Wormwood & Christmas Lights
Monday, November 29, 2004
Another day of cozy warm flannel and hot coca… After a brisk walk in the cold at 5:30am, OLeif and Collette each took a hot shower as Collette’s ears recovered from the freeze. She was sure her eardrums might pop before she made it back home. The Christmas lights woven around the balcony twinkled, smiling at her as she hurried up the stairs behind OLeif. Ah, the warmth inside had been quite welcoming. And so OLeif had his omelet for breakfast as the rain came in that morning and all was set for the day. It was the sort of day like in Peter Spire’s Rainy Day, an evening for play in the rain, a hot dinner with soft lamplight as the storms come, cocoa, and a hot bath to follow before toasty flannel pajamas and bed.
At home, Carrie-Bri was just deep-conditioning her hair, in her sweats, while convincing Collette to study Spanish with her. The usual barrage of questions and things to be shown, greeted her, and she smiled at the thought. The Christmas decorations were going up with silk poinsettias, twinkly lights, greenery, and glass ornaments. Such a festive, caroling, wassail, plum-pudding time of year, the best in Collette’s mind. It was as though there were five weeks of Christmas, from the day before Thanksgiving when the pies were baked or selected at the market, till the evening of Christmas Day.
And so there was math to be taught and on-line schools and auto tech schools to be surfed through, while Francis designed Lego ships, and Linnea helped Mom string the tree with gold beads, and Carrie-Bri made sugar chocolate kiss cookies. It was a warm fuzzy afternoon. And later, as she began to teach Scrabble to Linnea, and Rose fixed salad in the kitchen for dinner with Carrie-Bri’s old knit piano keys hat still on her head from that morning, Francis began to discuss the end of the world with Collette and Linnea.
“So when the world blows up some day…” he was saying.
“No, no, Francis. Remember, the world is going to be destroyed with fire.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fire.”
“And then God will make a new heaven and earth,” Collette placed down her Scrabble tiles to spell “ogre”.
“Wow,” Francis’ eyes grew wide as he pondered this. “You mean a new one of everything? Like now?”
“Yup.”
“And will there be technology like now?”
“Don’t know, Francis.”
“Cool,” he recalled with almost glee, “And then Satan will be killed.”
He ran off shooting his air gun as though the fiend stood before him. Collette almost laughed at this. They were such stooges sometimes. Linnea continued where he left off.
“Isn’t it called Wormwood, the star that’s going to crash?”
“I think so.”
“Hmmm….” Linnea thought on this in her own mind as she studied her tiles.
They went on to discuss things buried in the desert in Egypt and excavations, their trip around the world when they could save enough money, the gold and chariots and armor left in the Red Sea from when Moses parted the waters… Linnea and Francis always had many questions to ask and observations, and Collette was always intrigued by what they thought of next.
The cats snuggled more than usual, with everyone and Trooper. Collette handed the receipt to Dad from their leftover Euros and Swiss franks deposited into her account earlier in the month. Linnea and Francis practiced sword routines with their plastic renditions from the dollar store. Carrie readied herself for work. Collette and Mom did some aerobics with the little ones. And Collette helped Linnea lace a string of blue lights to her bunk downstairs, which Linnea called their “bunk-bed makeover”. Carrie-Bri had obviously been watching too many “ambush makeovers” with her at 1:30 every afternoon. And then Francis was promised Collette’s and OLeif’s last unused box of multi-colored lights for his own bunk to complete the white lights and Lego ornaments already attached.