Merry Christmas To My Bane

I couldn’t sleep at all. It’s half past three in the morning and I’m thinking of things I want to say to you for Christmas’ sake.

The unusual hour, the early morning cold, a warm blanket draped over me, I thought about how warm has become cold without even a hint of change. The darkness that probed even the tiniest crevices of my room wouldn’t leave until the sun would reveal itself once again as if it was its duty to serve our needs for light and heat. The pitch black seemed to make everything stretch to infinity, a starless universe deprived of even the tiniest spark of light and hope.

Light and hope. It suddenly crossed my mind like lightning would touch a tree. I used to look at something that reminded me that someone up there stood wide awake always watching, guarding me in the deepest and darkest of nights. I was a mere child, not more than 7, when my mother gave it to me. It was a gift of sorts and I liked it not because of the contract that bound me to my religion but simply because it glowed in the dark. Well technically it absorbed light but it’s sweeter to think it did glow by itself.

It was a plain luminescent rosary but I always thought of it as God’s little barrier against the evils that I couldn’t see or hear when I’m asleep. I’d cup my palms over it and peek inside just to see how beautiful it illuminated itself and made the blackness seemed alright. I used to bring it with me every night and hang it somewhere I can easily see while I lie in bed. It was so I can have a good look at its light which somehow kept me from fearing the dark.

Time passed by so fast. My faith in Christianity dwindled, my beliefs I found disturbingly too good to be true, religion was slowly becoming just a subject to pass in school, and soon what used to put me in awe had somehow found its way inside a little tin box amongst the other things I wondered why I still kept.

Needless to say, I have no use for this rosary anymore. I still fear the dark but only because it dimmed my sense of sight, played with my fears, and nothing else. It even dawned on me that I didn’t even use this rosary for its true purpose; I just stared at it.