Another very short story (I am just on a roll this week), an anti-thesis to Christmas merriment. This one based on another real life occurrence at my local shopping mall.
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Preparatory Humbuggery
There’s that distinctive feeling in the air, the feeling that I should be feeling more. Be jolly, be merry, be someone else. That’s what they want to say, but of course that’s not at all festive. Bring in your huddled masses, satisfy your yearning desires, and above all be happy about it. Today is Monday, and that’s enough for me.
“Mommy, mommy!” a young voice says from behind. I take a seat on the edge of the wishing fountain. It’s wet. Whether some water had merely found its way to the edge or if it was piss that had leaked from an infant’s diaper I am not sure, though judging from the temperature, it is likely the later. But now back to the child. Nothing is distinguishable about her small face, not because she lacked any discernable features, I’m sure they were there hidden behind the fat folds of her bloated face. She made for a better squirrel than a child.
“Mommy!” again. Mommy is some several feet away peering in the shopping window of J.B. Robinsons with Daddy. “Mommy!” one final time before the child takes matters into her own hands. Literally. She plunges her hand with no hesitation into the fountain. First her hand, now her entire chubby arm submerged up to her shoulder. I am, at first, to some extent concerned for the safety of this child. For a wishing fountain, this one is rather deep. Should a child fall forward and struggle, they could easily drown. But then I think of the buoyancy that this particular little fat girl would be capable of and any minuscule quantity of concern vanishes immediately.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t fall in. Her arm emerges a drippy, chlorinated tree trunk and in her baseball mitt of a hand comes roughly a dollar in change. Mommy and Daddy are still window-shopping as the gorilla child waddles gleefully towards the nearest gumball machine. Two turns of the handle and fifty cents later, she finally comes to the possession of a bright orange gumball. Her arm still wet from the treasure hunt, she pops the petroleum-based sugar concoction into her mouth. Her quest now over, she returns to the side of Mommy and Daddy who either do not notice or do not care to notice her recently acquired confectionary treat, nor do they seem to mind the water dripping from her fingertips.
Don’t ask why I am so bitter during time of the year. Not because I don’t know why, I know the exact reason; I just prefer to not discuss it, the reason being because it is not a discussable issue. Why children are so revered in society I’ll never understand. They can get away saying and doing pretty much anything and can easily get away with it. Then again, old people share the spoils in this unwritten acceptance law, but that’s for another time. Either way, telling anyone that you hate children or old people, you will never win. “They’re just kids, they don’t know what they’re doing”, they’ll say. “Bullshit!” I would reply. They know exactly what they’re doing. I highly doubt that what happened to the fat girl was all merely by chance. I highly doubt she was surprised to find that at the bottom of the wishing fountain, there would be change. I highly doubt she meant to merely check the temperature of the water only to end up with just the necessary about of money to fulfill her desire for sugar.
Yes, it’s children that make me despise the holidays.
Specifically, the type of children that steal money from wishing fountains to buy gumballs.
