The Man
Who Missed Christmas
by J. Edgar Park
It was Christmas Eve, and as usual,
George Mason was the last to leave the office. He walked over to a massive
safe, spun the dials, and swung the heavy door open. Making sure the door would
not close behind him, he stepped inside.
A square of white cardboard was taped
just above the topmost row of strongboxes. On the card a few words were
written. George Mason stared at those words, remembering…
Exactly one year ago he had entered
this self-same vault. And then, behind his back, slowly, noiselessly, the
ponderous door swung shut. He was trapped–entombed in the sudden and terrifying
dark.
He hurled himself at the unyielding
door, his hoarse cry sounding like an explosion. Through his mind flashed all
the stories he had heard of men found suffocated in time vaults. No time clock
controlled this mechanism; the safe would remain locked until it was opened
from the outside. Tomorrow morning.
Then realization hit him. No one would
come tomorrow–tomorrow was Christmas.
Once more he flung himself at the
door, shouting wildly, until he sank on his knees exhausted. Silence came,
high-pitched, singing silence that seemed deafening. More than thirty-six hours
in a steel box three feet wide, eight feet long, and seven feet high. Would the
oxygen last? Panting and breathing heavily, he felt his way around the floor.
Then, in the far right-hand corner, just above the floor, he found a small,
circular opening. Quickly he thrust his finger into it and felt a faint but
unmistakable, cool current of air.
The tension release was so sudden that
he burst into tears. But at last he sat up. Surely he would not have to stay
trapped for the full thirty-six hours. Somebody would miss him. But who? He was
unmarried and lived alone. The maid who cleaned his apartment was just a
servant; he had always treated her as such. He had been invited to spend
Christmas Eve with his brother’s family, but children got on his nerves and expected
presents.
A friend had asked him to go to a home
for elderly people on Christmas Day and play the piano–George Mason was a good
musician. But he had made some excuse or other; he had intended to sit at home,
listening to some new recordings he was giving himself.
George Mason dug his nails into the
palms of his hands until the pain balanced the misery in his mind. Nobody would
come and let him out, nobody, nobody, nobody…
Miserably the whole of Christmas Day
went by, and the succeeding night.
On the morning after Christmas the
head clerk came into the office at the usual time, opened the safe, then went
on into his private office.
No one saw George Mason stagger out
into the corridor, run to the water cooler, and drink great gulps of water. No
one paid any attention to him as he left and took a taxi home.
Then he shaved, changed his wrinkled
clothes, ate breakfast, and returned to his office where his employees greeted
him casually.
That day he met several acquaintances
and talked to his own brother. Grimly, the truth closed in on George Mason. He
had vanished from human society during the great festival of brotherhood and no
one had missed him at all.
Reluctantly, George Mason began to
think about the true meaning of Christmas. Was it possible that he had been
blind all these years with selfishness, indifference, and pride? Was not
giving, after all, the essence of Christmas because it marked the time God gave
His Son to the world?
All through the year that followed,
with little hesitant deeds of kindness, with small, unnoticed acts of
unselfishness, George Mason tried to prepare himself..
Now, once more, it was Christmas Eve.
Slowly he backed out of the safe and
closed it. He touched its grim, steel face lightly, almost affectionately, and
left the office.
There he goes now in his black
overcoat and hat, the same George Mason as a year ago. Or is it? He walks a few
blocks, and then flags a taxi, anxious not to be late. His nephews are
expecting him to help them trim the tree. Afterwards, he is taking his brother
and his sister-in-law to a Christmas play. Why is he so happy? Why does this
jostling against others, laden as he is with bundles, exhilarate and delight
him?
Perhaps the card has something to do
with it, the card he taped inside his office safe last New Year’s Day. On the
card is written, in George Mason’s own hand:
“To love people, to be indispensable
somewhere, that is the purpose of life. That is the secret of happiness.”
