Alone with a ragged meager blanket on his bent back and his slumped head on the office desk--blues, gray, and white paint his room cold, as snow falls outside his frozen windows. Malliard snorts awake, he looks around his office as if he had forgotten why he is not in his bed. Shortly after, he realizes a pen and paper on his desk. He was signing something—writing his name---doing his work as a business entrepreneur then his head felt a burn. A burn from his overwork but Malliard had to keep working for his life savings. Even though the room is cold, his eyes are burning and his forehead tries to make him dizzy back to sleep. But, with short pinches of his fingers and reassurance of 'you can do it' to himself, Malliard flimsy stands up from his red cushioned chair and trudge his way to the door with a pinned calendar of every day having a dot of Red marker. Today, is December 24, with a scheduled meeting of his coworkers
Malliard's legs are winter twigs, the strands of his prickly white hair are curling a thousand figs. His throat burns dry, yet his stomach empties out for ice. But even with sands in both his eyes and furnace in his skull. He went to his living room, and just like in his office, he sees everything painted in blues, gray, and white. It's sad and dark, even his happy family picture of Molly, Emily, and his wife seems so distant far from the snow-white window. Feeling cold, Malliard closes all his curtains, lights up the red candles, and burns wood at his fireplace. He brews coffee and then sits on his couch while facing the warmth of the orange flames. 'Nothing beats coffee and a fireplace in a long winter', he thought and brought out a sheet of print paper from his pocket to continue with his work. Then minutes later, he hears a thud in his office. With his tired state of mind, which is only focused on work and nothing else, Malliard wants to check everything is okay before going back. In the office, he sees a red box, with a green ribbon, about the size of a CRT television. It is placed on his desk. The windows are also left open, so...did somebody just come into his house? The box is not all suspicious but Malliard is hesitant to open it.
He has once experienced trauma with break-ins as a child, especially when his wife died from someone who broke into their previous home, so now, he does not want to trust anybody. Especially if they just leave an oversized Christmas box on his desk. Malliard takes the box outside, something inside is heavy, but he never cared and he buries it in the snow. He then went back inside and goes back to his work. The clock tick passes 6 in the evening and now is finally time for the meeting, Malliard wears a black suit with a red tie, his eyes show no signs of bags and craters nor on his face. The sides of his head are freshly shaved, his natural curl of hair is pristinely white. He almost looks fresh, nothing like the previous Mallard. He opens the virtual meeting and invited his coworkers. They all eventually appeared in Christmas elf costumes? Malliard did not comment, although his face is confuzzled and his brows are furrowed, he just asked all of them to turn on their cameras. But one coworker whose name is Moelly has no camera and a microphone to respond to Malliard's request. The meeting about their voice recognition telephone just went on smoothly. Nobody wanted to tell the unsettled businessman who is about to fuse in his seat? After Malliard asks for questions, his secretary then asks him, 'have you opened our present?' Malliard is confused, 'what present?' the secretary explains, 'We sent a present via drone and there is a note coming from us inside the box.' Malliard fails to understand, but he knows to get up from his seat, walk outside his house, and dig up the present in the cold evening winter. It is dark outside, with snow lightly falling. The neighboring houses are all lit up with a series of lights and bright candles, while his house is dark and glum, only lit by a fireplace. They are also celebrating something, the wife and father laughed as they gave gifts to their children who sat on Christmas boxes by their potted pine tree. Malliard fails to understand this simple act of Christmas activity so he walks back inside and opens the present in front of his coworkers. Surprisingly, the new technology was in the present, and yes, there is a note and a trip to the Bahamas? 'Merry Christmas, sir Malliard!' His coworkers rejoice. Then, at the person named Moelly, are two young girl teenagers happily smiling with a written sign, 'Merry Christmas Daddy!' and they wave at him. Malliard questions himself if he should wave back or not? He is hesitant, but he knows for sure that those are his daughters, Molly and Emily. The secretary then asks for Malliard to use his voice on their new gadget and call his daughters. It works! Malliard smiles that it actually worked, but, he smiles even wider when Molly and Emily argue for the telephone. He can see them fighting for the telephone, from his screen. But eventually, Molly says her best wishes, and so did Emily then lastly, along with his coworkers, they all rejoiced a Merry Christmas for Malliard Ver Bleugh.
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