Tuesday, December 24, 2021 — Christmas Eve

The sky was dark on Christmas Eve, the sun never stood a chance. It was so dark outside that even Einstein stayed in his favorite spot under our bed, instead of waking me up at 8am as usual.

It was nice to have a lazy morning. I had no plans until our Christmas Eve show at 4. There was nowhere I had to be, nothing I had to do, except got for a walk with Einstein, and hang out with Sara, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

And then the phone rang.

I know that the phone always sounds the same, but I swear I could hear by the tone of the ringing that something was wrong before I picked it up.

It was Mom.

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Monday, December 23, 2021

The walk from Mom and Dad’s only took about forty minutes. Kind of long, yes, but nothing a teenage girl couldn’t handle and when Sofie arrived at Atlas for the next Christmas movie marathon movie, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, she was the epitome of a wholesome, young, girl next door.

Pete was walking his bike next to Sofie, and judging by Sofie’s reaction, also cracking jokes as he turned the corner to lock his bike next to the Atlas side door.

“Hi there,” I said, as casually as I could, while I pretended to be filling the popcorn machine. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t really do it).

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Monday, December 23, 2021
Mom was home alone, humming along the Xmas songs that were playing on the radio as she worked in the kitchen, baking bread. There was a lot of bread. Too much, if you ask me. I asked Mom.

“Who’s going to eat all this? Even with Tim here, we’ll never be able to finish all those breads,” I said.

“Oh this? It’s for the annual Christmas church sale at the market square. It’s not really a sale, but you know people in Kumpunotko. They don’t like the word ‘charity’ much,” Mom replied.

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Monday, December 23, 2021
Jennifer picked up the phone. I could hear right away that something was wrong.

“Oh, Peter, it’s you? Yes, he’s here, hold on,” Jennifer said.

Not that she usually answer the phone overly cheerfully, but now she sounded like Eeyore.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Nothing, not really. Well, it’s just that … apparently there’s a storm coming in and Sami may not make it home for Christmas,” she replied. “Well, here’s Pete.”

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Monday, Dec 23, 2021
I woke up with a sense of purpose. I knew I had a job to do, and I knew I was the man for the job. It wasn’t for those faint of heart, but destiny had chosen me.

I had to convince Sara about Die Hard being the next movie in our Christmas movie marathon. It came down to Die Hard and Scrooged and I desperately wanted to save Scrooged as the last movie of the marathon, and not least because Pete had played the lead role in the school play just a few days earlier.

There was a symmetry in it. I didn’t know exactly what it was but surely it was there.

“Listen, Sara,” I began, as we sat at the kitchen table at breakfast. She was reading the newspaper and sipping her tea absentmindedly.

She looked up.

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