We can name a day, even a holiday, but can’t know what it holds for those other than ourselves. In “Christmas” by Betty Stanton, “the calendar doesn’t mean much anymore,” but a new name, “something secret—something with edges,” may mean everything to the character called Angel. In this gut-wrenching, enigmatic flash fiction, Stanton asks us to reconsider “real names” as well as their personal and societal implications. —Court Harler
She says her name is Angel. It isn’t. No one uses real names anymore. Real names are too soft. Too easy to scar. Too easy to burn.
Her girlfriend goes by something harder now—something secret—something with edges. Something that breaks you open when you touch it and not the other way around. Angel writes that name in notebook margins, folds it into receipts and the empty packs of cigarettes. It keeps the shadows orderly.
They have new coats. Army surplus green. Warm enough to forget what month it is.
This is Christmas, apparently. The calendar doesn’t mean much anymore. Days run together, blur like spilled ink. One long gray smear of hunger and cold. Sometimes she sings. Sometimes they eat. Sometimes they make love.
Sometimes they make money. They don’t talk about how.
In her bag: two shirts, torn jeans, pens, pencils, ten notebooks full of black. This is survival. This is art. This is what’s left when the world stops remembering you.
Angel sings when she’s happy. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it almost sounds like light breaking through.
It doesn’t last.
This is Christmas, apparently.
Tomorrow will be, too.
BETTY STANTON (she/her) is a Pushcart-nominated writer who lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her MFA from The University of Texas at El Paso and holds a doctorate in educational leadership. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review.
Featured image by Lawrence Aritao, courtesy of Unsplash.
Flash the Court 