THE CHRISTMAS FEELING

Christmas was just a meme to Joe these days. He noticed a minor algorithmic change to his online recommends, but almost everything festive now seemed just a post Black Friday afterthought.

It was online where he spent most of his time, live streaming, gaming and espousing idly provocative views to anyone who cared to follow him. And if one of his subscribers paid him donations well it made sense to take the money, or the crypto. After all, it wasn’t like there was much work around in the pandemic ravaged Mid-Western town he lived in. Most of the traditional industrial jobs that had propped up the local infrastructure were now gone, and the community seemed to exist solely for the mere symbolic value of maintaining the illusion that nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

As much as Joe had one foot planted in the future of progress and all that implied, he also had an atavistic desire to run away from it all and embrace something other than his joypad. Yet there was no getting away from where he was right now. The year was 2020 and he was buried down deep in the rabbit holes of information warfare. Everything was fractured and divided. There was literally no common consensus on anything. It was a world of feelings where everyone was right and everyone was also wrong. The safest place to be was in your own echo bunker where the only people you talked to firmly and devoutly reconfirmed your own prejudices. But even amongst the security of his echo chamber, there resided a Kurtz-like doubt for Joe about the collective devotion he had incurred on partially false pretences.

Joe was like a boy God to the many who subscribed to his discord channel. A fearless gamer, Joe had overcome the greatest challenges in the world of video games. From Medieval Assassin to Alien Killer, Joe had travelled through centuries of time fuelled only by takeaway, requiring only the occasional delivery of pizza and coke as well as a McDonalds or three. How was it that he could triumph over such epic adversity across vast stretches of time and yet feel so utterly hollow at the core of his being? Perhaps it was a sense that these conquests were artificial and mere simulations of heroism.

He could hear his parents arguing through the paper-thin walls of his room. He sensed there would be no resolution between those two in their remaining years on Earth as he kept himself detached from worldly love. Perhaps he was a modern day Knight Errant, who never needed to step outside of the castle walls to commit to adventures of the heart. Perhaps it was in all in front of him on a twelve-inch computer screen? But where was the sacrifice? This perpetual nagging doubt of hollow, simulated victories made him depressed.

It was Christmas Eve and Joe had not even bothered to shower since waking. What was the point anyway? He barely saw anyone outside of his own room these days. Everyone was online and alone. He often thought it funny how those two words; online and alone seemed so similar. That was just the way his brain worked. Everything was ironic to him these days. But deep down, he wanted to be free of it. He felt like the most cynical eighteen-year-old kid in the world. But it was a burden. And he felt the weight of it in his young heart; which he only occasionally noticed beating after he’d had an extra Red Bull or two.

He was currently stuck in a mud-filled trench and running out of ammo fast. He didn’t like to rely on his gamer mates when he came to warfare. He was very much a lone ranger.

As he waited with baited breath for the numerous enemies to approach, the lights in his actual house went out suddenly and he suddenly found himself enveloped in complete darkness.

This was new.

His mind took a moment or two to compute what was going on. This wasn’t normal. There had been threat of severe winter storms, but mostly they had fallen victim to their own hype and never showed.

He could hear his mother calling out in the corridor outside his room. She was searching for a box of matches she’d misplaced five years ago, which was the last time she’d actually needed to use them. In his stubbornness, Joe decided to wait it out in the darkness of his room, hoping normality would resume as soon as possible.

He waited and he waited but after five minutes he could stand it no longer. He headed outside for a smoke.

“I’m getting some air. Don’t need this shit right now.”

His mother knew better than to argue with him.

Out on the street, everything was quiet, except for the occasional masked figure keeping socially distanced from him as he leant against the bare looking sweet gum tree opposite his house. The sky was clear and with the sudden reduced sodium of street lights, Joe could see a star or two twinkling up in the night sky. This sudden reminder of life beyond the pulsing currents of electricity in his room gave him a thrill. It felt more dangerous than sitting in front of his computer. In fact, it felt more dangerous than any single one of his games that he’d played over the last ten years. His breath clouds reminded him that he hadn’t become full cyborg just yet. Perhaps this was that Norman Rockwell vibe he’d occasionally pined (and pinned) after when scrolling through image after image of Americana on Google. The past was more alien than Alien to Joe and he saw it as far more exotic.

Then, like fireflies in winter, people started emerging in the street with lanterns alight with tea candles. It was like everyone had turned into Rip Van Winkle. Or Something.

It was a different age suddenly. The power cut had transported everyone back one hundred years and Joe felt as if he was in a Frank Capra movie. Yes, Joe had watched It’s A Wonderful Life one Christmas when his Dad persuaded him that not all black and white movies were boring. He remembered the distinct moment that he forgot it was a movie and even noticed a tear trickling down his cheek when James Stewart had decided against throwing himself off a bridge into the snow covered water below.

The sound of Bing Crosby singing ‘The Christmas Feeling’ was playing through a tannoy by a ramshackle looking nativity model placed somewhat randomly in the hollow of a tree in the street, powered by some sort of independent generator. Joe had no idea where this thing had come from, but he liked it. Who continued traditions like this in 2020? Why hadn’t they been hiding in their houses in the event of an apocalypse? Perhaps they were oblivious. Joe wished he were more oblivious. Everyone seemed to be engaged in apocalypse porn everywhere he looked. The ultimate rebellion seemed a wry kind of optimism that ignored the doomsayers. But it was becoming harder to do that sort of thing when deep down you suspected the shit was truly hitting the fan. Well, Joe wasn’t going down without a fight and the Bing Crosby was really hitting him in the “feels”. He felt roused, like from an overlong slumber. Where had the year gone? Was it even a year by any measure? If anything it had felt like one endless night that had barely offered even the promise of sunrise.

But tonight felt different. Tonight felt strangely hopeful. And yet, it was strange to feel this good about things, as Joe would typically freak out at even the merest glitch on one of his games, let alone a full on power out. That was probably the autism he thought to himself and laughed out loud.

But here he was, smoking and listening to Bing while roaming candles flickered outside of neighbours’ houses.

It was then that one of the candles appeared to be moving ever closer toward Joe.

Was it an optical illusion or were his eyes just tired from all the incessant gaming marathons he’d been engaged in of late?

“Hi!” said the voice.

Joe was taken aback.

“Feels like Christmas has arrived finally,” continued the graceful female voice.

“It took a power cut to bring it I guess,” said Joe gruffly.

“Peaceful though isn’t it?” and with that, the girl stranger pulled down her mask and smiled at Joe.

“Don’t worry, I already had it.”

“You did huh?” replied Joe nervously.

“Yeah. But I’m better now,” she reassured him.

“So you’re immune or something?”

“Yeah. I’m immune to bullshit.”

Joe smiled and held up his cigarette.

“Wanna drag?”

“Sure.”

He passed her his cigarette, which in itself felt kind of forbidden given the hysteria on restrictions this year.

“I like that music.“

“Me too. Nostalgia seems to be back in vogue.”

“It was never out of fashion to me.”

Joe liked that she raised the ante with every observation he made.

“Seems like a long time ago since we last spoke. I think you blocked me on Snap.”

“I deleted it. Felt better for my head. I decided to pick up a book and get away from watching my friends humiliate themselves on Tik Tok and the like. Now I just spend my time reading through my dad’s library. I’m reading the books even he never got round to. Feels courageous.”

“Well, closest I got to a book is speed listening to some Russian stuff, just so I could say I did it. War and Peace speeded up x7 is a trip. Though I don’t really have time for books. And I doubt my followers want me to read to them when I could be shooting the shit out of some mutated lizard creatures on a video game.”

“You ever meet your followers?”

“Not yet. I tend to keep that separate to everything else.”

“I follow you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah sure. I saw you complete The Ghost Of Tsushima. You sure talk a lot of shit for a Samurai, I gotta say.”

“What name you go by?” said a surprised and increasingly confident Joe.

“Oh well, it’s not me exactly. My little brother follows you and I occasionally watch over his shoulder whilst reading.”

Joe receded a little in stature. Little brother follower as opposed to girl next door follower was quite another matter.

“Well, you should let me know his name and I’ll gift him a nitro boost or something.”

“That’s sweet. Good to see you’re not a complete autist.”

Joe smiled in bittersweet fashion and clutched his chest like he’d been shot.

“Well, I should probably get going.”

Suddenly Joe felt a sense of anxiety at the thought of the girl walking away without something transacted between them. A word? A date?

“Wait!” said Joe, nervously. “You want to breach this lockdown bullshit and come watch a Christmas movie one night round mine?”

“Sure. But only if I get to choose.”

“Okay. What d’ya fancy?”

“How about It’s a Wonderful Life?”

And just like that, the streetlights flickered back on and a distant car horn reminded them they were both no longer in Kansas.

Joe smiled.

Right now, here in this blissful moment, everything was connected.