As snowflakes gently surrender to gravity and make their way toward the earth, a little girl opens her eyes. It is early Christmas morning. She extends her arm in front of her face and can just make out the shape of her hand in the murky light.
“Oh, goody!”
She leaps out of bed, knowing she has permission to go downstairs and explore the contents of her stocking, as long as she does it quietly. The big people will need a couple more hours and a cup or two of coffee before they’ll be ready for Christmas, a terrible lapse in judgement as far as the little girl is concerned. But she is already old enough, and still young enough, to know the world is full of magic and mysteries.
She sails down the stairs and grasps the stocking to her chest, feeling the crinkly, crunchy promise of the collection of shapes bumping and jostling against each other inside. Pulling out the goodies one by one, she finds underwear, personalized pencils, chocolate footballs, an orange, three walnuts and a sliver dollar. Every year, those items appear and she never asks why; without them it would not be Christmas.
At the very bottom of the stocking, tucked into the toe, there is a small scroll, a piece of paper rolled tightly and fastened with a red ribbon. She slips off the ribbon and discovers that the paper is a blood test report, indicating that her tumor markers have fallen below normal levels.
The little girl, now a middle aged woman, looks up, barely daring to mouth the words, “Does this mean I don’t have cancer?”
From his perch on the roof, Santa peers down the chimney. Laying a finger beside his sooty nose, he winks and says, “Yes. It means you don’t have cancer.”
The girl/woman feels her insides curl into a ball, like a cat on a sunny windowsill, its nose tucked under its tail, its purr and twitching whiskers proof of contentment.
Just then, her phone jingles. She thinks of Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life” saying that every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings. But this time it is an app that gives a jingle every time Tokyo Tales gets a new follower.
The girl/woman thanks you.
Tokyo Tales 