Merry Christmas!

Alex looked for his parents but he couldn’t find them in the sea of festive bobble hats and over-sized earmuffs. Steam rose up in from the stamping, shifting mass as snow drifted down from the bleak grey sky.

“You nervous, Alex?”

“A little,” Alex lied. He didn’t want Devon to feel bad. Devon, who was never on time, who had missed thousands of homework assignments, who had once been suspended for a week for setting off firecrackers at school one sultry summer afternoon.

They both turned to look at the pile of gifts under the Great Tree. They were big and small, round and awkwardly shaped, all wrapped in the same red paper. The Choosing Committee, resplendent in their red and white jumpers, sat in the shadows behind the presents. They were staring expressionlessly at the children, and Alex shivered a little.

They both knew what was going to happen to Devon.

Everybody sat a little straighter when the mayor stepped up to the microphone and adjusted the white trimming on his ceremonial red robes.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “It is my absolute pleasure to welcome such an outstanding group of young people into adulthood. We have all watched you grow and develop. We have all come to realise you are a group with vast talents. It wasn’t easy to place all of you. . .”

The mayor gave a variation on the same speech every year. Alex resumed his search, and eventually spotted his parents standing in the shadow of the second Great Tree. His sister - still young enough to be wide eyed and open mouthed - was on his father’s shoulders. His father was smiling, but his mother’s face had that tight, pinched look she got whenever something was bugging her.

“So, without further ado, I officially call Lisa Pendleton to stand before the first Great Tree.”

Alex tried to catch her eye but she was transfixed by the mayor, who put a fatherly arm around her shoulder as soon as she stepped on to the stage.
“We chose Lisa first for a reason. Lisa is a young woman of firsts. First to start on solids. First to learn to crawl. First to turn up to the school house without her books.”

There was a sympathetic titter from the crowd, but the color drained from Lisa’s face.

“Lisa has a long list of admirable attributes. She is quick to smile. She has a sympathetic ear. She has an appreciation of the aesthetic which has proven to be unusually uncommon among her pod.”

He handed her a tightly wrapped parcel. Lisa looked like she didn’t want to take it. Her hands were shaking. The mayor bent down and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and then started tearing at the paper, slowly at first and then faster and faster as her gift was revealed.

It was a sweater.

Alex wasn’t the only one who was surprised. He saw heads turn and shoulders shrug and whispers behind raised hands. Lisa clutched the sweater to her chest and stared into the crowd with wide, incredulous eyes. The mayor gave her a nudge and the smattering of applause turned thunderous as she shuffled off the stage.

His parents, Alex noticed, weren’t clapping.

They called up Little Ricky next. Ricky’s back foot made a scraping sound as he dragged it across the ceremonial carpet. He kept his head bent as they mayor read out Ricky’s tribute. Ricky expressionlessly unwrapped his flat screen remote and then limped over to stand by Lisa.

One by one, the children from his pod went up. In front of thousands of watchful eyes, the pile of ceremonial paper at the mayor’s feet grew larger as car keys and tool kits and digital cameras were unwrapped and carried off to the left of the stage.

And then, in quick succession, two more sweaters were awarded. Alex’s palms began to sweat. There was a maximum of four sweaters for each pod; three had already gone and there were at least two dozen more children to be assigned.

And then they called his name.

Alex stood up. He looked out at his parents. His father nodded slightly and his mother gave him a little wave, but she still had that pinched, worried look. Alex tried to look as regal as he could, but he hadn’t realised how hot it would be under the lights; sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eyes and he flicked it away without thinking.

“Alex!” The mayor patted him on the shoulder. “Alex is a bright boy who always has something to share. I think we can all agree Alex has a lot of undeveloped potential. Alex never fails to entertain with his unique take on everything from work assignments to peer relationships.”

The mayor handed him a package. It was big. Too big. Alex almost sagged under its weight and all of a sudden he felt like the world was dropping away. The mayor gave him that encouraging nod that Alex had seen a thousand times before.

Hot tears ran down his cheeks as he peeled back the paper. It was an x-box. A god-damn useless good-for-nothing x-box. He could hear applause but it sounded like it was coming from a thousand kilometres away.

“Come on, Alex.” The mayor gave him a little shove in the direction of the other children and he shuffled off the stage, a broken boy with his future heavy in his hands.

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