Jingle All The Way To The Breakdown [Wraith]
The first notes hit from a ceiling speaker in a grocery aisle that smells like overripe oranges and bleach,
Jingle bells chiming at a volume just high enough to drown out the woman whispering numbers over her EBT card, a receipt just out of reach.
The percussion of cart wheels with one bad caster keeps time with the tiny panic in her throat,
While the chorus calls it a winter wonderland and the kid in the cart is chewing on a hole in his coat.
Up above, some marketing genius decided sleigh bells fix everything if they loop long enough through cheap tin sound,
Every chorus trained to hammer joy into skulls like nails in a floorboard where the roaches gather around.
The candy aisle glows in red and white stripes, peppermint soldiers marching in precise, plastic-wrapped rows,
Carols brag about comfort and joy, while somebody in aisle nine tries not to cry near the canned tomatoes.
At the mall entrance, speakers blast that one song about chestnuts and open fires,
Right next to a teenager in a reindeer headband trying to sell store credit like salvation to debt-weary buyers.
Her nametag hangs crooked, her smile a muscle cramp she’s been holding since Black Friday,
Under the canned falsetto of some crooner promising that every December fixes what went wrong in May.
The fake snow in the center court falls on a line of kids waiting to yell their wishes into a stranger’s polyester beard,
Parents scroll through their phones and pretend they’re not doing mental math about rent and the bills they feared.
Over the speakers, the chorus hits that word wonderful again like a threat dressed up in a sweater,
Each sleigh bell ring measuring the distance between the advertisements and the ones who know better.
Radio in the car on the drive home keeps vomiting cheer between commercials for diamonds and luxury SUVs,
DJ laughing about ugly sweaters while a listener texts in from a parking lot, chain-smoking under dead trees.
The station runs some medley where Jingle Bells melts into Deck the Halls and then into that song about peace on Earth and good will,
Out beyond the headlights, a man on the overpass stares down at the road like he’s studying gravity and the easiest way to stand still.
In a living room that smells like pine spray, spilled wine, and the ghost of burned cookies, the TV shoves another special down the line,
Canned laughter spills between scripted carols, every actor hugging under mistletoe with timing so perfect it feels like a crime.
On the coffee table, a remote with sticky buttons sits beside empty glasses and an untouched slice of pie,
The chair nearest the tree stays vacant, same as last year, same as the year that followed the last goodbye.
Someone upstairs plays that song about a little drummer boy on loop while wrapping gifts they can’t afford,
Tape sticks to fingers chewed raw down to nervous nubs, every folded corner a small cardboard prayer to some absent lord.
They hum along while the lyrics brag about bringing the perfect offering to a stable and a star,
Then glance at the bank app on their phone and do the math on how far a paycheck bends before it breaks right where you are.
Outside, a neighbor drapes their porch in enough lights to be seen from orbit,
Plastic reindeer nailed to the lawn like mythical beasts forced into service for the neighborhood credit report.
Their Bluetooth speaker blasts a remix of carols with subwoofer bass that makes candy canes vibrate in the jar,
Inside that house somebody cries in the bathroom quietly, mascara streaking down like a meteor over a dead star.
In the downtown square, a choir stands bundled in scarves, mouths opening and closing in perfect unity,
Voices soaring through the cold air about peace and mercy while a man with frostbitten fingers rattles a cup under their harmony.
The director waves a gloved hand, eyes on the tempo, not on the way those fingers shake,
Carols rise high into the December night, while hunger curls under the eaves like a stray dog left awake.
Silent Night crops up everywhere like mold, wrapping itself around cheap speakers and candlelight services,
The song croons about calm while everyone thinks about unfinished apologies and tangled, unspoken grievances.
Behind a pew, a woman mouths the words with a face carved out of habit and leftover faith,
Her phone, on vibrate in her pocket, holds a text from her brother she hasn’t opened since their father’s wake.
At a battered piano in a bar that smells like stale beer and citrus rinds, a regular pounds out yet another off-key All I Want For Christmas,
Everyone sings along like a ritual, half sincere, half hostile, the jukebox lights flickering like a crooked witness.
In a corner booth, a guy in a Santa hat kisses someone he shouldn’t with both hands tangled in her hair,
The karaoke mic screeches, the crowd roars, holiday pop hits blurring into white noise while regret pulls out a chair.
Up three flights of stairs in a narrow walk-up that traps cooking smells and arguments in the wallpaper,
A cheap Bluetooth speaker on a dresser whispers a playlist of acoustic carols from some influencer who calls it cozy behavior.
On the bed, someone stares at the ceiling and lets the guitar version of Little Town of Bethlehem wash over them in slow waves,
While they count every person who didn’t call, every plan that dissolved, every version of themselves they never manage to save.
Every track sells the same lie in a different key, the cold-sharpened promise that this season heals,
That if you hang enough lights and sing loud enough over the ache, the bruises fade and the graveyards lose their appeal.
But there’s a scraping sound under the melody, a low drag of reality over concrete floor,
The part of the mind that keeps score, whispering that last year’s ghosts are still curled up by the door.
The songs keep trying to paper over the cracks with sleigh bells and choirs, with children’s choirs layered like frosting on rot,
Each chorus raising volume to drown out the soundtrack of panic attacks, empty chairs at crowded tables, missed chances, lovers who forgot.
They call it normal, this seasonal soundtrack, like there’s a baseline where joy lives on demand,
Like everyone with a pulse and a stocking is meant to clap on the two and the four with a drink in their hand.
In the middle of it, someone walks through the frozen dark with earbuds jammed deep,
Carols pumping fake sunshine into veins that haven’t slept in a week.
They keep the playlist rolling, not because they believe in miracles or miracles believe in them,
They just need the noise, any noise, to drown out the sound of their own mind scraping the bottom of its little glass stem.
Snow grinds underfoot like shattered ornaments ground into pavement after the wind tore down the yard display,
Streetlights smear halos on dirty snowbanks, traffic lights click through their colors like they don’t care who stays.
From an apartment window above, muffled music bleeds through, another holiday tune about being home, about belonging somewhere,
The walker glances up and laughs once, short and sharp, breath fogging the air like a confession said to nobody there.
Normal holiday songs, they call them, as if normal ever meant safe or honest or kind,
As if you can loop ten tracks about joy to overwrite December’s habit of chewing on minds.
Under everything, there’s a counter-melody running on its own, steady as a pulse that refuses to sync to the beat,
A grim little hum of truth that keeps repeating you’re not alone in the way these carols fail, you’re just the one who admits it on this street.
The night rolls on with verses about angels and snow and perfect love,
While below those pretty words, people grit their teeth, count their pills, hold or lose the ones they think of.
No cosmic chorus arrives to fix the chords or tune the choir into something clean,
Just a dark, crooked harmony of tired hearts humming under all that tinsel sheen.