Hey everyone, Merry Christmas. Three more sleeps to go. Who’s excited?
There have been so many awesome stories this year in the Rainbow Advent Calendar. Click here to check out all the stories before mine. Below is a list of all the amazing authors taking part this year.
The last two years have been a bit of a ride, haven’t they?
I last wrote for the Rainbow Advent Calendar in 2019 with Shutter Angel which turned it to be the last thing I wrote and published before we were hit by a world wide pandemic.
Shutter Angel and A Frosty Tail, my previous Advent Calendar offerings, are available for free from Prolific Works. Just click on the title to claim a copy.
For updates, excerpts and other news feel free to follow my blog, and also to join my author group, Love Inside the Rainbow, on Facebook.
I had fully intended to share another novella this year, but time and the novella (which is now almost novel length with no hint of stopping) got away with me.
What this means is, I will definitely be publishing at least one novel in 2023. However, it also means I had to whip up a flash fiction for the Rainbow Advent Calendar.
I hope you enjoy this short but sweet story about a couple moving into their first home a few days before Christmas. This story contains a lot of fluff and a large cardboard box.
The Christmas Box
“That’s the last box, Sean.” Steven grunts as he deposits a box with great ceremony in the middle of our new living room, the only space in a room filled with removal boxes of all shapes and sizes.
“Our first flat together,” I say with more than a little excitement in my voice.
I glance over at Steven, biting my lip as I see the sapphire sparkle in his eyes.
“Our own space away from everyone. No nosey sisters.” He smiles.
I groan and nod, stepping over a box labelled “kitchen crap”.
“No farting dads.”
Steven snorts, walking around the far side of a box boldly named “Gimp masks for the bedroom”. That is the last time I let my brother help us move house.
“And no more of my brother’s warped sense of humour.” I glower at the afore mentioned box.
Steven rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“Let’s hope he’s put bedroom stuff in there and not any actual gimp masks.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” I say with a sigh.
We’re facing each other now, no boxes between us. No relatives helping us move in, or hindering us in my brother’s case.
“Can we celebrate now?” I ask, not quite believing we’ve finally got to this point.
“I think we might just be able to.” Steven grins.
With a whoop, I gather him into my arms and spin him around. No mean feat considering how little space there is to move amongst all the boxes.
I finally put him down amidst the boxes and his laughing protests and we kiss, soundly, and fiercely.
“Our first home,” he says. “I can hardly believe it.”
“I know. I still think all of this is a dream.”
And I don’t just mean the new flat, I mean everything: meeting him, capturing his heart, and knowing he holds mine. When did I get so lucky?
His tired blue eyes show the strain and stress of the last few weeks when we thought this flat would never be ours.
Negotiating our way through estate agents, banks, financial advisers and coordinating removal vans and well-meaning but mostly unhelpful relatives has taken its toll on both of us.
Whoever said that moving house was the most stressful activity was only partially correct. Moving house a week before Christmas has to be the most stressful activity of all.
“Now we just have to find the champagne your mum bought us,” Steven says with a slightly hysterical laugh, glancing about at the mishmash of boxes and bags. “It’s in a bag somewhere.”
“Amongst the many bags she brought up filled with all sorts of stuff she thinks we should have in our first home.”
I grab his hands and turn him back to face me.
“Forget the champagne. Let’s find some bed sheets and pillows and celebrate properly by christening our new bed.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” Steven agrees, and then grimaces. “Not that all of your ideas haven’t been great, all day, in fact, all the time. You always have the best ideas, Sean.”
I giggle as he stumbles his way out of the hole he just dug. I love it when he backtracks like that.
“Don’t forget it was your idea to buy a flat,” I remind him, “and it was you that found this prince of a place amongst all the thousands of frogs.”
“I have my moments, you have to agree.”
“I do, wholeheartedly. Now what’s the betting that my brother has put all the bed sheets in a different box and really has filled that bedroom box with gimp masks?”
We both laugh as we start to unpack boxes.
Four hours later, we’re not laughing anymore. We’ve unpacked sixteen boxes, and still haven’t found anything that we could remotely use to sleep on apart from a checked picnic blanket.
We have found the Christmas tree and some lights that still work even after six months in storage. We’ve even managed to make some space on the living room floor, however, mostly by moving stuff into the bedroom, which was where we really wanted to be.
Frustration does not even begin to cover how we’re both feeling right now.
“I am going to throttle your brother,” Steven growls as I spread out the picnic blanket for us to sit.
We snack on cocktail sausages, scotch eggs, humous and tortilla chips, and drink milk. All courtesy of my mum.
“And this is hardly a fitting first meal in our new home,” he grumbles. “But thank your mum for stocking our fridge with such delicacies.”
I snort. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Sean? This is a picnic in the middle of a forest.”
“We’ve got one fake Christmas tree, Sean, hardly a forest.” He frowns.
“Cardboard is made of paper which comes from trees.” I wave my hands around the room encompassing all of the mostly flattened cardboard boxes. “This is our forest. This food is what we’ve both foraged for with sweat and tears.” I hold up my mug of milk as a toast to my lovely, but sometimes pragmatic boyfriend. “And this is the nectar of the gods. To us, and our new home.”
“You and your imagination.” Steven wears his usual indulgent smile whenever I go off on a tangent like this.
He never stops me, even when I can see he doesn’t always get it. I never fail to make him smile, though and that makes it all worthwhile. His smile lights me up inside.
“Maybe we should get rid of some of these boxes, put them down the back stairs and then we’ll have the room to unpack some more and find those bloody bedsheets,” Steven suggests, ever practical now that we’ve had a rest and had something to eat.
He stands and starts to move the biggest box, one I’ve had my eye on since we were given it to help us move. Sometimes being an adult means doing stressful stuff like moving into a new flat, and sometimes it means developing an appreciation for a really good box.
“Not that one.” I gasp as he begins to flatten it.
He stops and stares at me and then at the box.
“Sean, it’s just a box.”
“What?” My face, my entire body, must register the shock at his words. “It’s not just a box, Steven—it’s another adventure.” I get up and pull the box away from him to prevent it being flattened. “It’s a cave, a hideaway. Cut a door and paint it blue and it’s a TARDIS. Imagine the thrill of finding a time machine in your living room.
“It’s a secret hide-out for a notorious gang. It’s Robin Hood’s treehouse. It’s a pirate ship, on its way to a treasure island. X marks the spot.
“It isn’t just a box, it’s a prototype spacecraft that can fly faster than the speed of light and take us to new solar systems.
“It’s a portal to a magical world, where time passes differently, and you can live out an entire lifetime when only minutes have passed in this world.
“It’s a meeting place of the gods that only a special chosen few can ever find. Don’t touch the food on that table, it’s set out for the gods, not us.”
I spread out my hands, fingers splayed as I walk around the box and around Steven. He spins in a circle watching me, with a look of wonder and of bemusement on his face. He thinks I’m crazy. Perhaps I am.
“Where do you get your ideas from?” he asks, smiling but shaking his head.
“Where’s your sense of imagination, Steven? Didn’t you ever play with a cardboard box when you were a kid?”
He thinks for a moment and looks like he’s going to nod, but then he frowns and shakes his head. Do I see a flash of regret in his lovely dark eyes?
“You know what? I don’t think I did.”
I can almost taste his regret. What kind of childhood did he have if he’s never played with a cardboard box? I remember one Christmas, that’s all I wanted. Whenever my parents asked me, that was my answer: “I want a cardboard box.”. They couldn’t persuade me otherwise. No Play Station, or bike, or expensive mobile phone. They tempted me, oh yes. My parents dangled those things like carrots in front of a donkey, but I didn’t take the bait. I wanted a cardboard box and that Christmas morning I got the biggest-ass cardboard box I’d ever seen. My parents were awesome. They still are. I loved that cardboard box. It was the best gift I’ve ever had.
Until I met Steven. Now he’s the best gift. His smiles, his touch, the way he looks at me. I don’t take it for granted and I don’t like to boast, but people would kill to have someone look at them the way Steven looks at me.
He’s looking at me that way right now. Like he can’t quite believe his luck.I can’t believe my luck, more like, because he chose me and has given me so much. I want to give him everything in return, including the childhood experiences he seems to have missed out on.
“Come on.” I grab his hand, whilst at the same time, grabbing the box.
“What are you doing, Sean?” he gasps, regarding the container warily.
I grin. “We’re going to have some fun with this right now, because we can and there’s no one to interrupt us because this is our place. Just us. You and me together.”
“Oh?” He seems caught up in my enthusiasm, mixed with his own growing excitement. “What are we going to make with it?”Now he’s got the idea.
My grin broadens, and the tip of my tongue skims across my top teeth. It’s an action I know sends him crazy and I can see his pupils dilating, as his eyes flicker to my lips and back to meet my gaze. I pull him to me, and down to the ground so that we can slip inside the box, just big enough for two of us lying down.“Why don’t we start by making a love nest and work our way up from there?”
Dawn Sister 