Holiday Cheer

Christmas Lights. 500 words, 2 minute read. With Claude Sonnet.

The extension cord jerked out of Sarah's hand, clattering across the frozen gutter. Mark lunged for it, the ladder wobbling beneath him.

"I swear to God, if you fall and break something—" Sarah's hands clenched around the ladder's sides.

"I've got it." But Mark's voice cracked on the last word. Fifteen feet up, his knuckles had gone white against the aluminum rungs. The same ladder that had seemed perfectly adequate last Christmas now felt like a death trap waiting to happen.

"We should have hired someone." Sarah yanked her hat lower against the wind. "The Hendersons did. Their lights were up two weeks ago."

"The Hendersons also bought a hot tub they can't afford." Mark inched higher, stretching toward the loose cord. "We can do this ourselves. We always have."

"Yeah, well, maybe that's the problem." The words slipped out before she could catch them. "Maybe some things aren't worth—"

The ladder shifted. Mark grabbed for the gutter, sending a shower of dead leaves onto Sarah's upturned face. For one horrible moment, he swayed in empty space.

"Get down." Sarah's voice came out raw. "Just... get down. Now."

"Sarah—"

"Please."

The wind whipped between them, carrying the distant sound of a neighbor's wind chimes. After what felt like hours, Mark began his slow descent.

His boots had barely touched ground when Sarah turned away, wiping angrily at her eyes. "I can't watch you up there anymore. Not after what happened to my dad."

Mark's cold fingers found her shoulder. "Hey. Your dad fell because he was alone. I've got you spotting me."

"And what good would I do? I couldn't catch you. I couldn't—" She pulled away, pacing across their frost-killed lawn. "It's just lights, Mark. They're not worth it."

"Okay." He said it softly, like he used to when they were dating and she'd get overwhelmed planning their future. "Okay. But what if we tried something different? Ground-level displays are trending anyway."

Sarah turned back. Mark stood there, nose red from cold, holding out the tangled strand of lights like a peace offering. After a long moment, she took them.

They worked until sunset, weaving lights through the lower bushes, around the porch rails, across the bare branches of their Japanese maple. No ladders. No heights. Just the two of them, shoulders bumping occasionally as they transformed their small piece of earth.

---

Three days later, Sarah sat alone at their kitchen island, nursing her evening tea and scrolling through work emails. Mark's late meeting had run later, and the house felt too quiet. Outside, their newly arranged lights glowed against the early darkness, reflecting off the frost that had formed on their windows.

A flash of movement caught her eye. Through the kitchen window, she saw a small boy on a red bicycle slam on his brakes at the edge of their yard. His father hurried up behind him, already reaching for the handlebars.

"Tommy, we're running late for dinner—"

But the boy wasn't moving. Sarah set down her mug and moved closer to the window. From this angle, she could see his face, illuminated by their display. The lights reflected in his eyes, turning them into kaleidoscopes of color.

The Japanese maple's branches swayed gently in the evening breeze, its bare limbs wrapped in white LED strands that made it look like a constellation had taken root in their front yard. The boy reached toward it with one mittened hand, as if he could catch the light between his fingers.

Sarah's phone buzzed with a text from Mark: "Traffic terrible. Home in 5."

She looked back at the boy and his father, now both standing silent in the gathering dark. Her fingers moved across the phone screen: "Drive safe. But hurry. There's something you need to see."

---