Yard Party

If I had known it was going to be so crowded, I might have stayed home (wherever that may be).  But here I am among all these other yard decorations fronting a modest gingerbread house--or so it looks to me.  By the way, I’m the white rabbit in the front wearing a red top hat and a yellow scarf.  But I won’t blame you if you do not notice me.  No, I won’t blame you at all.

There seems to be a great preponderance of Santa’s and snowmen--the snowmen are wearing black hats.  And those creatures sitting upon the roof?  Your guess is as good as mine.  They look a little like gremlins to me.  I say this because ET is up there among them, glowing in lime green.  Maybe this is his “army,” or maybe they’re from a planet without any Christmas, and they are here to observe what a throng of yard decorations might do for fun on a clear December night. 

I must tell you in all honesty--right now anyway--there’s just a lot of milling around, bumping polymer elbows and rubbing plastic shoulder to plastic shoulder.  Many representatives of our race are here; for example, there a ghost, and there’s a clown. And there’s even Teddy Bears and a big, white dog--perhaps he’s an Alaskan Husky.  I am not sure, but at any rate, here we are all together in the spirit of the season, a menagerie of decorations amassed on Main street to do...what?  Well, there must be something to do.

Odd, but nobody seems to know how they got here.  I certainly do not know.  One day I was...where was I?  You know, all I can recall is being here!  It’s like I was born here.  I have no memory of plastic casting, or injection mold, or of being made in some overseas factory or lingering throughout the year in the dark of some attic.  No, all I know of is...here. I find that strange--my memory used to be quite remarkable.  This is it then, this yard in front of some modest abode; that's all I know.  Ditto for everyone else, or at least those I’ve talked to, and I’m talked with many. 

We need some direction, we need a purpose, we need a leader.  I’m not ashamed to say it, so I’ll say it out loud--”We need a purpose!”  I’m hearing a lot of, “Ho, Ho, Ho’s,” from the back there.  Oh, what’s that?  Oh, is that what you think?  Seems the clown here thinks this is our purpose--to decorate this yard, en masse, to trip the holiday light fantastic, if you will.  That’s what he thinks.  Still, I can’t help but wonder if there is indeed more.  Something in my hare cranium thinks we are more than an accumulation of plasticized mirth, more than mere holiday knickknacks eliciting gasps and wide eyes from passing motorists.  Is this our lot?  Is this our destiny, our purpose for being, our ultimate fate?

(We need life beyond our sterile smiles, we need substance beyond our mere plastic shells, we need the rhythm of regeneration and the backbeat of harmony.  All of us, here, massed like non-pliant entities knowing of Noel yet little else, need to merge with nature’s fine symphony and so arise to the summit of life itself.)

Nobody seems to be home here, here at this Gingerbread House.  All the universe is us, me and my fellow yard decorations.  Oh wait, I see lights, and I hear an engine.  Yep, it is a motorist passing by.  The windows are down, and I hear the laughter of children.  Now I hear music, sweet, sweet music.  It’s a Christmas song, to be sure, yet it has a remarkable beat; it is rockable.  Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I am moved; I am more than yard decoration, I am more than thin, painted plastic.  It sounds like Bruce Springsteen all right; it sounds like the Boss.  Call me hare-brained, but I think it’s time to dance.

675 Words
Writer’s Cramp
12-15-15