Sharing a Christmas Wish

Sharing a Christmas Wish

Rob walked among the colored lights and icy streets. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and turned his collar up. He looked around.

A woman in a fleece coat laughed softly as she tried to catch a snowflake on her tongue. Her friend laughed and took a photo with her cell phone.

Rob turned away and sighed a wisp of breath out through his nose.

On the other side of the outdoor mall, Joan dragged her feet across a bit of slush. She pressed her fingers into her palms and poofed out her coat as much as she could. She cloaked her hair under her woolen cap and sniffled against the cold. She looked around.

At a nearby café table, a man with a leather coat gave a rough chuckle and gestured to his companion. His eyes were clear and strong. His shoulders flexed his coat as he leaned back. His companion laughed with him.

Joan turned away and hunched up her shoulders.

Rob and Joan headed into the same bookstore with Christmas Santas set in the windows and real frost blotting out painted frost. Their eyes scanned in different directions but eventually came to rest in the same place.

Just outside the romance section and not far back enough for the fantasy books, a strange, slender book jutted out from an otherwise normal-looking shelf. It was white all along its cover with a shimmering bit of snowflake design that glimmered, even away from the store lights.

They each reached for the book and touched the end in the same instant. Their hands overlapped and both gasped. In the same moment as the gasp, the book they touched grew as bright as snow reflecting the noonday sun.

Before they could move to shield their eyes, the light shifted into a small, floating form. It was as narrow as the book but with a child-like, human body. Wings like the spinning of dewdrops held it aloft. Politely, the small being bowed as Joan and Rob looked on in bewilderment.

Softly, it spoke in a high voice which sounded neither male nor female, "I am a spirit that once danced on the branches of an old tree. It taught me to feel when beings are sad and hurting. That tree has passed but I stayed with what it has given of itself to others out of love. When you both touched, I felt great pain."

The spirit clutched its fingers, tiny twigs the color of ice, and bowed its head. "I have the strength for only one wish to give both of you. You will share it and use it only by the wish of both. But use it quickly, for it only has the strength to linger but an hour in this world."

With its head back, the being seemed to flow into a soft fog which floated into both Rob and Joan. When the fog reached inside them, the sounds and feelings of the world returned.

After a quiet moment, Joan and Rob looked tentatively to one another and each said, "Hello."

Introductions were awkward and each looked only gently on the other.

It didn't take long for the bits of secrets to come poking through their words as they made their way out of the bookstore. A calm, young bookkeeper leaned her glasses back and smiled after them as they left.

It took till they were both out of earshot of the crowds and on their way for the full secrets to show themselves.

Rob told Joan, "Whenever I close my eyes, I can almost see my face as a girl. I can see the hope and wish of it." His voice fretfully tested its softest feeling.

Joan told Rob, "I wish I could see my boyish face when I open my eyes. I think the strength and the form that's in my heart. It's like the dream keeps slipping each time I try to see the boy…to see me."

As they talked and made their way to Rob's apartment, their distance waned and the cold bothered them not at all.

Inside the apartment, once coats had been set aside and warm tea held by both Joan and Rob, they began to wonder.

Joan knew that Rob had wished to be a girl all his life. She had a faint impression of Rob's fondest wish of form. She could see the kind of hair he wanted on his head and knew that it was a hassle when she had it herself when she was young but she felt the glee in his eyes. Other details grew, one atop the other, till she could almost see a young, lovely woman with a twirl in her motion and a giggle in her heart.

Rob knew that Joan's first thought had been that of wanting to be with the boys. It just felt right to her. His faint impression of Joan's male form grew as well. He could see Joan's curling in the strong structure of a man's jaw and brushing back his lean hair. He could feel the confidence expressed in the truth of Joan's smile and chuckle of his presence.

But time was passing.

Their hands tightened close and they fretted. They'd known each other so briefly. How, they wondered, could they ever agree on a wish?

Joan asked, "Maybe we should ask for a magic item that can change us how we wish for?" They considered it but an impression flowed through them that the wish could not be used that way. It could not make things. But it could change them.

They both wondered over the possibilities as a sudden rush of snow filtered past the window and twinkled across the glass.

Phrasings and plans came and went from their discussion. But each time they felt hesitance. Nothing quite felt right.  

Quietly, with settling hearts, they leaned against each other. The time was nearly up. They shivered and words drifted into their thoughts at the same moment.

They both thought and said only, "I wish you could be happy."

Then, as the clock above Rob's fireplace softly chimed the hour, both truly opened their eyes for the first time.

There were tears and there were cries of joy. There were lingering moments gazing at the perfectly crystallized reflections of self. There were embraces and warm, curious kisses shared at the edges of discovery.

Robin, her long, silken and cutely-fussy hair tied back in a Christmas bow, and John, his new face testing the first of his deep chuckles, danced around in front of the fireplace. Their outfits were as new as their reborn skin but their hearts sailed through them as they moved.

After the sudden burst of dance had fallen into laughter and soft, radiant stumbles, they looked to one another and did the most natural thing they could imagine.

They kissed.

Their gentle touch of lips felt right. It felt like a merging of heart, a merging of spirit. They shared a wish. They shared the moment of a kiss. And, as they held the touch, they knew they would share everything else that came to follow.