Day 77 "A Petraitis Christmas Carol Part 1"

All his friends were gone. There was no doubt about that. He had driven them to the airport himself and mourned not their loss but his own. Hadn't he been the sole one to lose out on such a bargain as friendship? In some small way he believed that perhaps he had always been alone and the noise and the laughter that never seemed to come from him, but always floated above him like a ghost was in fact a ghost itself. It was this thought, shot briefly into his conscious that would prove to be more prophecy than musing and the specter of loneliness was about to become much more the literal than the figurative.

Petraitis sat at his desk while the children scratched out homework. "Bah" he thought to himself. Let them work through the night if necessary. Petraitis didn't care if there was biology or AICE classes. All he knew was his own gift of toiling and he was prepared to double the work if necessary. Especially if it stopped the noise that scratched at the part of his heart where it echoed loudest, for it was this part that had been empty for too long.

Petraitis looked up from his Wordle. A child named Marley stood before him, his ragged sleeves stained with graphite from a broken pencil. "Petraitis" Marley spoke quietly. "Perhaps I can leave a bit early today. My family is having a dinner with relatives from out of town and although we have little, perhaps you'd like to join us? I'd just need to leave a bit earlier than usual as the parking at Vista is a stunning display of chaos. We would of course enjoy it if you stopped by. We could share a bit of fruitcake or perhaps a tequeno?"

"Bah!" The world curled his lip into a snarl and Petraitis said only "You leave with the bell. Sit down or I'll send even more work home with you and your entire vacation will be blotted out in study. Out of my sight. Tend to your vocabulary!"

Marley sat back down and with a sigh and a glance at the clock he couldn't read because he never learned analogue, he once again began writing. It would be dark the next time he looked up.

END OF PART !