The Last Christmas On Earth

EPISODE I-3

"What did I tell you?" she told him with a big smile on her face.

"As always you hit the mark again" he admitted "it has been scaring. And then the dog ... did you see what he did? Until yesterday he would never have dreamed of behaving that way".

"Dogs are special, probably Harry had a smell he didn't like. Now don't bother your brain anymore, the most important thing is that your boy is at home again and above all that he is safe and sound".

"You're right ... but I really want to know where he was all that time ... do you have any idea how long those thirty hours have been?"

Helen didn't tell him, but she knew it at least as well as he did because she had always felt an inexplicable bond with the boy. "Don't worry, sooner or later he will tell you everything. But you know him, don't try to force him or he will raise an impenetrable barrier and he will shut himself off ... be patient and let him decide when to tell you everything" she advised him shaking his hand to cheer him up and, as it happened other times their bodies touched, that contact gave both of them a sensation similar to a slight electric shock... Embarrassed, James pulled his hand away, then nodded unconvinced because he was dying of curiosity and wanted to ask his son about what he had been doing all that time.

"Now I really have to go, it's very late. Take a few days off, you look wasted" Helen said to close the conversation.

"I don't know, I'll think about it".

"What do you mean?"

"You know, if I stay more than a day locked up in the house, I end up going crazy. And then even Harry will be better distracted, whatever happened to him. I am sure that as soon as he returns to the Scout Camp and his habits than better it will be, for him and us all".

"So what?"

"I think I'll get back to work the day after tomorrow" James pointed out. She scolded him with her face, but she knew she couldn't force him to stay away from work.

"It's your decision, but stay close to him" she replied, and he nodded again.

"Will Eve go to work tomorrow?"

"Knowing her, I think so, and I don't get it. Sometimes it seems like she doesn't care about the two of us".

"Don't say that, you know everyone shows his feelings in many different ways. Still, until everything is back to normal, don't show up, otherwise I'll send you home" Helen concluded, laying down the bike, then pulled the garage door over and left.

On the way home, James saw the doctor going out and ran after him. " Dr. Parker ... Adam..." he called, and he slowed down.

"Don't worry, James, it's all right. I carefully examined Harry and, except for what the dog did to him, there is not a single scratch on him. I applied a light bandage to his arm, but Toby is healthy and vaccinated and the bite will have no effects" he informed him, continuing to walk towards his Guzzi.

"Indeed about the dog, do you know why he acted like that?" James asked him, accompanying him.

"I have no idea, I'm not a vet," Parker said rapidly. "Anyway, I gave the boy a sedative, you should go soon or he will be asleep" he added, stopping in front of the bike.

"Has he told you something?" James insisted.

"He's a little confused, he doesn't remember anything. Now I really have to go, I just received a call from the Roses" he concluded by showing him the flashing led on the pager.

"Thank you for everything, doctor. Goodbye".

The man answered with a vague smile and James walked away, but after just two steps stopped. "Dr. Parker?" he called him, and he sighed annoyed because it seemed that James was not really going to let him go.

"Look, I ... I know it's worthless, but ... I'm sorry for..."

"It's okay, it's okay. Now go to your son" the doctor ended the conversation, and James obeyed.

The doctor nodded to the ambulance driver like to say you can go home, then dropped the tool bag into the sidecar of his 1937 Guzzi Sport. He took a buckskin from the glove compartment and removed the layer of moisture from the saddle, an instant later he was booming away.

When the alarming situation ceased, James was experiencing tiredness he'd never had before. Looking down the stairs he was overcome with dizziness and had to hold onto the handrail to keep him from falling. He took a lifetime to reach the upstairs and once he reached the doorway of the bedroom he timidly looked out the door. Harry was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, Eve was sitting beside him and drawing some invisible circles on his forehead with his forefinger to help him relax. James looked at the life-size copy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's golden mask hanging on the wall opposite the door, then glanced along a line of hieroglyphics until he came across a photo of the Giza Plain taken from the satellite and next to it the three-dimensional poster that reproduced the Sphinx. Later he saw the model of an ancient Egyptian Solar Ship resting on a shelf. He continued by the path of the Nile reproduced on the wall until he got right to his wife's face.

"If you're not hungry, at least try to get some sleep, the doctor said you should rest" she was saying to his son. James came in and she looked at him resentfully because a few minutes before he had attacked Harry, then she moved sideways to let him stay and he sat down cautiously beside her.

He took Harry's bandaged arm and lifted it gently, he opened his eyes in surprise and looked at him uncertainly because he feared his father would start to grumble again.

"How are you, Professor? Is it hurting you so much?" James asked affectionately instead. Harry was relieved cause when his father was angry he didn't call him by that nickname. "So you are not upset with me?" He still asked to have absolute certainty.

"Of course not," said James hinting a smile. Harry smiled at him and his eyes lighted up.

"I wasn't even angry before, it's just that you made us..." he started to add, but Eve pinched his leg looking at him badly and he winced because she had caught him just where the dog had hurt him before.

"... It is that we have been so anxious..." he mended, lowering his head.

"Dad and I were so scared for you, so we were so nervous" Eve explained.

"Yes, Mom is right" agreed James, "we have been very worried for you".

"I didn't want to make you ... it's just that..." the boy began to say, but immediately he fell silent because a lump in his throat prevented him from continuing, then he hit against the edge of the mattress to release his frustration.

"You don't have to worry, now it's okay. Let's not talk about it anymore, okay?" James suggested, winking at him. Harry smiled again and looked at the Constellation of Orion painted on the ceiling, made of a special fluorescent yellow paint that made it shine all night. "We will go to Egypt anyway?" He asked them, taking courage. James tried to imagine what would have happened if his son had lost himself in a Casbah or in the middle of one of those neighborhood markets crowded with tourists, and thinking that they probably would have never seen him again he overshadowed. While looking at the brochures stuck between two volumes in the library his heart shrank, then not knowing what to answer he turned to Eve. "Of course we'll go, if I am not wrong we decided that it will be your Christmas present" she confirmed.

"It's fantastic," the boy said enthusiastically. "Thanks" he added, hugging them both with his short, stubby arms.

"But you will have to be very careful and listen to everything we tell you!" Eve pointed out, and Harry nodded.

"You have to promise it" James pointed out.

"I swear on Amon Ra" Harry confirmed solemnly.

" Well. Now we go to sleep because we are destroyed and you will do the same. Do we agree?" Proposed his mother, getting up, James did the same.

"All right," said Harry.

"Goodnight, Professor," James told him, bending down to kiss his forehead.

"Goodnight daddy". Then when James was near the doorway he called him back. James stopped and turned to look at him, Eve passed by and left the room, but stopped in the hall to listen.

"Dad, I haven't told you a lie. I don't remember it, what happened. I woke up suddenly, and..."

"It's okay, I told you don't worry. What matters now is that we are all together again" he assured him. "Sweet dreams kid" he repeated, taking a step forward, but the boy called him once more, forcing him to stop again.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Dad, what does it mean I have the Down Syndrome?" Harry asked out of blue; James felt his stomach twisting and he cursed the moment he had used that word in his presence, even if unknowingly. He blamed himself for breaking the only taboo of his life and his mind ran back almost sixteen years before, it was a beautiful sunny morning like any other day. Dr. Parker had chosen that sunny morning to tell him that his son had genetic problems and that anomaly, that extra chromosome, would have caused him a "different" life.

He had reported it to him in the clinic, without preparing him at all for the news and without humanity, coldly explaining the fact to him as if he were teaching a normal lesson in a university classroom. At that very moment, James discovered the meaning of the word "hate", because he had hated the doctor for his eternally insensitive manners. He had thought that if someone had pointed out to him that he had just sat on a bomb ready to explode, he would have made that usual unbearable gesture with his hand and replied, "Well, we will see what we can do about it." He remembered how in an instant all the projects he had done on his child had collapsed, at that precise moment he realized that from that moment on their lives would be changed forever.

Since then they would have had to think mainly of blocking the blows because Harry would never have reached full self-sufficiency and probably would have been bullied even starting from the kindergarten. Often James asked God why it had happened to him, almost as for personal offense or spite, he had repeatedly wondered if this was a punishment for something he had done and, if so, for what. But when he picked up Harry for the first time all his doubts and bitterness suddenly vanished and over time he learned that his son was something incredible. Something different, indeed not worse, and so he had made peace with God.

While he was looking for the most suitable words to answer James swallowed a couple of times, he had the impression time was flying. Harry kept staring at him, waiting for an answer, his eyes half-closed and his tongue resting on his lower lip, just a little bit protruding, and he couldn't tell if the question had been asked three seconds or three hours before.

"It means...it means..." he stuttered, unable to finish the sentence.

"It simply means that you are special ... but you already knew that!" Said Eve, returning into the bedroom to help James.

"Now sleep, or this time I'll be the one to get angry!" she added a little bit impatient, tucking him in, then turned off the lamp on the dresser and took James by the arm to drag him out.

James was still under the sheets with his arms folded under his head and peering at the ceiling, he was too tired to sleep and couldn't stop thinking about those nightmarish hours. He heard the television downstairs turning off and his wife slowly coming up the stairs. Eve entered the room, took the clip out of her hair and placed it on the dresser, took up her brush and the nightgown and went to the bathroom without looking at him once. He followed her with his eyes until the bathroom door was closed, only then he slapped with anger the pillow next to him. Eve had stopped changing in front of him for so long, over the years they had almost completely lost their intimacy and confidence and had s*x seldom; James could not even remember when it had been the last time. Moreover, she always wanted to have it in the dark, as if she had something to be ashamed of, and James had never liked that. In the end, as in a silent truce, he had stopped looking for her and she had begun to deny herself, without trauma, and James had thought resignedly that it was probably because of their own hormones that they no longer fit.