Here’s the second part of my offering to our revered organizer, @kla1991 (also tagging @bering-and-wells-exchange), who I hope finds at least some of it to be entertaining… there’ll be a third part, and I apologize for compelling her to receive her gift on the installment plan. This is an extremely silly story about Christmas carols and bickering and a lot of other stuff that resists synopsis, so I recommend reading the first part to get at least a minimal sense of what’s going on. I wish the very happiest of new years to all—let’s go, 2020!
“Pete, you should do the honors,” Leena said. “You’re the one it wants to travel with.”
Pete performed an overdramatic ceremonial lifting of the pages of music, and they began the trek back to its original home. As he walked, he said to the artifact in his hands, “I still don’t know anything about classical music, but I still feel like you belong to Christmas, buddy.” He asked Leena, “Why isn’t it actually supposed to live there? The curtains, I see their point, but this? It’s all over the place this time of year.”
Leena said, “Blame the Victorians.”
Helena cleared her throat. “Well. As the only present representative of said era, I feel compelled to object.”
“Noted, but I have to overrule you. The Victorians repurposed a lot of things—including the Messiah; it’s supposed to be for Easter—into Christmas things.”
Myka said, “Or you could say they put a lot of things together and repurposed them all into one big Christmas thing. Christmas as we know it.”
“I love Christmas as we know it,” Claudia said. “Sounds like we should be thanking H.G. instead of blaming her.”
“We aren’t blaming her,” Myka said, adding internally, Not for that, anyway. Out loud, she said, “The whole Victorian Christmasing is basically a replay of Christianity itself. Lots of things put together and repurposed into a religion.”
Helena didn’t look at Myka, but she said, in something like agreement, “Nothing is truly new under the sun. Older elements recombine.”
They’d done this sort of thing as part of the “fumble back” stage of their pattern before, not quite talking to each other, not yet, but talking beside each other. From the same side. They were walking beside each other now, too: not touching, but not not touching.
Fumbling back, Myka had found, was easier—more expeditious, anyway—in private. Not touching could turn into not not touching, which could then slide its way to touching. Kiss the hot girl… which was not an option right now. Myka resented its not being an option. Perversely, she also resented how strongly she wished it were an option.
turnnoffyourmind
baratheonpilled
areudirty
romaincrisis
snowghoul
