The happy place

On Christmas eve, were exactly four snowflakes gently falling from the star clear sky where the moon hung thin like in a fairy tale.

Four are a perfect number: one could be brushed off for a dandruff, but four is a strong enough pattern that confirms the bare minimum presence of falling snow.

Twenty five or thirty years ago exactly on this day I remember a darkened kitchen with a single candle burning on the kitchen table, outside it was very dark — black even — even though the white snow outside was deep to the thighs.

My cousin had bought us each an identical transformers toy, it was Ratchet, he who could transform into an ambulance. This toy had a motorcycle for some reason, because this variant couldn’t transform and so he needed the motorcycle presumably.

Anyway his father melted the tyre of mine, so it became deformed and assymetrical, over this burning flame

And my cousin traded his for mine

And I remember I thought this was fair, because it was his father who did it

It was his father who was a wacko

So it was only fair that he’d got the deformed motorcycle

But nothing about this was

Fair