On A Cold Winter’s Night by Karima Alavi

State mandate: remain at home. Numbers are high.

The creep of winter’s darkened days weigh upon my nervous heart. My feet long for a walk along Canyon Road where holiday songs once filled the crisp December air. My lips long for a chance to sing with others while candle-lit farolitos guide us toward the warmth of bonfires leaping from inside steel tins.

I ignore the rules for one night and wander alone through Santa Fe plaza, ablaze with a fire-work display of Christmas lights. Blue, purple, red, gold. Strings dance across high branches, glistening orbs against a winter sky. Six other people wander here. Keeping our distance, we converge at the center, remembering that sunny day when a monument to European imperialism was ripped from this piece of earth by an angry crowd. In its place now, a tender circle of evergreen trees decorated by someone’s reverent hands.

I drive home, determined to make hot chocolate though I don’t particularly like it, and search for a bearable Christmas movie on Netflix. As I approach my door, I notice that three holiday bulbs have burned out. One orange, one green, one white. A trinity of lights now dead.

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Karima Alavi lives in Abiquiu, New Mexico, where the howl of coyotes and the prowling of skunks inspire her to stay inside at night and get more writing done.