A dull thump on Christmas Eve.

Donna was bitter about Christmas coming this year. She wished to delve into as much bittersweet self-indulgence as she could. When the eve snowflakes outside her window fell in an uncomfortable silence however, she suffered a sudden change of heart. Donna decided to quietly wrap up some of the dull heart aches and pains that she should have dispensed herself of long before. A moral recycle is now essential, she thought. She would wrap up the aches and pains in a stone cold newspaper, put it in a cardboard box, and leave the box under the Christmas tree for Santa, with a message pencilled in on the front side of the box.

The instructions she would ask of him to follow were to, first of all, never look inside the box. Eyes-closed, he would then have to gently ease his hands in, fingertips exploring, until he would gasp enough courage to grab unto whatever ache throbbed to be released. Handle with care, she would further insist. Donna expected that his knuckles would often go numb during this thin-skinned investigating process: a matter not for the faint of heart to have to deal with, surely. One hand’s fingers half spreading across his eyes, Santa would pull the other full hand out of the box, while a nervous tickle would begin to scratch inside his closed fist. One by one, his gloved fingers would bloom out the tender December newborns.

Escaping from the old man’s curious palm, the aches would fizzle, shoot into the air, and spectacularly flutter into milky-white talking doves, carrying messages to all the wide-eyed babes in the woods. Wings flapped with mature anticipation. Pencilled in on the doves’ wooden lips, the messages contained an ensemble of wise theories and lists of hypothetical how-not-to’s. These theories carried the mark of Donna’s own stitched experiences, and were specially aimed as practical counsel for little knowing girls. From house to house, Donna’s dutiful Santa would free the message-carrier doves onto roofs where the gentle birdies would coo their way down chimneys, and into every girl's chamber.

Entering in a silent flurry, the watchful doves would paint tender dreams across the ceiling. Others would flap the air clean of any heartsick dust, while few others would knit their good luck feathers to the carpet. All of this, of course, would have to be done in preparation for their choral chirping. Beaks now set, ready to whisper Donna’s bedtime message to all the sleeping beauties.

Flushed butterfly lips kept away
From charming toads that hop astray
Will keep your milk teeth strong and clean
From suckling fibbed fruits sweet and keen.
So prick your ears and spread your eyes
And duck away from green croak cries!
Knock to unlock this wooden beak
And eat this truth bean while you dream.

This could, Donna thought, be the only way that one would ever be able to learn from another's experiences. Donna felt motherly of helplessly gullible girls, and hoped that, in the years to come, they would find Santa’s delivery of her words of wisdom to be a useful gift in their everyday lives as young women.

Donna assumed that by the time the doves flew back out through the chimney, the charcoal would probably blacken their delicate bodies. A white, pretty bird would thus turn into an exquisitely ebony raven camouflaging itself away into the darkness of night. To this thought, Donna smiled cordially, for not even her ghostly Santa, an expert in childish shenanigans, would know how to distinguish the black doves from the starry night. He would lose sight of them, and soon forget about them too. They would finally be freed.

Donna’s thinking was interrupted by a loud thump that the snow made when it fell off the roof under which her mind was at unrest. It seemed rather unfortunate that the snow would start to melt on Christmas Eve. Too short lived.

Still there, the dull aches and pains lay quietly. Perhaps she can hold on to them a little longer. Maybe till next Christmas.