Frosty Wind Made Moan

15

15

Toby felt so happy to have seen his Grandma one last time, but seeing his Mum and Dad arguing like that had bothered him. A lot. Right there, before Christmas dinner! If he hadn't knocked on the window, warned them that his younger self had nearly reached the house, things may have been awful that Christmas.

It was as though they didn't care. That their silly little arguments were more important than anything else. A time of good cheer and goodwill. That was how people described Christmas and it was nothing like that at all. The old man had shown him that Christmas was like any other time of the year. Horrible.

"I want to go home." He didn't even bother to watch the world change around him. Instead, he looked at his hands. "This hasn't been fun at all and I don't think I've learned what you wanted me to."

"You think this was meant to be fun?" Once again, the old man stopped their flight. Toby didn't recognise the area below his feet. He didn't really care. "Perhaps you haven't learnt anything. Perhaps you have learned much. I never wanted you to follow me in the first place."

"If this is a dream, I want it to stop!" He didn't look at the old man. He kept his eyes downcast, staring at his hands, still. "I'm sorry I even met you! You're just the same as everyone else! Telling me things instead of explaining. I'm not stupid!"

"No, you are not. Far from it." Turning in the air, the old man faced Toby, causing the winds to hold Toby at the height of the old man's face. "Soon, your childhood will be over. You will grow and you will change and all the things you think are stupid and boring will become important. If you understand these things now, how much better a person will you become?"

Toby's hands were the last thing to touch his Grandma. He didn't want to forget that and he felt certain that he would as soon as the old man took him home. He didn't know what the old man expected of him. Didn't know what he wanted. Toby only wanted to be a twelve year old kid, enjoying Christmas. He didn't want to grow up yet.

Below, he could see clouds passing by and, below those clouds, there thousands of homes with thousands of children waiting for Christmas morning. They didn't have some weird old man dragging them around, trying to teach them lessons about adult things. It was night. They were asleep, or sat waiting for Santa. He had 'Father Christmas', who wasn't anywhere near as jolly.

"What if I don't want to be a better person?" He knew he sounded sulky, but that's how he felt. He only said it to annoy the old man. "What if I just want to grow up how I grow up and not care about what other people think?"

"What if, indeed." This time, the old man grabbed Toby's sweater, lifting him closer. "What if?"

The old man's face filled Toby's vision. He could see each individual hair of the old man's beard and moustache. The straggly, kinked strands trailing from his face, down to his chest. Toby could smell apples on the old man's breath, could see every pore in the old man's long, hooked nose. What he didn't want to see was the old man's eyes, but he could feel their pull.

He struggled, trying to force the old man to let go, not caring if he did fall to the ground far below. He didn't want to see those eyes, but, bit-by-bit, he found his own eyes rising. Rising until he locked them on the old man's and he saw the universe there. Every world, every star, every dark, empty space. He could see the Earth and the Moon and every Christmas. He could see the days before Christmas even existed. And he saw the long, stretching future.

Even as he stared into the old man's eyes, he realised everything was changing around them, as though the world folded and twisted. Toby could see, and feel, an intense, blinding, boiling hot light that wrapped around them. He tried to close his eyes, but the eyes of the old man held him helpless. Now he wished more than ever that he had stayed in the flat.