Snowman

Hey there, WYMOP readers!

I have no idea what to write about this week. As I sit here behind the keyboard, though, wracking my brain for an idea, I find myself staring off into space. You know what I’m talking about; we’ve all done it. And as so often happens when we stare mindlessly off into the distance, it turns out there is something right there that I’m looking at. I don’t realize I’m looking at it, but I am—all I have to do is change the focus of my eyes, and this blurry nothing I thought I was staring through resolves itself into a Christmas box with a snowman on the lid.

A snowman. Huh.

Odd, that box still being out with all the rest of the Christmas stuff put away in the basement, under the stairs. Is that why he’s smiling, this snowman on the lid? Because though the other decorations are all shut away in a dank, moldy space, this little guy with the top hat and green scarf gets to stay up here in the sun? Watching everything that goes on, week after week, month after month? He keeps me company as I sit here at the table, in this little space I’ve staked out in the house as my own, and I’m not even aware of him, watching as I write and edit, maybe even watch a movie to review.

I review monster movies—sometimes just watching horror movies on my own, because no one else in the house will watch them with me. Is his little smile even littler sometimes, his cheerful grin a bit forced, from some of the things he’s watched with me? When I walk away from the Chromebook—taking a shower, or doing some chore about the house—is he reading what I’ve written that day? Is he limited to what he can see on the screen, or does he scroll through the whole document, reading my stories from start to finish?

And what’s he doing up here, this little snowman on the box? How was he forgotten, left behind, separated from the rest of his Christmassy little clan? Why was he left alone on the table, rather than, say, a stuffed Rudolph, or maybe an animated singing Santa who belts out a tune while swinging his hips in an almost obscene little hula? Dirty Prancing, starring Patrick Swayze and old Saint Nick, Swayze delivering the awkward line, “No one puts Santa in the corner?”

Or would that be too obvious?

Maybe he was supposed to be unobtrusive? Perhaps he wanted to be left behind? Maybe they all wanted him left behind, the light-up Rudolph and sexed-up Santa catching our eye and holding our attention so the sneaky little snowman could hide upon the table—but why? As some sort of seasonal spy? A pair of coal-chunk eyes to watch us through the rest of the year, when the bulk of them are consigned to the darkness below stairs? Santa has his Elf on the Shelf; what if the decorations have their own Snowman with a Plan?

Do they have a plan? What do they want?

Hey, I may have a story here . . .

Talk to you later!