For We Have Seen His Star in the East
by Angwaeren
Copyright© 2025 by Angwaeren
Fiction Story: A Short Christmas Story
Tags: Fiction
The clock strikes eleven, and Balthasar’s fingers touch the protrusions on the brass copy of the Antikythera mechanism. Caspar puts aside the whetstone and checks the sharpness of the scissors. Melchior wakes up, approaches the wall studded with countless pins, repositions a few, and frowns.
“Gone. She’s gone again.”
“Look on the floor,” answers a female voice.
“Here we go again,” whispers Melchior. “What do I care about that pin now, Moira! I need to know where she was. Every year...”
“I was sitting in the chair,” the woman shrugs. “Your colleagues are witnesses.”
“As blind as I am,” parries Melchior. “Easy to fool us. Where should we look for this star now?”
“Ask the people,” laughs Mara. “Those good people who gouged out your eyes.”
Melchior yawns. The wall he cannot see is a map of the starry sky - the pins are stars that he moves from memory, and only one, the most important, always slips away. Oh, if only he were in his Ziggurat now ... but there’s nothing there but wind, sand, and an abandoned air base.
Melchior puts on his jacket and a tall hat made of goatskin. Melchior goes again to search for that-same-star.
After a few minutes, Caspar and Balthasar catch up with him - just like last year, and the year before, and a hundred years ago.
“How could we let you go alone, old and blind?” says Balthasar.
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