WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS

a little tale

It was a long trudge home, and the wind that blew up my shorts was cold. Not that I noticed it because an even colder chill was blowing through my brain and into my heart.

I had come from Madame Couselle, a woman who had spent her entire very long life blessed with what she called her own second sight with which she had a vivid view of the future if her palm was crossed with silver or preferably, paper. She had even foretold the exact day when Mrs Forester’s cat was going to die, and spookily predicted when her eldest son Luke was going to come out to the world and rejoice in being gay by marrying BarryTopless.

And now following a rather odd dream in which I’d found my way beyond the realm of light and life and all that goes with it I nervously had found my way into her parlour where she sat, day in and day out, sitting in a comfy chair whilst gazing into a really lovely crystal ball and seeing no end in the flickers of light reflected in it.

I explained about the dream and the odd surroundings my mind found itself wandering round in it and mentioned the music I had heard during my mystical perambulation, music that sounded a bit like an old record by the Beatles from when I’d been a teenager and had been well into that sort of stuff, and she had looked gravely at me.

“You heard music,” she whispered, clutching one of her own arms with the opposite hand and wincing..

“About a pace called Penny Lane. I think.” I said thoughtfully.

“And all was darkness?” she prompted, “as you walked along?”

“A little,” I murmured uncertainly,

“Then it foretells the end.” she said flatly, wheezing and looking almost ill if a wise woman with powerful deep knowledge can look ill. Then she coughed weakly and clutched that arm even more firmly.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head and almost fell off her chair as she leaned towards me.

“I have seen in my crystal ball your short future,” she wheezed, “you will not live into the new year but will pass away painlessly before January introduces us to that new year…”

“But it’s almost then now,” I groaned, and would have asked her take a second peek into the future via that wonderful ball of hers and make sure she’d got it right had she not fallen forwards ad landed flat on her face on the floor, her nose squashing against my left shoe. And for a moment I expected her to apologise and climb back up, but she didn’t, and I rummaged around in my mind to find out if knew what to do when someone decides to go to sleep on the floor and ended up phoning the local police station.

After a great deal of waiting and paramedics and a bright young constable who couldn’t sand the sight of death it transpired that’s exactly what it was. Madame Couselle was most certainly dead. A heart attack, the paramedic concluded, “and about time too,” he added, “she must have been a hundred if she was a day.”

When I finally found my way back home Irene was waiting anxiously by the open front door, looking this way and that for me to come into her sight.

“That Madame something or other, you know, the old lady who can tell the future, is dead,” I said, “I was talking to her when she died. It was horrible, and the policeman who was still probably a foetus thought I’d kicked her in the face.”

“Talking to that old fraud? What about?” she asked, almost but not quite suspiciously.

“That dream I had last night, the one that woke me up and made me go for a wee,” I explained, “I told you when you woke up yourself.”

“And did she help work out what it was all about before she died?” asked Irene.

“She said I wouldn’t see next year…” I muttered, “but it transpired that it was she who was on her way out, not me.”

Then the doorbell rang.

“It’s all happening today,” I muttered, going to open it and see who was disturbing our peace.

“Cobbs and Cobbs, caring for the deceased,” said the young woman standing there soberly dressed, “we got a telephone call… have you lost someone precious to you? And do you want us to deal with the complexity of dying?”

“Crikey, no,” I almost exploded, “you must have the wrong address and at a time like this the appearance of an undertaker is most certainly inappropriate.”

Miss Cobb, or might have been Miss Cobb, went away, full of the most profuse apologies I’d heard since my first wife went off in a swirl of lust with the window cleaner who’d fallen in love with her bare backside whilst polishing the bedroom window and before he’d got to know the b***h she was.

“I’m going to see the doctor tomorrow,” I told Irene, “there have been so many portends…”

As luck would have it I did make an appointment to see Dr.Mungle next morning, luck because Christmas was just round the corner and the surgery was seasonally busy.

Dr Mumgle looked at me and smiled. “So what’s the problem?” he asked.

“I don’t think there’s much wrong with me, but I’ve been told I won’t see past January the first and I really want to spend more time with my wife…” I told him, almost apologetically

It sounded self-pitying and awful, but I said it anyway.

“I’ll just take a look at you,” he said generously, and proceeded to measure things like my blood pressure and heartbeat.

“All very satisfactory,” he said, “you’ve got the constitution of a young man! But take it easy over Christmas. Too much of the strong stuff can’t be good for you. But a word of advice. It’s cold outside and maybe you might be better served wearing trousers rather than shorts?”

I was so grateful that I swore I’d change my attire the moment I arrived home and rushed out of the surgery and straight into the path of the Number 13 bus.

It might have killed me had it actually been moving, but wasn’t, and I’m only a bit bruised and with a broken leg. But at the same time even though I’m alive and well I’m confined to my bed when I ought to be enjoying the time of year rather than plagued by my own imagination to strains of Penny Lane as I wait to see what the new year might bring me.

Or might not.

© Peter Rogerson, 21.12.24