Karel turns back around on one leg, like a ballerina doing a pirouette. A balding ballerina of 51 with a hairy belly and the elegance of a dockworker.
“They’re delivering the lumber today, and then the construction starts.”
“The construction?”
He runs a hand through his tousled hair. “Of the Christmas stall.”
“Ah.” A thick drop of sweat runs down Karel’s leg, straight into his sneaker.
“And the winter bar.”
“Winter bar?”
Gert’s face lights up. “Think of it as a neighborhood bar, where the entire street is welcome. Sometimes we even get people from surrounding streets. Open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And in December every night, of course. It will be magical. The whole neighborhood loves my Christmas decorations. Last year I had more than 20,000 lights, but this year I’ll step it up a nudge.”
Karel can’t help but stare at the man.
Sideshow Bob looks at his front yard, grinning broadly. “It will be better than ever before. By the way, you can come and help anytime. A good chance to get to know everyone. I must say your hidden lifestyle has fired the neighbors’ curiosity.”
The vague restlessness that simmered in his stomach all morning bubbles to the surface, along with a dash of heartburn. “I have a lot to do.”
“Yes, of course.” Gert looks at Karel’s front yard. “That’s obvious.”
As Karel hurries inside, a van pulls up. From the kitchen counter, Karel watches as a couple of men rush to carry the wood to the front yard. One of them is Steven, another he recognizes as the seventy-something who sits on a chair in his driveway every single day. Next to him is always a chair where usually one of the neighbors is sitting. During his very first week on Chapel Street, Karel promised himself to make every possible effort never to end up on that chair.
*
2
*
Seventeen. That’s the number of electric hedge trimmers in the garden tools rayon, sandwiched between the lawn mowers, garden shredders and leaf blowers.
cutting capacity of up to 30 mm
Lithium-ion battery technology
1,300 blade strokes per minute
rotating blade
Karel has no idea how long he has been studying the descriptions on the boxes. The annoying pressure in his head is increasing.
He doesn’t like choices. You have to make so many choices on a daily base. Will you take a cappuccino or a latte macchiato?Will you wash your hair, or give it another day? Will you put on those white socks with blue polka dots, or the blue ones with white polka dots? How will you answer that email from your boss? How honest can you really be when someone asks how you’re doing?Will you respond to that almost desperate attempt by your colleague to engage in smalltalk about the weather while you wait for the coffee machine to fill that big mug agonizingly slow?Will you drive to your ex’ house, until recently your house, to cut off her new boyfriend’s ugly headwith a hedge trimmer with an ErgoLine handle with an integrated switch?
As a child, Karel could stare at the list of ice cream flavors for minutes, only to opt for mocha and vanilla as always.
A woman with very short hair appears out of nowhere. “Can I help you, sir?”
Karel awakens from his trance. He points to the nearest hedge trimmer. “I’m looking for a hedge trimmer. And I believe I just found one.”
“Ah!The En Garde Hedgecut CK-0437. Fine tool. An output of 700 watts. A blade length of 550 mm. And that double safety switch with mechanical brake and cable strain relief comes in super handy. But, and keep this between us…” The young woman casts a dramatic silence and leans in a little closer. “This one is just as good but almost a hundred euros cheaper.” She points to a hedge trimmer on the bottom shelf. “But don’t tell my boss I told you this.”
“This one is fine.”
Her disappointment seems genuine. “That’s what I just said. Fine device. But this one is b-”
“Have a nice day!”Karel snatches the box and hurries toward the cash register. That is, after first going the wrong way in his haste to get away. There is only one thing he finds more annoying than making choices: people who want to make choices for him.
As he stands in line behind a woman carrying a powerdrill on her arm as if it were a baby and a man with a workbench, his gaze falls on a corner of the shop containing Christmas decorations. It consists of a shelf of Christmas lighting, silver baubles, and some wooden trees.For now, the selection is limited, pushed back behind mobile air conditioners, beach umbrellas, outdoor lounge sets, and barbecues with cool names like Turbo Grill Master XL. But if 51 years on this planet taught him anything, it’s that the Christmas madness is always dormant, only to flare up as soon as the last inflatable pool is deflated. Once the kids go back to school and the tan on our arms slowly fades, this corner, and thousands of shopping corners like this one, will steadily expand, like an inkblot on a piece of paper, continuing to grow until all that remains is a stubborn, white border.
He is that border.
*
3
*
Karel watches as Sideshow Bob, regularly helped by neighbors, transforms his front yard into a Christmas village. He would like to hide as long as there are neighbors on the street, but there always seems to be someone and he has a to-do list he wants tocomplete during his weeklongholiday. So he trims the hedges while a wooden shack takes shape, cuts the grass and washes the windows while an even larger wooden shack is erected and, after clearing out the shed and garage, notices that the committeeofneighborswithtoomuchtimeontheirhands has put five ridiculously large spruces in the front yard of number nine.
It’s just the beginning. Over the following days, the inkblot continues to grow. Strings of lights. Santa Clauses. Decorated trees. Sleds full of colorful presents pulled by entire herds of wooden reindeer.
And that’s not even the worst part. The virus is also spreading to neighboring homes. With every string of Christmas lights, every holly branch, and every red-and-white ornament, Karel’s uneasiness grows. He doesn’t know where his hatred of Christmas comes from. He only knows it runs deep. Very deep. Lights, baubles, presents with big bows, corny family movies, Santa Clauses, pommes duchesse, baby carrots, Georges Michael: if he could put it all in a rocket and send it to Pluto, he would be a happy man.
Even as a child, he could not wait for the Christmas holidays to be over, the fuzzand hysteria calmed down, the last lights put away in boxes on dusty attics, the firs burned like heretics, executed by the Spanish Inquisition.
Between Christmas and New Year, the company where he works closes its doors and he is obliged to take a week off. Then he withdraws himself from the outside world, watches movies he recorded throughout the year, as he avoids turning on the television during this period, because you can be sure that some cheesy Christmas movie is on for the thirty-seventh time.
Katjawasn’t a Christmas freak either, although she did occasionally talk about getting a Christmas tree and dragged him to dinner at her parents’ house on December 25 without mercy, but otherwise, she quietly let him simmer in his Christmas hatred and self-pity. She simply sought the Christmas spirit elsewhere. At her parents, who had a Christmas tree in every room of their house, including a small, plastic one on the toilet. On shopping trips with her girlfriends, after which she came home with a blush on her cheeks, a load of fresh gossip, and more clothes she would never wear. Last December, she also sought the Christmas spirit at her colleague Werner’s home-something Karel found out about that in June. Werner interpreted the whole peace on earth concept in a slightly different way than the Bible intended.
*
4
*
His house key is already in the lock when Sideshow Bob suddenly pops up behind him.
“Karel! Such a coincidence!”
For a moment he wonders how Gert knows his name as he hasn’t told him, but it’s written on his doorbell and mailbox. “It really is acoincidence that you find me here, in my own driveway.”
“Uhu. I was wondering if you’re coming to the winter bar tonight. The entire neighborhood will be there for the grand opening.”
“I put a flyer in your mailbox the other day,” he continues when Karel doesn’t respond.
Two flyers, even. He carefully tore them into very small pieces. “Your winter bar is an autumn bar. Or a Indian Summer bar.”Karel points demonstratively at the clear blue October sky.
“So you’re coming?”
“I’ll see.”He doesn’t bother to put a positive tone in his voice.
“Fantastic, we’re looking forward to it!” Gert is holding ascrewdriver. “By the way, what I wanted to ask you: which kind of Christmas decorations have you planned and when do you start? Don’t forget to save some room for the trees the city hands out. They will be delivered at the beginning of December.”
“What do you mean?”
“The city hands out free Christmas trees every year. Normally each family gets one tree, but I have a guy there who arranges two trees per house for us. And because all the neighbors participate, we often win.”
“Win what?” Karel fails to suppress a deep sigh.
“Are you kidding me?”Gert shakes his head at so much ignorance. “Every year the city organizes the competition The Most Beautiful Christmas Street. A jury chooses the street that is best decorated. It’s always between us and Main Street. We have nine titles, while Main Street only won six times. But last year the title was suddenly won by Bass Clarinet Drive.” A shadow slides across his face. “That’s in that new neighborhood where every street is named after a musical instrument.” Gert shakes his head again. “Really, there are even houses that are not decorated at all! I wouldn’t be surprised if they know one of the judges.” He starts talking faster and faster. “It won’t help them this time. This year we’ll win, even if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Okay.”
Karel’s lukewarm response seems to calm him down a bit. “So that brings me back to the question: what are you doing?The previous residents hung red and green lights in the monkey puzzle tree, and a couple of those big, luminous balls. That gave a unique effect. They also had two sleighs and big candy canes in their lawn. If you’re looking for decorations, I can recommend some excellent stores where you can get all the-”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“What do you mean?”
The ball in his belly hardens. Where does this sillycharacter get the illusion that he can bother him with his drivel? “I mean, I’m not going to do anything. I don’t like Christmas.”
“You have to do something. Everyone is doing something. We need to win.”
“I have no intention whatsoever of spending hundreds of dollars on tacky lights or those moronic Santa Clauses dangling from my window.”
“But-”
“Have a nice evening!”Karel hurries inside and slams the door behind him. Hopefully, the message is clear now.
After dinner, Karel lowers himself into his most comfy garden chair. It’s a little cold to sit outside. The sun has just sunk behind the horizon. The blue sky is light and dark at the same time. In that last, deep blue glimmer before the black takes over, a blackbird sings from the crown of the maple tree in the corner of his backyard. Its clear voice touches Karel to the depths of his soul.
He notices a faint murmur. Voices and music, coming from the front yard of number nine. It fills him with a deep, gnawing nostalgia. He doesn’t want to be there. He could go there if he wanted to. Yet he feels left out. Because the world just doesn’t seem to fit him, and no matter how hard he claims he doesn’t want to fit in, he feels the longing, the lack of a group, of like-minded people. People with whom he feels comfortable. A pack to howl at the moon with.
In recent weeks, he became convinced that he was doing well. He adjusted himself to a new rhythm of life, a quiet existence in the shadows, a new state of being. But it dawns on him he has been fooling himself. People who are doing well are not thrown off guard by a Christmas-obsessed neighbor who looks like a stupid, yellow cartoon character.
*
5
*
Baby Jesus is missing a hand. Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, the ox, the donkey, and a flock of sheep look at him, petrified. Karel pretends to listen to Sideshow Bob as he states the origin of each figurine. Paris, Cologne, Antwerp, Venice.
Karel has turned down dozens of invitations from Gert. He survived October and half of November without participating in the evenings at the winter bar, which are getting longer and louder. When the bar is open, he has to sleep with earplugs to muffle the murmurs, laughter, and nerve-wracking après-ski music. But when Gert suddenly popped up next to his refrigerator earlier that evening-“Your back door wasn’t locked”- he was determined not to return to his winter bar without Gert-“I promised. The whole neighborhood wants to get to know you.”
He resisted the urge to smash his neighbor’s head with the heavy frying pan with the loose handle and flaking non-stick coating he held in his hand. In prison, they probably celebrated Christmas, too. So he put the panon the counter and followed a nauseatingly enthusiastic Gert to his cabinet of curiosities.
Just once. He had to undergo this nonsense once, so they can’t say he’s never been to their little circus. Then he canhide in his hole until this madness is over.
*
Gert talks about how he built the throne in the cornerof the front garden. On top sits a downright creepy Santa Claus with a child on his lap. They are surrounded by more dolls that seem to have escaped from a horror movie. Santa’s sleigh is parked against the facade. The plastic reindeer are snacking on Gert’s boxtrees. Ice crystals and Santa Clauses are hanging from the windows. On the lawn, a little train rides through a carpet of fake snow.
“The Hogwarts Express, you know, from Harry Potter,” says Sideshow Bob with a broad smile.
The improvised winter bar features a large bar with bar stools, two fridges, party tables and patio heaters. Christmas decorations are hanging from the wooden walls and ceiling. Karelcloses his eyes, but the nausea doesn’t go away.
Gert insists on introducing him to everyone.
Jan. Luc and Tamara. Inge and another Jan. Magda and Theo. Guido and André. Simon. Gunther. Anja. Els and another Luc.
Most of them are retired teachersand civil servants, except for Luc and Tamara, who work in a bank.
“Not the same bank,” the woman remarks with an exaggerated smile.
Gert himself works at City Hall. His rehearsed-sounding “Because someone has to work there!” is followed by laughter from a handful of neighbors.
Luc 2, a retired economics teacher, wants to know what Karel does for a living.
“I’m an administrative clerk at a logistics company,” says Karel with a monotone voice. A proven method to avoid follow-up questions.
Luc 2 scratches his head. “That must pay well if you can rent that house on your own.”
Karel tries hard not to take it as a sneer. “Not too bad. It’s a good addition to my drug lab.”
Ashe says this, John Miles has just finished singing about music, his first love, which will also be his last. Two seconds later, John Lennon takes over, asking to imagine a world without heaven, hell, or religion, but it is already too late. Everyone is looking at Karel. Mulled wine ten inches from their mouths, a hand on their interlocutor’s arm, a finger raised in the air or simply open-mouthed. As if petrified, doomed to stand in this position forever.
Then Sideshow Bob starts laughing like a maniac. “Drug lab! That’s a good one!”
His laughter works infectiously on the assembled mishmash of interchangeable neighbors, though something doesn’t seem quite right. It seems fake, like one of those laugh tracks from an average American sitcom. The salvo ends as abruptly as it began.
Sideshow Bob leads him along to a group of men. One of themcomplains about the neighborat number nineteen, whose driveway is still not finished. “Hugo has more bricks there than the average construction company. Piles and piles, and I don’t see those piles getting any smaller. He’d better build a wall with them, so we don’t have to look on his messy front yard.”
“The weeds in his shingle start to look like the bloody Amazon,” adds another man. “I blame that whole No Mow Maynonsense.”
“Uh!” The first man shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t get me started. Just a bunch of hippieswho are too lazy to mow their lawn.”
“Well, at least Hugo has his Christmas decorations up,” Gert says loudly.
All heads suddenly turn in Karel’s direction.
Karel removes himself from the group on the pretext of getting mulled wine. Luc and Tamara join him at the bar.
“You’re renting, right?” says Luc without any introduction.
Karel nods. The smell of the mulled wine makes him sick to his stomach.
“You might as well burn your money. I’m pretty sure you can convince Danny to sell the house, especially after that miserable affair with the previous tenants.”
Suddenly Karel’s interest is piqued. “Miserable affair?”
“That drug lab in the garage,” Tamara whispers wide-eyed. “I thought you knew.”
Karel almost chokes on his drink.
*
He wanders from group to group, catching conversations about the local soccer team, artificial intelligence, and some minister who got slapped in the face by a cop and apparently deserved it. Since he stopped watching the news years ago, his happiness has increased a lot.
He is just about to make his way out with some half-hearted excuse, back to the tranquility of his own home, when Evi and Steven enter the shack. Steven immediately steps up to him and nudges him conspiratorially.
“Are you on mulled wine? That sweet stuff Gert fabricates is horrible. I brought something better.”
He places a six-pack of Karmeliet, one of Karel’s favorite strong ales, on the nearest table.
“Oh jeez, that music.” Steven groans. “I always forget that part. I’m more a fan of Marilyn Manson than Mariah Carey.”
“I have no idea who Marilyn Manson is. But I’m sure it can’t be any worse than Mariah Carey.”
“We’ll drink to that!”
They clink their bottles together.
Steven closes his eyes for a second as the beer finds its way to his stomach. “Can I tell you something?I’m not fond of this whole Christmas thing.”
Karel’s gaze wanders to Steven’s house across the street. The entire front yard is lit up by yellow lights.
Steven seems to read his mind. “We have to, or living here becomes very difficult. And Ozzy and Dio like it.”
“Ozzy and Dio?”
“My sons.” He points at two children sitting on the floor in a corner of the winter bar, cross-legged, each with a tablet on their laps and thick headphones on their heads.
Karel can’t suppress a broad grin. Finally an ally in this sea of madness. “This front yard, that’s exactly how I imagine hell to be. Minus Gert. I don’t think they want him there.”
Steven laughs loudly. Together they look at Gert, standing in the middle of the room, singing along to some tacky après-ski song. Most of the neighbors are standing around him in a large circle, like cultists around their divine leader.
“Have you heard of theEuropean spruce bark beetle?” Steven says it quietly, almost in a whisper.
“The what?”
“Spruce bark beetles. Tiny insectsliving under the bark of trees. They bore their way through the bark, where they dig burrows in which they lay their eggs. Those larvae also digcorridors under the bark. As a result, the tree weakens until it dies. And now comes the best part: this little beetle is targeting the spruce in particular.”
Karel likes the direction this story takes.
“Entire pine forests are destroyed bythis little rascal. All that remains are pathetic skeletons with brown needles.”
Karel thinks of the grove at the end of the street. When he expresses that thought, Steven nods at him with approval, as if he were a child who paid close attention during class.
“Try hanging Christmas baubles in those silly creatures!”
Karellaughs. Tears run down his cheeks. He doesn’t stop laughing until he feels a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m glad to see you’re having such a good time in my Christmas village, neighbor! But I really need to talk to you about the lack of decorations in your front yard.”
To his horror, Karel notes that most of the neighbors have followed Gert and are now standing behind him, looking at him with serious expressions on their faces.
“I’ve talked to the neighbors about it and we all agree that you should join in. Am I right?”
“Of course,” someone shouts.
“If you don’t have the time, I can do it for you. But you pay for the decorations, I’m not Santa Claus.” He winks.
Karel wonders if you can strangle someone with a string of Christmaslights. It’s worth a try.
The toe-curling song Anton aus Tirol begins. Some people start singing along.
Gert looks at Karel, a strange grin on his face. Karel feels the blood drain from his face when Gert’s “Anton! Anton!” changes to “Karel! Karel!”
A wild beast jumps around in his belly, gnawing at his skin, bouncing against his guts like a hard ball. Some neighbors join in, pointing at him.
“Karel! Karel!”
Sideshow Bob grabs his wrist and tries to drag him to the dance floor. Karel braces himself, but Gert keeps pulling his arm.
“Come on, join in then, you dull fusspot!Karel! Karel!”
The lights flicker, the neighbors dance around them laughing. The last tones of Anton aus Tirol fade away, and there it is: the Christmas song Karel hates most of them all.
“Sing along, Karel!” Gert’s hand is squeezed so tightly around Karel’s wrist that his skin burns. “Come on, man, it’s Christmas!”
He hits Gert straight on the nose with his free fist. “It’s not Christmas, it’s November, you moron!”
Everyone falls silent, except for Georges Michael.
Last Christmas I gave you my heart. But the very next day, you gave it away.
Gert stares at Karel wide-eyed, a hand on his nose. Blood drips between his fingers.
This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.
In the tumult, a large, plastic Santa Claus has fallen over. He lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. Karel suppresses the urge to kick his fat belly.
*
6
*
He awakens from a bizarre dream. It takes him a moment to realize it’s the doorbell that woke him up. He wants to check the time on his cell phone, but his nightstand is empty.
Again the doorbell.
He can’t find his jeans, so he runs down the stairs in his underpants.
It’s Steven. “Jeez, you look like shit, although you were the first to go home.”
“I had a few drinks before I went to bed.” Steven’s cheerfulness is just too much for him right now.
“I can imagine you needed a drink, after that … Incident with Gert.”
Steven’s grin fades as he studies Karel’s face. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone has their breaking point. Anyway, you forgot this.”
His smartphone. Karel stares at it as if seeing the thing for the first time.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.You know, I tolerate a lot from Gert because I feel a little sorry for him.” He says it in a quiet tone, glancing at house number nine. “He’s got nobody. He’s never been married, and I don’t think he’s even been in a relationship. I don’t see any friends or family visiting, except for his mother, and she seems like a terrible person. Apart from the crazy Christmas stuff, he has no hobbies. It is his way of having social contacts once a year, his change of being the center of attention for a while. Is that irritating? Absolutely. But in the end, he doesn’t really hurt anyone, you know.”
“How is he?”
“They took him to the ER. You broke his nose.” Steven hesitates for a moment, then puts a hand on Karel’s shoulder. “But he’ll survive. It’s a pretty sight, those tampons in his nose.”
Karel tries to ignore the wave of pity washing over him.
*
7
*
Gert looks even more idiotic than usual with those two nasal tampons.
“It’s beautiful,” he says while looking at Karel’s front yard.
Karel notices Gertkeeps his distance. “It’s the first time I’ve done anything like that,”he says.
“Really?”
“Like I said: I don’t like Christmas.”
“Okay, okay. I understand. Well, actually, I don’t. But it’s who you are.” He clears his throat. “And that’s exactly why I’m … Extra grateful that you’re doing this.”
For a moment, Karel considers answering that this is what Christmas is all about, but he can’t get the words past his lips. “Look at it on the bright side. At least, I don’t have a drug lab in my garage.”
For a moment the two men look at each other. Then they start laughing uncontrollably.
A car drives by slowly. To the driver, it must seem as if they are two friends, or at least good neighbors, looking at an overly decorated front yard, with an ugly monkey puzzle tree in the middle, its branches laden with cheap lights.
LEEN RAATS (born in 1984) lives in Belgium. She runs a copywriting business, writing about nature, landscapes, and history. She self-published books in Dutch and won several writing contests in Belgium and the Netherlands.
So far, she has published in Europe, the USA, Africa and Asia. Her publications include Pleiades, 34 Orchard, Crannóg, Rathalla Review and writenowlit.org. Ever since the dayshe first put a poem on a piece of paper, her life has a clear purpose: making this world just a little more beautiful through writing.
Find out more at https://leenwrites.com/
