The exam was grueling. Tired, I returned to the empty dorm; I hadn’t the money to go home. Christmas lights my roommate hung before she left had fallen and were blinking on the floor. The radiator was cold.
I cleared the text books from my bed and slept off exhaustion from a heavy course load—twenty-two credits cost the same as twelve.
I woke to a rap on my door.
“You wake?” said the girl from the end of the hall—a foreign studies student I had never bothered to speak to.
“Moon cake,” she said, handing me a plate. “Come.” She gestured towards her room.
I took the plate and followed.
Inside, red paper lanterns lit the room like a warm fire. Soft, percussive music chimed. Streamers. A candle. On her desk an assortment of nibbles and sweets I couldn’t identify. Ginger and anise? Chili perhaps. I gasped at the beauty.
“Like home,” she said.
It was nothing like home. No lighted tree, holly or mistletoe. And yet, what she had created in the small dorm room evoked all the familiar feelings of a holiday, special and warm.
“Yes, like home,” I conceded.
She smiled wide.
“Merry Christmas.”
About the author
Kathy Whipple is a musician, artist, and writer living in Grand Rapids, Michgan. Her writing is inspired by her travels and time living in Southeast Asia. She has previously published in CafeLit, Spillwords, Madswirl, and Friday Flash Fiction.
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