Unwrapped
by Robert Nazar Arjoyan
Suicide had always been off the table thanks to the kids, but the kids had lately kicked that table, doused it in gasoline, and set the thing afire. To his watchful eye, their natural innocence was withering on the vine, deadheaded by modern cynicism. Those next-day tapes, reviewed over coffee and cake with the missus, shattered his ailing heart, little bastards bitching about their gifts, cursing their parents, cursing even him. The naughty list grew longer every season, tipping the Pole’s infrastructure askew, and his spirit too.
And the nice list? Not much nice left about it.
He cascaded above a soft sea of white and below a black sparkling sky, a bauble caught somewhere in this silence. A sigh escaped his lips, heavier than the bulging sacks his tortured animals towed. Time unspooled in his tired mind like tinsel, gigantic measures of existence compressed into a single thankless evening, his wintry hell. How had circumstances soured so? When? He shook his large head, the answer to his question as mysterious as himself. Snot rolled down his mustache and crusted across his chapped lips. Mittened hands no more in control, he brandished a pocket knife and sliced the reins.
He thought of his wife’s rosy face the whole way down and how she’d cry.
His beard hung lank like a ghost of Christmas past while the wind howled as would old Krampus. The pillowy powder did not cushion his landing. Its yielding softness buried him fathoms deep in a crystalline cell bespoke to his very shape. High atop his ossuary shaft, the rudderless reindeer circled stupid and lost, a red dot leading that idiot loop. Pale and perfect flakes coated his dying body, a yuletide blessing.
Let it snow, he whispered. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
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Robert Nazar Arjoyan was born into the Armenian diaspora of Los Angeles. Aside from an arguably ill-advised foray into rock n roll bandery during his late teens, literature and movies were the vying forces of his life. Naz graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and now works as an author and filmmaker. Find him at www.arjoyan.com or on socials, @RobertArjoyan
Death Knell Press 