Celestial Bodies

The family was excited that year. The children patiently having eaten the individual chocolates from their Advent calendar, leading up to that special day. The family was a close family. The mother, father and three children, two girls and one boy lived in the country. They had a small farm on which they grew corn and beets. For the cooler months of winter, the animals on the farm were stabled in the heated barns. The revenue of the farm was just enough to pay the bills. With what little they had remaining, each month, they would buy food and provide for the needs of their children. It had been a hard couple of years. In spite of the difficulties, the family made due. And they seemed to have been getting along fine.  Two nights before Christmas, the mother went out to the shopping centre. It was a three hour drive into the city. She had left the father with the children even though she knew he would be sleeping on the couch as it was already late in the evening. She had with her th...

He had driven to a small town in the north country that possessed some nostalgia for him. His family, once upon a time, had a retreat home in this town. And now, many years after, he was returning to see the town, how it had changed, how it had stayed the same. He was certain that the people of this town, even those he had known wouldn’t recognize him, since his family had sold the retreat house when he was still young. But, so many good, loving memories filled his imagination as he pondered over the location. And so, he had driven three hours north to get there. And when he arrived, he drove to familiar areas. He drove past the cottage his family had owned. He drove past friend’s homes and beaches where he had gone swimming. Something in his heart was guiding him. And even when he drove deeper than the areas he recognized, he still found his mind very active. New memories inspired as he drove around, experiences he had no idea he’d had but that he would swear on now as his mind remind...

Near the village gate, there was a small running creek. She could hear the soft, running water across the pebbles below the ice that had formed. Surrounding the creek, there was a thin layer of snow across the brown grass. And at the end of the creek, there was a small but deep pond. She was walking home that day. Having just been to the market only a couple of miles away. In order to enter the village, she had to pass through the gate. Alongside the road, she would glance over every so often to glance at the moving water beneath the thin ice. When she came across a small dog, fighting through the current of the water, she dropped her bags and ran to the side of the creek. The dog was being led through the water, though slowly – as the ice layer would break only every so often – towards the pond. She called out. No one was there. The village was too far beyond the gate – out of hearing distance. And seeing that time was valuable for the little dog, she looked about anxiously searching ...

It was a snowy, bleak and cold Christmas that year. In the city, once in a while, a car would pass. Or a vagrant, walking alone down the street, clutching their possessions in their hands. There was a thick coat on the street of snow and a gentle layer of snow falling slowly from the sky until it settled on the ground.  He had waited until after his children and wife had awoke. And upon hearing the eager footsteps of his children’s feet scurrying across the floor of their home, a smile grew on his face and a warm feeling in his heart. He had been up all night, packing these packages, collecting the goods he had purchased days earlier, arranging them all and placing them carefully together. And when his children came running into the room on the main floor, the one with the magically lit Christmas tree and all of their own gifts littered beneath it, they shouted with glee at the sight of their father. The children saw the packages he had been preparing but they left those alone. The...

It was a dark evening in the dead of winter. It wasn’t that cold but there was a bit of snow on the ground. The casino was located about 150km north of the city. He had a small part-time job in the city but made a living on his winnings that he made from the casino. That night had been a particularly good night for him. Not that he had made much money. But, he was just feeling good. He was feeling relatable. That evening, he spent at the poker table, where he made a total of 100$. He was wearing his plaid jacket that he had gotten on his journeys out west. He was very glad that he wore it because it was getting very cold as the night progressed. He had recently washed it and the smell it gave off of the fresh laundry detergent was pleasing to him. And now, as he drove along the highway back into the city, he listened eagerly to the music on the radio, singing along in broken syllables as he deliberating from the past word choice in the lyrics, what the next lyric would be. Quite often,...

There was a man who had been abused terribly by his parents all of his life. He had done a lot of healing over the course of his life and, while what he experienced was long in the past, it still affected him greatly. He considered himself as doing much better, knew that others have experienced much more or were still experiencing their pains. This man was Catholic and devout. He was not wealthy but was not poor either. One day, walking down the busy street of his city, he smiled at people as they passed him hurriedly. They paid him little attention but he didn’t mind. He figured that if he could make their days better, it was worth the silly looks and the grimaces. And so, seeing some many steps away from him, a woman, huddled on the curbside, clutching her knees in front of her chest, he noticed that she held a sign in her hands. She was still far off, so he could not see the sign but as he neared her, the letters on it grew larger and clearer. The sign said simply that she had been ...

There was a young girl who was wandering alone in the wooded area behind her family’s cottage one day. It was winter and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. Her parents had instructed her carefully, telling her not to travel too far from the home. Still, she found herself further and further from the string of cottages, every time she looked back. Her friends had always known her as adventurous and bold in her childhood innocence. Her parents loved her for this, thinking they were traits she would grow out of. Instead, courage seemed to grow with her with every day that passed. And so, now, the sun was starting to set. She looked back one final time to see the dwindling, twinkling lights of the row of cottages as simple dots in the twilight. She found herself in a large, vast field. Unlike the terrain around the cottages, the terrain here seemed to be flat. She eyed around carefully across the landscape, spotting trees and shoots of withering bulrush shooting up around the fi...