RING AROUND THE ROSES

Prologue

The world seems to have frozen over.

Words which should send me tumbling to the ground in a mess of grief just blow right past me with the wind. My body trembles from the cold rather than pain like my younger sister and father. My little sister clutches onto my hand, bawling her eyes out, my father looks stricken with grief while I cry soundlessly, my face showing no emotion and after just a few seconds, my tears are already drying. I’m completely hollow inside, which baffles me. It’s not the reaction one should have when hearing that their mother has died in a car crash.

My heart does not ache.

I feel nothing.

My sister presses her face against my stomach and wraps her small arms around me, wanting comfort. Acting my part, my arms circle her and I hold her to me.

My mother’s dead. Why am I not feeling any pain? Or is it that I’m in so much pain that I can’t even feel it, just like when you’re severely wounded. Your body just becomes numb . . .

We’re standing outside in the middle of the night. It’s Christmas now, now that it’s past midnight. My mother was killed on one of the most famous holidays of the year, while coming home from the office. She loved her job and spent a lot of her time there. She had a presentation to give once her Christmas break was over and she was trying to hurry up and finish it so she could spent the last days with us, rather than working. Because of this, we didn’t even go caroling, something we do ever year. She was going to make it up to us by singing our favorite carols with us tonight and tomorrow, even if only we’re there to hear it.

Abruptly, my father shivers and ushers us inside. We stay up all night in the living room, sitting on our soft, expensive sofas by our large, fat tree that’s beautifully decorated in Christmas ornaments and silver tinsel. The lights are plugged in and they blink at us, the star, also decorated with red, blue, green and so on lights, also shines brightly at us. We turn off the lights to the room and sit in the darkness with only the Christmas lights from our tree showing my sister and father’s tear-streaked faces, while mine remains as still as a porcelain doll.

The next day, we don’t open our presents and instead begin our mourning process. Or my father and sister do. While they do this, I look under the tree to find the present my mother had gotten me. I take it out from under the tree, expecting it to bring some emotion to me. Why am I not in mourning like my sister and father? What’s wrong with me? I love my mother, I do. She was the best. So why is my heart frozen?

Holding the box to my chest, I take it up to my room to open. However, once I’m sitting cross legged on my bed, I merely sit there and stare at the box in my lap. It’s wrapped in smooth, crimson paper with green ribbons that tie up into a neat and pretty bow at the top. My fingers trail the ribbon but I still don’t remove it.

Finally, I get up from bed and go to my closet. I open one of the white double doors and hide it in the back corner.

I’ll open it tomorrow, I tell myself. I’m too tired now.

I climb in bed, grabbing one of my fluffy pillows and hug it to me, closing my eyes and falling asleep while hearing a familiar tune in my head.

The next day, I don’t open my mother’s present, nor do I the next, or the next . . .

Winter turns to spring which turns to summer and I still don’t open it.

All the while, I continue to hear the familiar tune, though I can’t see anyone singing it or playing the music. The words echo in my mind and sometimes, I even find myself humming and singing with it.

Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas . . .