Every advent Sunday, the fantasy writer Emma Andersson will deliver a new chapter of this year’s christmas novel: Gloria – a christmas story in advent.
The first of advent: A star is burning
In the dark voices are heard. Subdued, but excited. The words cannot be discerned, or from where they come. They are out-of-the-way, feels too far way. I don’t know if I have the strength to listen.
”Bo…”
Then, suddenly a voice rises above the others. Stops the conversation and says my name. It is so unexpected it makes me jerk. I wake up and have a look around.
My cheek is hot and patterned with pencils and book pages almost sticky. The candles being lit to make the study evening cosier have gone out. The timer has shut down the candles in the window. The room is dark and cold. Once again the heater must have stopped working.
The voices come from the speakers. The internet radio is still on. They talk about Christmas, and somebody questions the meaning of a festival just being stressful and hardly digestible. A festival that lost its old values on behalf of a desperation to buy things and leading us to destruction.
My fingers fumble with the keyboard, succeeding in turning it off. Far away sirens from an ambulance sounds, but when the sound disappears only silence is left. It’s only the tick-tick of the clock that can be heard.
One. Second. At a time. I wonder if I should check what time it is, but I don’t.
One of my legs is numb. I try to shake it alive when I raise, and soon I feel the unpleasant sticking feeling when it returns to normal. With a slight limp I walk to the window. Even if I am freezing my butt off, I still have to finish today’s studies. No time to get back to my warm bed and sleep all night long. Have no time to fix the heater either and try to find out what’s wrong. I need fresh air. To be able to continue.
I open the window wide. The December coldness embraces me, but I try to relax to reduce my freezing. Instead I take deep breaths making white smoke disappear out into the dark.
It must be in the middle of the night. Not a single human being can be seen in the street below me. No cars can be heard, not even at distance. It is like being in a world different from everyone else. Like discovering something they miss.
I watch the sky. The stars are twinkling, like white spots on the world’s dark roof. This is the first time for several nights I can see them. The fog has cleared.
Sometimes, when I’m squinting, I imagine them being city lights. A city just like mine, but very far away. Now, during winter, it is more difficult to imagine, but during summer it can be seen clearly. Especially at twilight, when the sun sets and tears the veil between heaven and earth to pieces. There, just behind the golden edged clouds, it can be seen. A golden city with a coastline, small hidden ports and distant mountains.
During winter the golden city is embraced with the same darkness as we are. Only the stars, the lights from their windows, the lanterns along their streets, show us it’s still there.
When I was little I had wishes going there. A child’s hopeful dreams. Like believing in the existence of Santa Claus.
I can feel how my fingers are getting stiff from the cold when holding the window frame. I want to stay, but I can’t. Don’t have time. Too many must. Reluctantly I return to my room closing the window behind me. A final look at the night sky.
Then, just then, I see it.
It’s falling fast, an eye of a pin like white fire through the night. Until it’s getting closer, and bigger. It happens suddenly and is so beautiful that I can’t stop watching. At the same time thoughts pass quickly through my mind. Is it now it happens? Is it now it ends? Am I the only one to see it, the only one to realize what’s happening? Damn Mayan calendar. Of course you should be right in the end without modern instruments and explanatory models. And the last thing I did was to study for an exam which I never would be able to do. Thank you, God.
Maybe I should take cover, but I cannot move at all. But would it matter if I could?
When the light burns my eyes I close them. Silently counting the seconds. One, two, three, …, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, …, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine …
Reaching sixty nothing has yet happened. I open my eyes and I’m still here. Everything looks the same. This can’t be death, because otherwise hell would mean that exams follow you to the end of the world.
I’m looking through the window. A bright light gleams beyond the houses, and disappears as fast as it showed up.
I’m feeling the floor vibrating just before a strong force I can’t withstand hits me.
I’m falling, and for a moment the whole world is one single burning star.
Then everything becomes black as the night.
By: Emma Andersson
Translation: Lars Jansson
