Spaceman’s Solo Crimbo
By Darran Brennan

—Alone at Christmas. Bliss.
—Ah, who are you fooling? The first fifteen years were.
—Ok, I lie, maybe the first three were bliss. The rest were more or less bummers.
—Those couple of years you went home were actually ok.
—As long as I shut my mouth, smiled, nodded along, drank and of course, got my guitar out. John and Dave weren’t happy about that, you could see the slanderous stuff they were planning to inject into my sister and auntie’s head after I was gone. Anyway.
—Not anyway.
—True. I want to fucken give them a piece of my mind. Jaysus, if they had any clue about what’s in my head they’d…
—Yeah, they’d roll their eyes and blank you as per usual.
—Christmas is just another day now. It’s for kids, drunks and half-arsed families who like to feel they have a special connection or something.
—Oh, mind the cynicism there.
—I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anyone well. We’re all trying to make it work, fitting ourselves into boxes not for us. And me, I can’t do fit into any. It’s like I live on an alien planet where I’m the only one who is willing to do break bread and talk about the boxes we don’t fit into, but nobody believes a word out of my mouth.
—If ye rock the boat, people drown.
—But I’m right!
—It’s not about being right.
—It’s about becoming ok with being wrong.
—Yeah, basically.
—It’s like all these years, I’ve been in zero gravity, slowly drifting further out to space, but with a telescopic lens strapped to my head so it feels like I’m close, but really I’m in the void where I can’t touch anyone anymore. My presence is not felt.

Fragile, that’s how it felt. I say that in past tense. You get used to things, toughen the fuck up. My brother is tough. And he has tact; he never goes off script. Rarely says anything with a wide perspective, unlike me, in my space helmet. He doesn’t make people feel stupid, unlike the muttered thoughts in my head. He’s the man, not me with my boyish openness. I tried being like him, acting like a loyal and obedient labrador, or maybe a mongrel cross of one. He’s better at that; at overlooking glaring truths. Because he doesn’t think about things. He’s about as deep as a puddle. Sticks to the beaten paths, whereas I like to find the shortcuts; bypass poor city planning because the planner wasn’t really arsed that day, or got too clever for her own good.
Ping.
My mini oven is stuffed with chicken, roast tats, veg and extra stuffing. Have a whole tiramisu in my mini fridge followed by a couple of beers. Whack on a couple of movies later an belt out a few tunes on my guitar and that’s me for another Crimbo. There’s nobody to roll their eyes for making complete non sense. Nobody to complain in the kitchen because I hurt someone’s fragile feelings with a roll of my eyes. Nobody to speak to me like I’m as fragile at them; the habit of patronising sympathy because I’m virtually still at the same spot in life as I was thirty years ago in my twenties, renting a crappy place and trying to make it as a musician, alone.
The only thing I have to unwrap each year is a chicken from its foil. When you cook a Crimbo dinner for one, you always make too much. Yet it’s always over too soon. It’s the time that you really miss home. For the entire day, in the back of your head, while you’re pottering, there are all your past Crimbos elbowing in and you imagine what they’re doing now. The smiles, hugs, laughter, shit presents and cans cracking open and the big dinner. Ah the big dinner, where nobody is in their heads and there are moments where anything that is said is accepted as it should be. Like a fucking human being!
Alongside all that is a little voice reminding you that you chose this.
—Did I? Do I really want to be alone at Christmas?
—Yeah, you chose this.
—Yeah, I did. It’s great. Bliss. Heaven. No hassles. But I don’t mind hassles. That’s not the problem. Or maybe that is the problem, for them. Maybe I don’t get in the Crimbo spirit enough.
Bah humbug?
—Tomorrow, it’ll all be forgotten about.
—Until next year, maybe I should go over.

I think about this for a while until the shame at not having put a single thought into buying anyone a present hits. Shame is how Crimbo alone feels.
—Somehow, you’re a kind and loving person who is horrible to their family.
—Relatives, not family.
—Oh, you’re actually being helpful for once. I suppose family means something more.
—Accepting, understanding, loving.
—What is mine?
—Suppose… damaged.
—I could go around and fix them.
—Wow, wow, wow there Nelly. Have you forgotten how often you got put down for that? You have to be like my brother, have tact, pretend nothing is wrong with anyone.
—Yeah, he has a knack for that. Carries the can well. Should have been a fucking plasterer and decorater with the amount of times he papers over the cracks.
—Yeah, it works.
—Won’t work for me. Better just sit here and carry this can alone.
—They’re just relatives anyway.
—I wonder if there are other spacemen and women going through the exact same things as me? That know how to do it right but are somehow alone?
—Loads. More than you think.
—The world boils down to spacemen and plasterers.
—At Crimbo.
—It does.

Halfway through the tiramisu, I put the fork back in the plastic container and realise:
—I don’t have agency to speak my mind at Christmas because I hardly ever see anyone. So much water has passed under the bridge that my viewpoint is single.
—Make more effort with them during the year then.
—I would… I do, I did I mean, but they don’t respect my opinion. It’s a case of, ‘be around all the time or fuck off.’
—That’s what family is: being there.
I force fluffy sugared cream into a slow gawp—Right. Suppose. Fuck. In a way, we’re all spacemen and women once we reach a certain age.
—Be a plasterer.
—I’m not good at being false. It doesn’t fit in my body. As a musician…
—As a musician… what does that even fucken mean?
—Authenticity. You have to convince them that you’re singing to them and not just for the money. I’ve perfected being my authentic self…
I grab my guitar and write a few lines, staring a ⅓ of a box of desiccated tiramisu.
Years of unclear answers form into the clearest song. A gift for the world. For a family I have yet to meet. People whose lives I can touch every day. Authenticity.
—I suppose every spaceman and plasterer (the artists and students, teachers and preachers and even some politicians and presidents) do what they do for the same reasons. Authenticity.