The Antlers

Christmas shows up in five days and I haven’t bought anything except lottery tickets and warm beer from the same gas station everyone’s crowding into. The gift selection there is almost perfect if you’re not trying—scratched-up chocolates, magazines you’d never admit to owning, an energy drink in the wrong flavor. It works.

The season’s got this stranglehold on you. Visit the markets, feel appropriately festive, buy things that supposedly mean something. I’m done pretending. I’m making a shirt that says I skipped every Christmas market and I’m proud of it. I’m taping antlers on the cat. Mixing cheap Mexican liquor with whatever juice is closest and Red Bull from the discount bin. It tastes like garbage but the taste isn’t the point.

My uncle gets drunk and spends three hours explaining how everything’s falling apart. He’s not wrong, so I listen. Both of us end up wrecked about it. That’s probably the realest conversation of the week.

The stupid plans start accumulating in my head. Stay young by eating less. Move to Sweden right now, get some pointless job, marry a model, have five kids, buy rural property, grow old together, come back home fifty years later and never mention it. That one’s genuinely sounding good.

The cat looks ridiculous with antlers. The liquor tastes wrong. My uncle’s crying about things that don’t get fixed and I’m crying with him because nothing gets fixed. That’s actually what the season is.