Tables and Fables

The chill had set in early; before the checks came, before the trees were chopped, drug inside and bedecked with paper maché memories. Food banks couldn't keep up. Struggle was growing as fast as demand.

Neighbors were dropping like flies amongst the heavy coughs, wheezing, and complaining lies about how the cloth coverings were killing us all. It wasn't Aunt Minnie's nimble-fingered stitchings that were to blame.

Some thought it was in the rain that trickled down from DC, but all wise knew nothing ever trickled down from there. Dry spigots don't do such things. Hoarders don't share, do they? Naw, man. The only thing trickling from absentia was pain.

Anyway, like I said, the cold set in. Christmas wasn't the same after the grid flipped, and we all took to burning the furniture. Evergreens don't flame as well as box springs and end tables...unless it's April, and they've been dead since Autumn. Just like the neighbors. But grandma's rocking chair? That kept us warm and fed...in the dead of winter.