I tried to look as healthy as possible, scraping all of the grit from the ends of my eyes and running my fingers through my hair and stuffing newspaper down my shirt so I would look not so skinny. It was around Christmastime and it happened long ago but I remember it clearly. The nativity scene was already set up and I tripped over the cord, causing most of the lights that were stapled around the house to flicker slightly.

The only thing guiding my steps other than the pale moon was the almost fluorescent blue snow. I stood in front of the door and held my knuckles an inch from the door. I had to rethink my plan. I couldn’t just walk right in and make my way to the Christmas bird. I straightened my back and pretended that these two years were just a really long slumber party at one of my friends’ houses.

I tapped quietly. Some tiny force below my skin didn’t want anyone to answer the door. My skin prickled and every fiber of hair stood on end. Being away from home for so long, I would probably be an intruder. A new flood of emotion coursed throughout my veins like a tidal wave of cold water, pumping the new chemical throughout my entire body. I felt embarrassed. I was that girl in the family they preferred not to talk about except to the hairdresser or to the lady who would put polish on your fingernails. I was shame.

With my head kept low and my shoulders sinking low, thinking of how much more fun they had without me, I spun on my heel and made my way away from the apartment complex and back to the city, where the only warmth would be that of stray cats or the thick silvery cloud of bummed cigarettes. I didn’t care about them anymore. They could stay there without me and have their fun. I would lessen the burden. At least people in the city couldn’t hurt me like they did me. Yeah, sure there were those people who might rough you up a bit but it was forgotten the next day. The hurt they evoked on me couldn’t be forgotten no matter how hard I tried.

I could hear the almost whisper of Christmas carolers singing. I stopped to listen. Their voices seemed joyous. There were people dying everywhere and yet they were singing about how great ‘God’ was. No, I didn’t really believe in this fictional character. How could a god, the supposed father of all creation stand to look at this sad and tragic world without bringing a fist of frustration down and stopping death and all time. I saw no point in believing in something that humans imagined.

I watched them with their smug faces and hot chocolate vapor caressed noses. I felt jealousy but what could I do? I gathered as much snow as I could between my fingers. My fingers grew numb and I wanted to lie in the snow and become completely numb. I wanted to become enveloped in the cold numbness and fall into a graceful sleep. But they snow crumbled together.

The innocent voices of the children drove me crazy. I wanted to black their eyes and sew their lips shut. Then they would shut up and leave the night tranquil. I hurled the ice oval towards the doorstep, hoping to at least hit one of the girls’ legs. As the ice swept by all of the girls, missing the target and not even catching their attention, I gathered up another snowball and chucked it with such fury and angst behind it that it hit one of the carolers right in the face. She fell on her butt.

I snickered but fell silent when the wailing filled the air. I felt bad. An overwhelming amount of guilt flooded me. It was loud like a siren. I wanted the little girl to hush but when all of the girls turned around and saw the culprit, they took off. I expected the bunch to run away from me, after all, I was bigger and I could have easily taken several of them. But they ran towards me, mouths agape like piranhas in for the kill. I ran as fast as I could.

One of their jaws latched onto my arm. I tried to shake her off. Her strait white teeth fug even further into my skin like some rabid dog. I slowed down, while trying to get the tiny toddler off of me. The others were gaining on me like a deadly stampede of buffalo. I became frantic and I wished I could run faster and cursed my legs for not moving faster.

I slowed down even more. I tripped on another nativity scene cord. How many people believed in this story, lived in this same neighborhood, and put up the exact same nativity scene was beyond my knowledge. The flurry of girls caught up to me. My hair was pulled, my skin was stretched, my ski was bitten, and I was slowly yet surely being decapitated alive by these little girls. I screamed and buried myself within the snow, its cold icy numbness providing the smallest relief from the pain.

I wished to shrink just then, to become about the size of a beetle and to have the ice swallow me into hibernation or death. One. The pain the little girls inflicted upon me was just too much. I